Sticking to Your Guns – Testing Competing Effects of Social Identity and Competition Motivation in an Online Multiplayer Game

Abstract: While gender and race are known to influence self-presentation in digital environments, how critical socio-political identities such as political ideology, military experience, and national identity shape in-game behaviors remains underexplored. Building upon Social Identity Theory (SIT), this study examines how these identities predict national identification through the selection of country-based vehicle. By integrating unobtrusive behavioral log data from World of Tanks, self-reported survey data, and global in-game statistics, we found that North American and Russian players disproportionately select US and Soviet tanks, respectively. At the player level, American respondents ( N = 2,113) with military experience or conservative ideology show significantly higher selection rates for US vehicles and lower usage of Chinese tanks. Crucially, this study quantifies the psychological friction between expressive identity and instrumental competition motivation. We found that players align with their national identity even when such choices are detrimental to winning a game. Our study identifies a psychological subsidy effect, where identity-congruent selection mitigates the importance of performance, revealing a clear hierarchy of motivations in immersive environments. By demonstrating how offline ideological schemas dictate digital decision-making through nonhumanoid avatars, this research expands the conceptual boundaries of SIT. Implications for game companies are discussed.