To Click, or Not to Click? Perfectionism and the Association of Gender and Competitiveness on Game-point Monitoring

New game technologies seem to permeate every area of daily life. Therefore, it is not surprising that, in addition to the incorporation of entertaining gaming features into otherwise dull or tedious activities, the positive influence of user experience and user engagement has also been on the rise in recent years. It is all part of gamification. Individual differences in response to gamification deserve attention. Specifically, the objective of this experimental study was to investigate how perfectionism and gender affect behavior under two conditions — free play and competition — during a logic video game played by 155 gifted high school students. Game points monitoring frequency (GPMF) and game completion time (GCT) were measured. Functional perfectionists showed significantly higher GPMF than dysfunctional perfectionists. Furthermore, the competitive condition increased GPMF significantly more in functional perfectionists (compared to dysfunctional perfectionists) and girls tended to show higher GCT across the conditions. The results indicate that, in a competitive environment, the effectiveness of employing points for feedback is influenced by both a perfectionistic personality style and gender. Our study supports the notion that gamification elements can affect individuals differently, supporting the motivation of some students, yet being ignored by others.