• Journal of Families and Better Life
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• v.25 no.4
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• pp.151-168
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• 2007

It is necessary to understand netizen's emotional experiences in avatar consumption. We studied the emotional experience through ethnographic interviews with six informants. In this study, we used the descriptive questions, structural questions, and comparative questions. Netizen's self-enhancing emotional experience were divided into two emotional experiences: emotional experiences in one's world and emotional experiences in relationship with others. First, emotional experience in one's world included self-satisfaction, releasing stress, catharsis, immersion, desire of change, and sense of achievement. Second, emotional experiences in relationship with others were divided into self-enhancing emotional experiences and self-humbling emotional experience. Self-enhancing emotional experiences included the relative satisfaction, the desire of showing off/distinction, and the desire of conformity. Self-humbling emotional experience included the feeling of inferiority.