电子游戏是现代人在互联网中最主要的娱乐方式之一，研 究者们提出了许多不同的理论去解释为何人们会沉浸于游戏之中。在众多解释视角之中，积极心理学独树一帜地提出了心流理论并被广泛运用于游戏研究和应用领域。过往的游戏心流研究证明了许多游戏特性对心流的影响，但却忽略了游戏中人际交互——尤其是竞争性的作用。本研究的核心目的是通过一系列的实证研究体系化地检验游戏中的竞争性会如何影响心流，并探明其作用机制和边界条件。 研究一招募了275名游戏玩家，通过游戏体验问卷调研考察游戏竞争水平和竞争结果与心流间的关系。结果表明游戏竞争水平可以正向预测玩家的心流水平，且受到了竞争性特质和性别的调节作用；同时，不同竞争结果之间的心流水平也存在显著差异，个体在胜利游戏经历中的心流显著高于失败经历。 研究二招募了32名大学生，通过实验验证竞争情境对心流体验的影响。结果与研究一相悖，发现纯粹的竞争情境会导致心流下降，链式中介模型表明其是通过增强个体的主观竞争感，从而导致焦虑增强引起的。研究二同样发现了性别间的差异，女性主要受竞争性情境的影响，男性则主要受竞争性特质调节的影响。 研究三招募了108名男性大学生，开展实验探讨竞争结果反馈对心流的影响。结果与研究一相符，胜利反馈下心流会显著高于失败反馈。本研究提出了正负两套机制来解释胜利反馈的作用机制：从负的角度看，胜利反馈会降低个体的焦虑导致心流增强，该中介效应受到了竞争性特质的调节作用；从正的角度看，胜利反馈会强化个体的内部动机导致心流增强，该中介效应没有受到竞争性特质的调节作用。 总的来说，本文通过系统的研究证明了游戏竞争情境对心流的促进作用只对高竞争性特质的男性存在，而竞争胜利反馈对心流的促进作用则对男性普遍存在。除此之外，本文还通过焦虑和内部动机这2个因素解释了竞争情境及竞争结果反馈对心流的作用机制。研究结果有助于心流理论及游戏心流模型的进一步完善，也为工业界的游戏设计提供了一定启示。
Video games are one of the most popular forms of entertainment for modern people. Researchers have put forward many different theories to explain why people are so crazy about games. Among those theories, flow theory from the positive psychology perspective showed great appropriateness, thus was widely used in video game research fields. On the other hand, research in the past decades have proved the influence of many game features on flow experience, but the role of interpersonal interaction in video games seems had been ignored, especially one of the most fundamental mechanism of video games: competition. The main purpose of the current thesis was to systematically examine how competition in video games affects players’ flow experience through 3 empirical studies. We also aimed to explore the moderating role of individual differences and explain why competition can influence players’ flow experience by mediation models. In study 1, we recruited 275 video game players for a game experience survey. This study aimed to examine the relationship between the competitive level of video games and players’ flow experience. The results revealed that there is a positive association between the competitive level of video games and flow experience, and this relationship was moderated by trait competitiveness and gender. At the same time, there were significant differences in the player’s flow experience between different competition outcomes, those players who had won in the games showed greater flow experience than those players who lost their games. In study 2, we recruited 32 college students to examine how structural competition affects flow experience based on experiments. The results were contrary to the results of study 1, we found that structural competitive context reduced players’ flow experience compared to the context without competition. The serial mediation model showed that structural competitive context increased the individual's subjective competition, which in turn increased anxiety and finally impaired players’ flow experience. Furthermore, we also found the effect of structural competitive context on flow experience was marginally moderated by gender. Females’ flow experience was dramatically impaired by the competitive context, and this effect was not moderated by trait competitiveness. However, males’ flow experience showed no significant difference between competitive context and non-competitive context, because this effect was moderated by trait competitiveness: the flow experience of males with low trait competitiveness decreased in the competitive context, while it increased among those males with high trait competitiveness. In study 3, we recruited 108 male college students to examine the influence of competition outcome feedback on flow experience. The results were consistent with study 1: the flow experience of participants who received winning feedback was significantly higher than those who received losing feedback. Besides, results had identified 2 models to explain how the winning feedback facilitates players’ flow experience. The first model was a moderated mediation model: the direct effect of winning feedback on flow experience, and the mediating effect of anxiety, were moderated by trait competitiveness. The second model is a mediation model: the intrinsic motivation mediated the association between winning feedback and flow experience. In a word, these empirical studies found that the promotion effect of competition context in video games on flow experience only exists for males with high trait competitiveness, while the promotion effect of winning feedback on flow is universal for males. In addition, these studies also proposed two factors, anxiety and intrinsic motivation, to explain the mechanism of the structural competitive context and the competition outcome feedback on flow. Results of the thesis are helpful to the further improvement of flow theory and GameFlow model, and also provide unique inspiration for game design in the future.
