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Sex Differences in Competitiveness in Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games (MMORPGs)

Sex differences in the use of competitive tactics have been well established. Although many factors may contribute to these sex differences, according to social role theory (SRT), stereotypes and expectations about men's and women's typical social roles are crucial. We addressed the potent...

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Autores principales: Deaner, Robert O., Dunlap, Lucretia C., Bleske-Rechek, April
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: SAGE Publications 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10303450/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35733406
http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/14747049221109388
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author Deaner, Robert O.
Dunlap, Lucretia C.
Bleske-Rechek, April
author_facet Deaner, Robert O.
Dunlap, Lucretia C.
Bleske-Rechek, April
author_sort Deaner, Robert O.
collection PubMed
description Sex differences in the use of competitive tactics have been well established. Although many factors may contribute to these sex differences, according to social role theory (SRT), stereotypes and expectations about men's and women's typical social roles are crucial. We addressed the potential impact of social roles by studying massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs), a setting where individuals represent themselves with avatars and thus enjoy the opportunity to compete without regard to the typical expectations and behaviors associated with men's and women's roles. We surveyed players via MTurk (63 women, 191 men) and Reddit (166 women, 1,326 men) regarding their frequency of engaging in five competitive behaviors and the sex and role of their primary avatar. As expected, there were reliable sex differences in competitiveness: men were more likely than women to engage in player-versus-player duels (MTurk d = 0.19; Reddit d = 0.51), do solo runs of difficult content (0.30, 0.35), and work to acquire expensive items (0.32, 0.19); women were more likely than men to seek in-game awards (−0.38, −0.36) and spend real-world money on expensive microtransactions (−0.16, −0.27). Contrary to SRT, these sex differences in forms of competitive behavior were generally unrelated to players’ chosen avatar sex or avatar role. These results instead indicate that sex differences in competitiveness largely reflect evolved predispositions.
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spelling pubmed-103034502023-08-17 Sex Differences in Competitiveness in Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games (MMORPGs) Deaner, Robert O. Dunlap, Lucretia C. Bleske-Rechek, April Evol Psychol Original Research Article Sex differences in the use of competitive tactics have been well established. Although many factors may contribute to these sex differences, according to social role theory (SRT), stereotypes and expectations about men's and women's typical social roles are crucial. We addressed the potential impact of social roles by studying massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs), a setting where individuals represent themselves with avatars and thus enjoy the opportunity to compete without regard to the typical expectations and behaviors associated with men's and women's roles. We surveyed players via MTurk (63 women, 191 men) and Reddit (166 women, 1,326 men) regarding their frequency of engaging in five competitive behaviors and the sex and role of their primary avatar. As expected, there were reliable sex differences in competitiveness: men were more likely than women to engage in player-versus-player duels (MTurk d = 0.19; Reddit d = 0.51), do solo runs of difficult content (0.30, 0.35), and work to acquire expensive items (0.32, 0.19); women were more likely than men to seek in-game awards (−0.38, −0.36) and spend real-world money on expensive microtransactions (−0.16, −0.27). Contrary to SRT, these sex differences in forms of competitive behavior were generally unrelated to players’ chosen avatar sex or avatar role. These results instead indicate that sex differences in competitiveness largely reflect evolved predispositions. SAGE Publications 2022-06-22 /pmc/articles/PMC10303450/ /pubmed/35733406 http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/14747049221109388 Text en © The Author(s) 2022 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) which permits non-commercial use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access page (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage).
spellingShingle Original Research Article
Deaner, Robert O.
Dunlap, Lucretia C.
Bleske-Rechek, April
Sex Differences in Competitiveness in Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games (MMORPGs)
title Sex Differences in Competitiveness in Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games (MMORPGs)
title_full Sex Differences in Competitiveness in Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games (MMORPGs)
title_fullStr Sex Differences in Competitiveness in Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games (MMORPGs)
title_full_unstemmed Sex Differences in Competitiveness in Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games (MMORPGs)
title_short Sex Differences in Competitiveness in Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games (MMORPGs)
title_sort sex differences in competitiveness in massively multiplayer online role-playing games (mmorpgs)
topic Original Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10303450/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35733406
http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/14747049221109388
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