SPORTS AND CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT

Abstract

For more than a century, the contention that sport builds character has been popular among educators. The more

cautious perspective of researchers is that sport might build character, but only under the right conditions. In this paper,

the authors report on three aspects of character that may be influenced by sport participation: perspective-taking and

empathy; moral reasoning; and motivational orientation. In each area, research-based recommendations are offered for

coaches and others in sport leadership positions.

Introduction

The idea that competitive sports provide effective means for promoting character has been around for a long time, at

least since the Ancient Greeks. In modern history, the British boarding schools of the nineteenth century gave new

impetus to this theme. Believing that muscles and morals develop simultaneously through involvement in team sports,

these schools’ administrators encouraged or required their students to participate in competitive athletics. The idea soon

crossed the Atlantic and became popular in U.S. schools and culture. Sport builds character became a popular cultural

saying providing the rationale for including sport programs in a wide range of educational institutions. Even today’s

highly commercialized big-time collegiate sport programs are often justified by appeal to the idea that these programs

contribute educational value to the athletes by nurturing positive character traits. Opponents of sports, on the other

hand, often cite an abundance of anecdotal evidence of sport-related cheating,

aggression, self-aggrandizement, disrespectful behavior, and corruption to

suggest that sports have the opposite effect—they undermine positive

character.

In this paper we summarize what is known about sports and character. While

there are large gaps in our knowledge, a few evidence-based conclusions seem

warranted. These conclusions point to a middle position between proponents

and opponents of the idea that sports build character. At this point, it is clear

that the early optimism regarding the character-building power of sports was

overstated or unfounded. Participation in sports does not have any automatic

beneficial effects on character. On the other hand, it seems equally evident

that sports are powerful social experiences that may, under the right

circumstances, have positive benefits. If sports are to have a positive impact

on the character development of participants, the leadership and behavior of

the coach is key. Consequently, in this paper we also offer recommendations

for those involved in coaching or sport leadership. First, however, we must

clarify what is meant by character.

What is Character?

The word character has gone in and out of vogue in the psychological

literature. It was a popular term early in the twentieth century. At that time, it

was thought that a person had character to the extent that they possessed a set

of virtues or moral personality traits like honesty, integrity, generosity, and

trustworthiness. By mid-century, however, the word had fallen into disfavor

and was rarely used. The primary reason for its rejection by psychologists was

that human behavior, according to the dominant theories of the time, was

determined less by the individual than by the environment. In a classic series

Series 7, No. 1 March 2006

Published quarterly by the

President’s Council on

Physical Fitness and Sports

Washington, D.C.

★

Guest Authors:

Brenda Light Bredemeier

Educational Psychology, Research 

and Evaluation Division

College of Education

University of Missouri–St. Louis

David Light Shields

Teaching and Learning Division

College of Education

University of Missouri–St. Louis

★

Co-edited by:

Dr. Deborah Young, University of

Maryland, Dr. Robert P. Pangrazi,

Arizona State University, and

Dr. Barbara Ainsworth,

San Diego State University

President’s Council on Physical Fitness and Sports

ResearchDi est
of studies, Hartshorne and May (1928), for example,

demonstrated that children could not be divided into

categories like “honest” and “dishonest” or “cheaters”

and “noncheaters.” A child might tell the truth in one

situation, yet lie in another. Hartshorne and May

concluded that it was the characteristics of the

environment more than the character of the individual

that seemed to determine behavior. Their findings dealt

a severe blow to those who thought character could be

defined by a stable set of virtues or personality

attributes.

The pioneering work of Lawrence Kohlberg (1981,

1984) on children’s moral reasoning was key in

challenging the theory that the environment determined

behavior. Kohlberg found that although a person’s

behavior may seem inconsistent to an observer, there

often were consistencies in motive and thought. For

example, a child might believe that helping one’s

friends is central to morality. If loyalty to a friend

requires lying in one situation but not in another, then

the outward behavior of the child may appear

inconsistent despite a consistent underlying pattern of

reasoning. By analyzing the reasons that children of

various ages provided for moral decisions, Kohlberg

was able to identify stable patterns of reasoning. Based

on years of longitudinal and cross-cultural research,

Kohlberg further suggested that those patterns of

reasoning underwent regular age-related changes. From

this work, he proposed a six-stage sequence of moral

reasoning development.

The details of Kohlberg’s stages have been challenged

and alternative models have been suggested. The

lasting legacy of Kohlberg’s work resides in three

fundamental contributions. First, Kohlberg opened

psychologists to a new appreciation of stable personal

characteristics related to moral or ethical decisionmaking. This paved the way for a new appreciation of

character. Second, Kohlberg made clear that the moral

life is better understood by taking account of

motivations and reasons than by focusing on behavior

alone. Cognition is a key component of morality: how a

person thinks about their ethical responsibilities is an

important part of their character. Finally, Kohlberg

found that moral or character growth follows a

predictable developmental progression.

Today, it is widely recognized that character is a

complex, multifaceted concept. While the word has

sometimes been used synonymously with “personality,”

the term “character” has moral or ethical connotations.

A person of character is a person who acts consistently

in an ethical way. Character refers to those aspects of a

person that guide moral life and that enable the person

to live in fidelity with their moral values, judgments

and intuitions. Deficiencies of character may reflect

shallow or misguided moral desires or, alternately,

failures of will—insufficient determination,

perseverance, or courage to act consistently with one’s

ideals (Shields & Bredemeier, 1995).

Character is comprised of a number of distinguishable

components. Since virtually every conceivable

psychological quality, capacity, or process can at least

indirectly influence a person’s moral commitments and

behavior, a complete list of character components is

probably impossible. But it is relatively easy to identify

a number of clear and important components of

character. For present purposes, we identify three

clusters: perspective-taking, role-taking, and empathy;

moral reasoning and beliefs; and motivational

orientation. Elaboration of each of these clusters is

provided in the relevant section below.

Sports and Perspective-Taking

Central to a life of character is the ability to understand

and consider the views of others. Correspondingly, a

significant failure of character occurs when a person is

overly self-centered and either cannot or will not

empathize with others. Perspective-taking and empathy

are distinct but related psychological processes.

Perspective-taking is primarily cognitive and involves

understanding a situation from multiple points of view.

Empathy is more of an affective skill. It is the ability

and tendency to vicariously participate in the

experience of another person or group of people. Both

skills provide a foundation for moral behavior because

a person cannot act appropriately and responsibly

unless they understand and empathize with all those

involved in a conflict situation. There is considerable

evidence, for example, that juvenile delinquents and

criminals have less developed perspective-taking ability

and lower empathy than the average person (Emler,

1999).

Unfortunately, very little is known about the impact of

sport participation on the development of perspectivetaking ability and empathy. Theoretically, it seems

reasonable that participating in strategy-based team

sports might increase perspective-taking ability

(Coakley, 1984; Martens, 1976). Such abilities are

needed to optimize the use of strategy during

competition. For example, if I understand the sport

setting from my opponent’s perspective as well as my

own, I am better able to take advantage of strategic

openings. Moreover, to understand my own role on a

team, it is important to see how it is coordinated with

the roles of my teammates. Understanding game

2
There are numerous variations (see, especially, Gibbs,

2003; Haan,1991; Haan, Aerts, & Cooper, 1985;

Hoffman, 2000; Kohlberg, 1981, 1984; Rest, 1979;

Turiel, 2002), but all researchers within this tradition

share a common view that children undergo regular

age-related changes in the underlying structure of their

moral reasoning. Growth in reasoning comes from

appropriate experiences. Progressing toward moral

reasoning maturity is typically described in terms of a

step-like sequence of stages, levels, or phases. 

Within sports, moral reasoning level has been shown to

relate to such important moral variables as aggression

(Bredemeier, 1985, 1994; Bredemeier et al., 1987;

Bredemeier & Shields, 1984a, 1986a), sportspersonship

(Horrocks, 1979), and beliefs about fair play (Stephens,

Bredemeier, & Shields, 1997). Thus, it is important to

know whether sport participation influences moral

reasoning development.

For those who look to sports to stimulate advances in

moral reasoning, the research has not been

encouraging. Hall (1986) found that her sample of 65

male Division I intercollegiate basketball players

scored lower on moral judgment than do most college

students. Similarly, Bredemeier and Shields (1984)

found that their sample of intercollegiate basketball

players scored lower on a measure of moral reasoning

than reported norms of college students.

In the first study to directly compare athletes and

nonathletes on moral reasoning maturity, Bredemeier

and Shields (1986b) assessed the moral reasoning of 30

male and female intercollegiate basketball players and

10 nonathletes. They found that the athletes had

significantly less mature moral reasoning than their

peers. However, a follow-up study that added 20

swimmers to the sample concluded that there were no

differences in moral reasoning development between

the swimmers and the nonathletes (Bredemeier &

Shields, 1986b). In sum, the basketball players, but not

the swimmers, scored lower on moral reasoning than

their nonathlete peers. Since athletes from only two

sports were assessed, it is unclear whether the

differences were due to the different types of sports

(e.g., team sports vs. individual sports, contact sports

vs. noncontact sports) or factors extrinsic to the

athletes’ sport experiences (for example, the study did

not control for GPA).

Stevenson (1998) assessed the moral reasoning

development of 213 Division I student-athletes and 202

general student peers. Tapping a broader cross-section

of sports than the previous work, he found that the team

strategies requires combining many perspectives at the

same time, thus requiring high social perspectivetaking ability.

While sport may encourage perspective-taking, it may

also discourage empathy. Feeling concern about others,

particularly opponents, may interfere with the narrow

focus athletes are typically encouraged to have during

competition. If, for example, an opponent is injured, a

coach might counsel her athletes to keep their “minds

in the game” and take advantage of the newly created

weakness of the opposing team. While the research in

this area is slim, the available evidence supports the

notion that sport discourages empathy. Kalliopuska

(1987) found that 8- to 16-year-old girls and boys

became less sensitive to others the more years they

spent in Finnish baseball. Kalliopuska (1992) also

demonstrated that athletes who are less empathic have

lower self-esteem and are more self-centered.

Physical activity that occurs outside of competitive

sports may be better suited to promote empathy. Miller,

Bredemeier and Shields (1997) integrated development

of empathy into the goals of a physical education

program. Kalliopuska (1989) demonstrated that

intensive dance training tended to increase empathy.

Further work in these areas is clearly warranted.

Despite the tendency of competition to dampen the

experience and expression of empathy, sports are often

emotionally charged experiences that can provide rich

opportunities for developing empathic skills. Coaches

who wish to encourage perspective-taking and empathy

can do so by using techniques developed by Socrates so

many centuries ago. Coaches can ask leading questions

that help athletes relate to the experience of others. For

example, “How do you think Shawna felt when she was

benched?” “What do you think led to John [an

opponent] exploding at the official?” Particularly when

problematic incidents occur, coaches can help athletes

step back and view the situation from multiple

perspectives, and allow an opportunity to empathize

with others.

Sports and Moral Reasoning

As noted above, a lasting legacy of Kohlberg’s (1981,

1984) groundbreaking studies on moral reasoning is a

developmental and cognitive approach to understanding

important dimensions of character. People’s ethical

behavior is influenced by how they reason or think

about moral issues. Like mathematical thinking,

Kohlberg concluded that there are universal patterns of

development in the way people think about moral

values. The approach that Kohlberg pioneered is often

referred to as a structural developmental approach.

3
4

sport athletes had significantly lower moral judgment

scores than did either the nonathletes or the individual

sport athletes. In contrast, Proios et al. (2004) did not

find differences in moral reasoning maturity in athletes

across different sport areas (football, handball, and

basketball) or in terms of years of sport experience.

Most research on moral reasoning and sport has been

cross-sectional in design. An exception is a study by

Priest, Krause, and Beach (1999). In a longitudinal

study of 631 U.S. Military Academy cadets, the authors

found that sports participation, especially in

intercollegiate team sports, had a negative impact on

moral reasoning. However, their study, like the one by

Stevenson (1998), used a measure of moral reasoning

maturity that has not been adequately tested for

reliability and validity (Bredemeier & Shields, 1998).

Overall, the results from these studies suggest that

participation in some sports at the intercollegiate level,

especially team sports, may be associated with lower

moral reasoning maturity. However, results are mixed

and none of the studies controlled for the fact that

recruited athletes, on average, enter college with lower

academic test scores (Shulman & Bowen, 2001).

Controlling for academic achievement and other

potentially confounding variables should be a high

priority in future research. The longitudinal

methodology employed by Priest, Krause, and Beach

(1999) provides the best evidence of a potential

negative effect of sports involvement. Until these

results are replicated, however, they should be viewed

with caution.

Results are also mixed at the high school level. In a

study of 1,330 male and female high school students,

Beller and Stoll (1995) found that the nonathletes

scored significantly higher than the team athletes.

However, in the Bredemeier and Shields (1986c) study

mentioned above, no difference was found between

high school athletes and nonathletes. Similarly, Rulmyr

(1996) found no differences between athletes and

nonathletes among his sample of 540 students in

southern Arizona high schools.

Finally, in a study of children in the 4th through 7th

grade, boys who participated in high contact sports and

girls who participated in medium contact sports were

significantly less mature in their distributive justice

reasoning than children who had participated in other

sports or in any organized sport program (Bredemeier

et al., 1986a). Level of physical contact may be an

important variable. Children may have a difficult time

distinguishing between genuine aggression and nonaggressive, but physically forceful, play. This, in turn,

may hinder the development of fairness concepts. 

Taken together, the results from these studies

underscore the importance of not lumping all sports or

sport participants together. For several reasons, broad

generalizations about “sports” are unlikely to be

helpful. For one, the rule structures of the various

sports promote different types of social interaction. The

developmental stimuli provided by a boxing match are

likely to differ from those of a golf tournament. In

addition, each sport tends to have its own subculture

and implicit moral norms. The culture of rugby is quite

different from that of competitive swimming. There are

also differences based on age and competitive level.

Major league baseball and Little League provide quite

different social experiences. Even within a single sport

area and developmental level, individual sport teams

are different because each team develops its own

unique moral microculture through the influence of

particular coaches, athletes, fans, parents, and

programs. Moreover, even within a single team,

participants’ own appraisals of the experience may vary

substantially (Vallerand & Losier, 1994; Weiss &

Bredemeier, 1986, 1991).

Given the huge diversity of sport experiences, is it

reasonable to think that coaches can be trained to

provide positive experiences that will promote growth

of moral reasoning? We believe so. Despite all the

various shapes and sizes of sports, there are certain

commonalities that can be used to advantage by the

knowledgeable and skilled coach. For example, in all

competitive sports, participants will experience some

temptation to deviate from rules to gain advantage. All

sports provide an opportunity to pursue excellence,

both of physical performance and character. Virtually

all sport teams can be turned into miniature caring

communities where growth is stimulated through

mutual encouragement, challenge, and support.

There is some evidence that coaches or physical

educators who actively seek to promote moral

reasoning development can do so (Bredemeier, Weiss,

Shields & Shewchuk, 1986; Romance, Weiss &

Bockoven, 1986). The most important educational

process is probably dialogue. Moral reasoning is

unlikely to advance if the athlete is simply a passive

recipient of the coach’s exhortations, however prosocial

they may be. Children and adolescents need to talk

about their values; they need to discuss their views of

right and wrong, both with their peers and with

respectful adults. Coaches should make space in team

meetings for discussion of moral issues relevant to
sports in general and to the life of the team in

particular.

The power of dialogue will be amplified if it is

combined with meaningful responsibility. Athletes who

cooperatively share in important dimensions of team

decision-making are likely to benefit substantially. To

maximize social and moral growth, coaches should use

a democratic leadership style in which responsibility

for developing team norms, goals, and expectations is

shared with the members of the team. If team members

develop a sense of ownership for the team and feel

responsible for maintaining the team’s expectations,

they can learn important lessons about both character

and citizenship.

Sports and Motivation

As noted previously, Kohlberg suggested that to truly

understand morality, it is important to investigate

motives. In Kohlberg’s work, motives were equated

with reasons, or the cognitive rationales for behaviors.

Thus, for Kohlberg, investigating moral reasoning was

the same as investigating moral motivation. A related

but different approach has been implemented by a

number of sport psychologists who have sought to

investigate relationships among moral phenomena and

achievement motivation.

For the past couple decades, motivation has been one of

the hottest topics in sport psychology research. Much

of this work has utilized an approach known as

achievement motivation theory. One of the primary

architects of this approach, John Nicholls, suggested

that achievement contexts like sport can elicit two

distinct types of motivation. Consider the following two

equally talented young athletes:

• When Roger plays basketball, he is motivated by 

the desire to improve his skills. He is good, but he 

knows he can get better with continued practice. He

is eager to play because competing with other 

talented athletes enables him to improve.

• When Tameco plays basketball, she is motivated by 

the desire to showcase her talents. She knows she 

was born with innate ability and she is eager to 

compete so that she can demonstrate her superior 

skills through defeating others.

In the terminology of Nicholls’ theory, Roger enters the

basketball arena with a task motivational orientation. In

contrast, Tameco has an ego orientation (Nicholls,

1983, 1989, 1992). When a task-oriented person enters

an achievement context, he/she is motivated primarily

by the desire to become competent in the task.

Competence, in turn, is understood as mastery of a task

or skill, and mastery is obtained through application of

effort. The task-oriented person measures success by

comparing his/her current performance to either their

previous performance or to an objective standard. In

contrast, when an ego-oriented person enters an

achievement context, he/she is motivated primarily by a

desire to display competence (or at least avoid

appearing incompetent). Competence is understood as

having higher ability than others and is, thus, measured

through social comparison. For the ego-oriented

person, innate ability is the primary determinant of

mastery, rather than effort. The ego-oriented person is

particularly motivated by a desire to outperform others

in a competitive situation. While these two orientations

are clearly distinguishable, they are not necessarily

mutually exclusive. People invariably experience both

orientations. Still, people have dispositional tendencies

toward one or the other type of achievement

motivation.

Nicholls (1989) proposed that the task and ego

motivational orientations are likely to be associated

with moral perspectives. This was put to the test by

Duda, Olson and Templin (1991) in a study that

examined correlations among motivational orientation,

approval of sport aggression, and attitudes toward

sportspersonship. Results indicated that a low task

orientation and high ego orientation correlated with

higher endorsement of unsportspersonlike play, and

that ego orientation positively related to rating

aggressive acts as more acceptable.

Other researchers have reported similar findings. High

ego orientation is associated with cheating and approval

of poor sport behavior (Lee et al., 2001; Kavussanu &

Roberts, 2001; Kavussanu & Ntoumanis, 2003),

intention to engage in poor sport behavior (Stuntz &

Weiss, 2003), approval of aggression (Kavussanu &

Roberts, 2001; Stornes & Ommundsen, 2004),

likelihood to be aggressive (Stephens & Kavanagh,

2003), and antisocial behavior in sport (Sage et al., in

press; Kavussanu, in press). In contrast, task orientation

has been found to be associated with some dimensions

of sportspersonship (Dunn & Dunn, 1999; Lee et al.,

2001; Lemyre et al., 2002; Stornes & Ommundsen,

2004; Gano-Overway et al., 2005), as well as moral

functioning (Kavussanu & Ntoumanis, 2003) and

prosocial behavior (Kavussanu, in press). While these

findings suggest that task motivation has a positive

relationship with prosocial attitudes, values, and

behaviors, some studies have been inconclusive (Duda

et al., 1991; Dunn & Dunn, 1999; Kavussanu &

Roberts, 2001; Stephens, 2000, 2001; Stephens &

Bredemeier, 1996).

5
climate variables. The following three are particularly

important.

• Emphasize effort and task mastery rather than 

ability and competitive outcome.

Stated differently, emphasize what is within the

athletes’ control rather than what is outside their

control. Most importantly, athletes can control their

effort, so increased effort (regardless of skill level)

should be acknowledged and celebrated. Increased

effort also leads to greater task mastery if appropriate

self-referenced task goals have been established.

Athletes cannot, however, control their genetics or the

performance level of competitors.

• Emphasize team cooperation rather than rivalry.

Encourage athletes to help one another and see

everyone on the team as uniquely valuable. Build a

sense of supportive community in which every athlete

feels needed and cared about. Finally:

• Help athletes appreciate the important role of 

mistakes in the learning process.

Keeping the team climate positive and constructive,

coaches should focus primarily on what athletes are

doing right and help them see errors as learning

opportunities

Conclusion

There are ethical problems in the world of sports that

need to be addressed. For example, in a recent

investigation of youth sports (Shields, Bredemeier,

LaVoi, & Power, 2005), it was found that nine percent

of the fifth through eighth grade athletes acknowledged

cheating. Thirteen percent said that they had tried to

hurt an opponent; nearly a third acknowledged having

argued with a sport official, and 27% said that they had

acted like a “bad sport.” Problems were also identified

with the behavior of coaches and spectators. Despite

reports such as these, many sport enthusiasts maintain

that sport builds character. In this article, we have

sought suggest that sport can build character, but only

if coaches deliberately seek to do so and are adequately

informed regarding the educational processes required.

We have highlighted three clusters of psychological

variables that are particularly important to character:

perspective taking and empathy, moral reasoning, and

motivational orientation. For each cluster, specific

strategies for coaches have been identified.

6

Task and ego motivational orientations are relatively

stable characteristics of the person. However, they are

malleable. The environment can help shape the extent

to which a person is task-motivated or ego-motivated.

Some environments tend to pull for one orientation

more than the other. The term motivational climate is

often used to refer to features of the environment that

pull for one motivational orientation more than the

other (Ames, 1992). When environments are so

structured as to nurture and support task motivation,

they have been called mastery climates. In contrast,

performance climates exert a pull for ego motivation.

A number of investigations have demonstrated that

mastery climates tend to support positive sport-related

attitudes, values, or behaviors, while the reverse is

generally found for performance climates (GanoOverway et al., 2005; Kavussanu, in press; Miller et al.,

2005; Ommundsen et al., 2003; Stornes &

Ommundsen, 2004). However, Gano-Overway et al.

(2005) failed to find the expected relationship between

performance climate and sportspersonship, which may

have been due to a sample that had a very low average

perception of performance climate.

The above paragraphs summarize how motivational

variables relate to moral variables. However, the

operational dynamics are often highly complex. Both

the task and ego dispositional orientations and the

perception of performance and mastery motivational

climates are orthogonal constructs. It is possible,

therefore, for a person to be high on both task and ego,

high on one and low on the other, or low on both; the

same is true of perceived motivational climate.

Consequently, there are numerous possible interactions

that one could examine and a number of researchers

have begun to explore more complex relationships

(Dunn & Dunn, 1999; Gano-Overway et al., 2005;

Kavussanu & Ntoumanis, 2003; Lemyre et al., 2002;

Miller et al., 2004; Stornes & Ommundsen, 2004).

Though more research is needed, the overall results

from the various studies are clear. If the aim is to

reduce morally problematic behaviors and/or to

increase prosocial ones, then coaches need to

simultaneously increase task motivation and decrease

ego motivation.

This research is particularly significant for coaches

because the coach can shape the climate of the sport

team. Thus, a number of specific recommendations for

coaches flow from investigations of motivational
7

Please Post

President’s Council on Physical Fitness & Sports

200 Independence Avenue, S.W., Washington, DC 20201

(202) 690-9000 • FAX (202) 690-5211

All sports provide an opportunity 

to pursue excellence, both of

physical performance and character. 

Virtually all sport teams can be

turned into miniature caring

communities where growth is

stimulated through mutual

encouragement, challenge,

and support.

Brenda Light Bredemeier

Educational Psychology, Research and Evaluation Division

College of Education

University of Missouri–St. Louis

David Light Shields

Teaching and Learning Division

College of Education

University of Missouri–St. Louis
8

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