| Description | The Revised Competitiveness Index (RCI; Harris & Houston, 2010) has been used to assess both competitiveness and contentiousness, which have been shown to be stable traits that can be assessed reliably. This index has been used with athletes and general population, but previously not been used to assess the personality of video game players. We hypothesized that self-identified gamers with high competitive drives would prefer competitive video games over non-competitive games, and gamers with low competitive drives would prefer non-competitive games over competitive games. To test this hypothesis, we conducted an on-line survey of self-identified video game players that assessed competitiveness and contentiousness with the RCI, and asked about preferred game genres and the primary motivations for playing video games. In a second cohort, we also asked about time spent playing and watching related content. Results showed that competitiveness, but not contentiousness, was associated with higher ratings of racing, shooter/action, and MOBA genres, and the fighting genre was marginally significant. In contrast, preference for role-playing, puzzle, sandbox, and strategy games were not correlated with RCI competitiveness. These results suggest that people who have competitive personalities tend to prefer competitive games more than those with non-competitive personalities, but competitiveness has no impact on preference for non-competitive games. The results validate the RCI as a useful index for studying video gamers, and suggest that the personality trait of competitiveness (but not contentiousness) is an important predictor of video game preference. |
