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http://dx.doi.org/10.5392/JKCA.2022.22.04.403

The Effects of Subjective Happiness and Status and Growth in the Virtual World on Changes in Their Subjective Happiness  

Lee, Guk-Hee (경기대학교 진성애교양대학 교양학부)
Publication Information
The Journal of the Korea Contents Association / v.22, no.4, 2022 , pp. 403-416 More about this Journal
Abstract
This study was conducted to explore the relationship between social status and happiness in the virtual world, which was not dealt with in previous studies. In addition, this study checked whether people were interested in social status itself or social status growth according to their level of happiness. To this end, the researcher composed conditions of high and low social status, and conditions of large and small growth in social status in online games, and presented them differently depending on the participant. Next, the researcher measured how much happiness level changed before and after exposure to each condition. As a result, happy participants had less of an effect of status on happiness in online games. However, unhappy participants were found to be happy when their status in online games was high and unhappy when they were low. Happy participants also paid attention to whether their status in online game had grown. However, unhappy participants paid attention to their high and low status in online games. This study has implications in that it is a rare study on the effect of happiness on the judgment of social status in the virtual world.
Keywords
Virtual World; Happiness; Online Game; Social Comparison; Growth;
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