Competition, Cooperation, and Social Disidentification
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PLAYING WITH THE ENEMY: COMPETITION, COOPERATION, AND SOCIAL DISIDENTIFICATION By Julia Crouse A DISSERTATION Submitted to Michigan State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Media and Information Studies – Doctor of Philosophy 2015 ABSTRACT PLAYING WITH THE ENEMY: COMPETITION, COOPERATION, AND SOCIAL DISIDENTIFICATION By Julia Crouse Playing a video game competitively or cooperatively may impact a player’s behaviors and aggression after game play. Competition has been found to elicit increased aggression, and cooperation has been found to attenuate aggression and facilitate cooperative behaviors. However, the distinction between pure competition and team competition has been relatively unexplored. Team competition contains both competitive elements of game play and cooperative behaviors among teammates. Of interest is the effect of playing in varying degrees of team competition (high vs. low social disidentification with the outgroup) and pure competition on feelings of aggression and cooperative behaviors. A between-subjects experiment (N = 70) was conducted to examine the relationship among low disidentification, high disidentification, and pure competition for state hostility, affiliation, and cooperative behaviors. It was predicted that those in the low disidentification conditions would experience significantly lower hostility, but greater affiliation both for ingroup and outgroup members. Compared to pure competition and high disidentification, low disidentification resulted in significantly greater feelings of aggression. However, no level of disidentification or outcome affected cooperative behaviors after game play, as measured by a modified Prisoner’s Dilemma task. The implications of the findings are discussed. This dissertation is dedicated to my family and friends, both of the human and furry variety. iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to acknowledge the following people for helping throughout graduate school: • I want to acknowledge the hard work of my research assistant Tom Day, without whom this project would not have been possible. Thank you, Tom, for not only being my representative in Michigan but also coordinating the confederates, providing valuable insight into the project, and organizing all the information so effectively. • My husband Robert Waddell, who provided both the necessary distractions, support and encouragement to finish, primarily in the forms of my son, Jack, and daughter, Emily. • My advisors Dr. Robert LaRose and Dr. Wei Peng. Dr. LaRose pushed me to work my best and be critical of the research, conclusions, and ivory tower speak surrounding academia. I’ve worked with Dr. Peng since day one at MSU, and could not imagine a better role model or mentor for navigating graduate school. • My dissertation committee who made this process smooth as possible by understanding that life often gets in the way of deadlines. • My family, both those recently added and well-established, who were all completely supportive and understanding. • My friends, who made this entire process bearable. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF TABLES ........................................................................................................................ vii LIST OF FIGURES ....................................................................................................................... viii CHAPTER 1 ..................................................................................................................................... 1 Introduction ....................................................................................................................................... 1 CHAPTER 2 ..................................................................................................................................... 7 Literature Review and Hypotheses ................................................................................................... 7 Realistic Conflict Theory ............................................................................................................ 8 Cooperation and Competition .............................................................................................. 8 Intergroup or team competition ......................................................................................... 11 Hypotheses 1a, 1b, 1c ........................................................................................................ 13 Social Identity Theory ............................................................................................................... 13 Social identification ........................................................................................................... 14 Ingroups and Outgroups ............................................................................................................ 15 Minimal groups paradigm ................................................................................................. 16 Outgroup disidentification ................................................................................................. 17 Hypotheses 2a, 2b, 2c, 2d, 2e, 2f, 2g ................................................................................. 18 Importance of Winning .............................................................................................................. 19 Hypotheses 3a, 3b, 3c, 3d, 3e, 3f, 3g ................................................................................. 20 CHAPTER 3 ................................................................................................................................... 22 Method ............................................................................................................................................ 22 Participants ................................................................................................................................ 23 Stimuli ....................................................................................................................................... 24 Procedure ................................................................................................................................... 25 Confederate Protocol ................................................................................................................. 26 Independent Variables ............................................................................................................... 27 Outgroup disidentification ................................................................................................. 27 Covariates .................................................................................................................................. 28 Experience with hockey video games ............................................................................... 28 Video game interest ........................................................................................................... 28 Outcome Measures .................................................................................................................... 29 Aggression ................................................................................................................................. 29 Ingroup affiliation .............................................................................................................. 29 Outgroup affiliation ........................................................................................................... 30 Cooperation and trust ........................................................................................................ 30 CHAPTER 4 ................................................................................................................................... 32 Results ............................................................................................................................................. 32 Manipulation Check .................................................................................................................. 32 v State Hostility ............................................................................................................................ 32 Ingroup and Outgroup Affiliation ............................................................................................. 35 Cooperation ............................................................................................................................... 37 CHAPTER 5 ................................................................................................................................... 44 Discussion ....................................................................................................................................... 44 Social Identity Theory ............................................................................................................... 44 Ingroup and Outgroup Affiliations ............................................................................................ 47 Cooperative Outcomes .............................................................................................................. 51 The Prisoner’s Dilemma problem ..................................................................................... 51 Outcome .................................................................................................................................... 55 Violence vs. Competition: The Issue of