University of Birmingham Moral atmosphere and athletic aggressive tendencies in young soccer players

The major purpose of this study was to examine the relationship of the moral atmosphere of athletic teams to athletes’ self-described likelihood to aggress (SLA). Two additional purposes were:  rst, to determine whether there was a predominant  gure most in uential to athletes’ SLA and, secondly, to examine potential gender differences in athletes’ perceived team moral atmosphere, their SLA and the most in uential person affecting their SLA. Participants were 194 male and female soccer players 13–19 years of age. Athletes’ perceptions of their team pro-aggressive norms emerged as the most consistent predictor of their SLA. Regardless of gender, the athletes reported that they would be more likely to aggress if they thought their coach supported such behaviour. The  ndings shed light on the in uence that signi cant others have in “shaping” the moral atmosphere operating on youth sport teams. In the last decade, social constructivist theories have been used as a framework to understand the psychological processes underlying aggression in sport. In particular, structural developmental moral theory (Kohlberg, 1984; Haan, 1991) has provided the bases for most of the recent research on athletic aggression. One of the key tenets of Kohlberg’s (1981, 1984) theory of moral development is that moral reasoning goes through different levels of development and represents the major determinant of moral behaviour. Based on a structural developmental approach and, particularly, on Haan’s interactional approach to morality (Haan, 1991), Bredemeier and colleagues contend that an act is not aggressive per se; instead, this “behavior is seen as a result of the interaction between an individual’s organized meaning structures and environmental factors” (Bredemeier, 1983, p. 72). Accordingly, Bredemeier sees morality as “a process of balancing one’s own needs and interests with those of others” (Bredemeier, 1985, p. 120). Cognitive–developmental theorists contend that moral reasoning evolves through an invariant sequence of stages with each higher stage representing “more ISSN 0305-7240 print; ISSN 1465-3877 online/02/010067-19 Ó 2002 Journal of Moral Education Ltd DOI: 10.1080/03057240120111445 D o w n l o a d e d B y : [ U n i v e r s i t y o f B i r m i n g h a m , U K ] A t : 1 3 : 5 8 1 5 F e b r u a r y 2 0 1 1 68 M. Guivernau & J. L. Duda complex and adequate organization of information” (p. 52). Particularly relevant for this work, sport involvement has been linked to the adoption of lower levels of moral reasoning (Shields & Bredemeier, 1995). When an athlete acts according to lower levels of moral reasoning, moral balances are egocentrically constructed and marked by a focus on self-interest and making self-serving compromises (Bredemeier, 1985). This literature also suggests that moral reasoning maturity is inversely correlated with aggressive tendencies among diverse samples of sport participants (Bredemeier, 1985, 1994; Bredemeier et al., 1987). Higher levels of moral reasoning correspond to lower levels of aggression and this relationship is “strong and linear” (Bredemeier, 1983, p. 75). Individuals, however, do not behave in a vacuum; rather, they interact with a community that affects their decisions and ultimate behaviours. Thus, moral reasoning, or the personal capability necessary to arrive at a moral judgement, is not isolated from the social context. In the case of sport, athletes interact with signi cant others (such as parents, coaches and teammates) whose values, beliefs and behaviours in uence their attitudes, decisions and actions. The relevance of the social context to moral action was pinpointed by the later work of Kohlberg and his colleagues (Power et al., 1989) who focused on the impact of the moral atmosphere on people’s moral reasoning and moral behaviours. They contend that groups have shared de nitions of speci c situations and subsequent appropriate behaviours and suggest that this collective knowledge provides the base for individuals ’ moral actions (Higgins et al., 1984). On sport teams in particular, Stephens et al. (1997) suggest that collective norms exist which impact the actions and attitudes of team members. Supporting the relevance of moral atmosphere in sport, Stephens and Bredemeier (1996) found that the best predictor of young female soccer players’ selfdescribed likelihood to engage in unfair game tactics was their belief about the likelihood that their teammates would play unfairly. These  ndings were replicated by Aziz (1998) in the case of Malaysian youth soccer. Drawing from such work, the present study also explores the impact of the moral atmosphere of an athletic team on the players’ likelihood to aggress (SLA). We extend Stephens and Bredemeier’s study, however, in several ways. First, male soccer players as well as female soccer players were included in our sample. Secondly, the parental in uence on the players’ SLA was also explored here. Previous work in general psychological literature suggests that parents do have an in uence on their children’s endorsement of aggressive behaviour and moral reasoning maturity (Harralson & Lawler, 1992; Boyes & Allen, 1993). Sport-speci c studies have also shown a relationship between aggression and parental in uence. Stuart and Ebbeck (1995), for example, differentiated between the social approval offered by mothers, fathers and coaches and found that mothers’ approval had the highest relevance to moral development among younger children while teammates’ approval was more important among older youngsters. Another aim of the current study was to examine potential gender differences in self-reported aggressive tendencies in youth sport. The general psychological literature suggests that males are typically more aggressive than females (Geen, D o w n l o a d e d B y : [ U n i v e r s i t y o f B i r m i n g h a m , U K ] A t : 1 3 : 5 8 1 5 F e b r u a r y 2 0 1 1 Moral Atmosphere and Athletic Aggression 69 1998). In the sport domain, however, results concerning the existence of gender differences in aggressive tendencies have been equivocal. Bredemeier and Shields (1984) found no signi cant differences in the amount of faulting by female and male basketball players, who were also viewed as equally aggressive by their coaches. However, in a posterior study, Bredemeier and colleagues reported higher scores for males than females on all measures of aggression (Bredemeier et al., 1986). Bredemeier (1994) also found that male players were more aggressive and less submissive than their female counterparts. Such discrepancies in  ndings might be explained by the fact that the samples used in these investigations were not parallel in terms of age and/or competitive level of the participants. Gender differences in athletes’ perceptions of signi cant others’ norms for cheating and aggression have also been reported (Shields et al., 1995). Thus, in the current investigation we also explored and expected gender differences with respect to the athletes’ perceptions of their signi cant others’ norms for cheating and aggression. In sum, the main purpose of this investigation was to examine the relationship of the team moral atmosphere to aggressive tendencies among young soccer players. In particular, this study addressed whether signi cant others from the sport and family culture of young athletes (i.e. parents, coaches and team-mates) are pertinent to athletes’ perceptions of their personal likelihood to aggress. Secondly, this investigation explored whether or not a predominant  gure/ gures exists in regard to reported in uence on players’ decision to aggress. The last purpose of the study was to examine potential gender differences in perceived moral atmosphere (i.e. perceptions of norms for cheating and aggression), likelihood to aggress and signi cant others’ in uence on aggression. Based on previous theoretical and empirical work, a positive association between the athletes’ perceived moral atmosphere and their SLA was expected. Secondly, due to the age of our participants (M age 5 15.3), we expected the perceptions of team pro-aggressive norms to be the main predictor of athletes’ SLA (Morra & Smith, 1996; Stephens & Bredemeier, 1996). Thirdly, regarding the perceived most in uential person on athletes’ decision to aggress, it was hypothesised that the coach would be considered the most important  gure affecting the players’ decision to engage in the depicted aggressive act. Finally, in terms of potential gender differences, we predicted that male athletes would report higher scores in likelihood to aggress, and perceptions of team pro-aggressive norms than female athletes. Due to a lack of previous research on the differential effect of parents (i.e. mother and father) pro-aggressive norms in relation to their children’s SLA, no hypotheses were posed regarding the differential relationship of parental  gures’ pro-aggressive norms to the athletes’ SLA.