The Role of Conscientiousness and Toxic Behaviors on Skills Development in Professional E-Sports

E-sports and online games represent an entertainment industry that before the 2020 year was characterized by an incredible development. The COVID19 emergency has further accelerated the global process of diffusion of e-sports and online games, consecrating it as the leading economic industry in the entertainment and technology sector. This paper presents a study that is part of the URBAN GAMERS LAB project (in progress), that describes the role of conscientiousness and toxic behaviors. The study involves 227 professional e-gamers aged between 15 and 34 y.o. This project it is part of an interdisciplinary project that involves a municipality in the Emilia-Romagna region, schools’ teachers, and researchers from University of Bologna: departments of psychology, architecture, and engineering. The main objective of the study is to investigate the relationship between the conscientiousness (measured by variables such as responsibility, traditionalism, orderliness, industriousness, virtue, self-control) and disturbing toxic behaviors (Mediocritizing, Sabotaging, Hostage Holding, Flaming), played by e-gamers during different phases of the online game League of Legends (LoL). Preliminary results show that for conscientiousness, there are no significant correlations with age but there is a significant correlation with gender and be part of an e-sports team. The latter is negative correlated with gender, positive correlated with been playing League of Legends and play ranked games. This aspect is positive correlated with age and been playing League of Legends. Regarding toxic behaviors, age does not seem to play an important role, that is, no correlations have been found between age and toxic behaviors. While there is a negative correlation with sabotaging and Hostage Holding and a positive correlation with flaming. Considering instead, how long they have been playing LoL, being more experienced negatively correlates with sabotaging, played with teammates who showed little mastery and positive correlated with being a victim of flaming in chat during a game Turning on been part of an eSports team, results show that this aspect positive correlates with being a victim of flaming in chat during a game and decided to mute the chat because of it. Finally, playing ranked games negatively correlates with sabotaging, and positively correlates with being a victim of flaming in chat during a game and decided to mute your chat because of it.