The master's thesis addresses the impostor syndrome in the context of video game playing and examines its connection with in-game purchases (microtransactions). The results of a study conducted on a global English-speaking sample of video game players (n = 473), with the majority of respondents from the United States and the United Kingdom, showed that nearly half of the players experienced at least a moderate form of the impostor phenomenon, with one-fifth experiencing it frequently or intensely. Gender and education significantly influenced the intensity of the phenomenon, while age, employment status, and gaming behaviour patterns (e.g., gaming platform, game genre, and frequency of play among others) did not have a statistically significant effect. Players with higher (frequent or intense) levels of the impostor phenomenon did not make in-game purchases more often or spend more on such purchases; however, they exhibited stronger internal motivations for purchasing related to the need for competences validation and experienced more negative purchasing emotions, such as lingering self-doubt, shame, and guilt. The study contributes to the understanding of the impostor phenomenon in digital purchasing environments and opens possibilities for further research and the development of supportive strategies.
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