Abstract

Social comparison is an important way for individuals to define their social characteristics, and online games with a large number of social information provide a convenient platform for social comparison between players. At the same time, the spontaneous self-classification brought by social information makes the social comparison process among players potentially affected by group identity. This study explored the neural mechanism of intergroup and intragroup social comparison among players through fMRI and point estimation paradigm. 26 subjects participated in our experiment, and 25 of their head movement amplitudes were less than 2.5mm and were included in the statistics. We found that the downward comparison led to significantly different brain activation compared with the upward comparison. The fusiform gyrus, putamen, lentiform nucleus, precuneus and precentral gyrus were significantly activated when the group identity of the comparison object was the same as that of the player. When the two have different identities, downward comparison significantly activated the angular gyrus, middle frontal gyrus and superior frontal gyrus. Our research has proved that group identity has a moderating effect on social comparison cognitive process among players. When the object of downward comparison is an out-of-group member, the player will receive the reward information and positive emotional valence, which can positively predict their continuous game behavior in theory. This study provides a new possibility for the cause of game addiction at the perspective of neural mechanism.