Search Results

In a recent article, Harwood, Hardy, and Swain (2000) presented what they termed a critical analysis of the conceptualization and measurement of achievement goals in sport. The purpose of the present article is to challenge their interpretation of achievement goal theory and to question many of their subsequent recommendations. Specifically, the present response will focus on Harwood et al.’s (a) interpretation of Nicholls’ personal theories of achievement; (b) their contention that task involvement cannot exist in competitive sport; (c) the proposed tripartite conceptualization of goal involvement states; (d) their understanding of the relationship between the way an individual conceptualizes ability and the foundation of dispositional goal orientations; and (e) their criticisms of the way dispositional goal orientations have been measured in sport. Theoretical frameworks are always a work in progress. To this end, we concur with the spirit of Harwood et al.’s article which implies that our conceptual models should be continuously questioned, tested, and extended. However, we believe their interpretation and recommendations do little to enhance our conceptual understanding of achievement goal theory in sport.

A sport-specific measure of moral disengagement was developed in 2 studies. In Study 1, a 59-item questionnaire was developed and tested with 308 athletes from 5 team sports. A series of confirmatory factor analyses (CFA) testing different models suggested the model that best fitted the data had 6 first-order factors that could be represented by 1 second-order factor. Study 2 involved 305 athletes from the same 5 sports. CFA confirmed the 6-factor, second-order structure for the final 32-item measure. Results from Study 2 supported the construct validity of the scale, providing evidence for the factorial, concurrent, convergent, and discriminant validity. The Moral Disengagement in Sport Scale (MDSS) is proposed as a valid and reliable measure of moral disengagement for use in the sport context.

The purpose of this study was to examine the longitudinal and unique association between number of years of team sport and individual sport participation during adolescence and depressive symptoms during early adulthood. Adolescents (n = 860) reported team sport and individual sport participation in each year of secondary school for five years. Participants reported depressive symptoms using the Major Depression Inventory three years after secondary school. Multivariate linear regression was performed to model the associations of sport participation with depressive symptoms while controlling for sex, age, parent education, and baseline depressive symptoms. In the final model, adolescents who consistently participated in team sport during high school reported lower depression scores in early adulthood (β = −.09, p = .02). Number of years of individual sport participation was not statistically significantly associated with depressive symptoms in early adulthood. Based on these findings, team sport participation may protect against depressive symptoms in early adulthood. If this finding is replicated, strategies should be implemented to encourage and maintain team sport participation during adolescence. Further research is needed to understand the mechanisms that link team sport participation to lower depression.

The development of a self-report instrument to measure antisocial sport behavior, labeled the Antisocial Sport Behavior Survey (ASBS), among large and diverse samples of athletes is reported. Grounded in the social cognitive theory of moral thought and action (Bandura, 1991) and interpersonal theory (Horowitz, 2004), this instrument was developed and tested in accordance with the traditions of construct validity and classical test theory (Gehlback & Brinkworth, 2011). In Phase 1, 272 college-aged competitive sport participants confirmed a theoretical structure of antisocial sport behavior including eight factors (hypercompetitive, intimidating, antagonistic, disrespectful, exploitable, overly accommodating, abetting, and melodramatic). Phase 2 reports on item development and the response structure of the instrument. In Phase 3, evidence of structural validity and external validity for the ASBS was established with 340 college-aged competitive sport participants. The ASBS presents as a promising new instrument to advance understanding of antisocial sport behavior acts committed by competitive athletes.

The controlled attention theory of working memory capacity (WMC, Engle 2002) suggests that WMC represents a domain free limitation in the ability to control attention and is predictive of an individual’s capability of staying focused, avoiding distraction and impulsive errors. In the present paper we test the predictive power of WMC in computer-based sport decision-making tasks. Experiment 1 demonstrated that high-WMC athletes were better able at focusing their attention on tactical decision making while blocking out irrelevant auditory distraction. Experiment 2 showed that high-WMC athletes were more successful at adapting their tactical decision making according to the situation instead of relying on prepotent inappropriate decisions. The present results provide additional but also unique support for the controlled attention theory of WMC by demonstrating that WMC is predictive of controlling attention in complex settings among different modalities and highlight the importance of working memory in tactical decision making.

Developing upon cross-sectional research (Smith, Ntoumanis, & Duda, 2007) supporting the self-concordance model (Sheldon & Elliot, 1999) as a framework for contextual goal striving, the current study investigated the assumptions of the model in relation to season-long goal striving in sport. The study additionally examined the role of coping strategies in the persistence of goal-directed effort. Structural equation modeling analysis with a sample of 97 British athletes indicated that start-of-season autonomous goal motives were linked to midseason effort, which subsequently predicted end-of-season goal attainment. Attainment was positively related to changes in psychological need satisfaction, which, in turn, predicted changes in emotional well-being. In a second model, autonomous and controlled motives positively predicted task- and disengagement-oriented coping strategies, respectively. In turn, these strategies were differentially associated with effort. The findings provide support for contextual adaptations of the self-concordance model and demonstrate the role of coping strategies in the goal striving process.

This study extends previous psychosocial literature (Bandura et al., 2001, 2003) by examining a structural model of the self-regulatory mechanisms governing the acceptability and likelihood of cheating in a sport context. Male and female adolescents (N = 804), aged 15–20 years, took part in this study. Negative affective self-regulatory efficacy influenced the acceptability and likelihood of cheating through the mediating role of moral disengagement, in females and males. Affective efficacy positively influenced prosocial behavior through moral disengagement or through resistive self-regulatory efficacy and social efficacy, in both groups. The direct effects of affective efficacy on beliefs about cheating were only evident in females. These results extend the findings of Bandura et al. (2001, 2003) to the sport context and suggest that affective and resistive self-regulatory efficacy operate in concert in governing adolescents’ moral disengagement and transgressive behaviors in sport.

The purpose of this study was to examine the role of a sport program in the lives of homeless men with severe mental illnesses and addictions. Interviews were conducted with eight men who attended a floor hockey program, and data examined using categorical-content narrative methodology. Five themes captured the role of the floor hockey program in the men’s lives: (a) relationships with program leader, (b) therapy, (c) community, (d) action, and (e) achievement. These themes were interpreted using theories of masculinity (Connell, 1995; Gough, 2014). Relationships with the program leader and other men, and ways in which they were allowed to play with physicality, provided opportunities to accumulate masculine capital (i.e., ways in which competence in traditionally masculine behaviors provides masculine credit). Practically, the findings suggest that sport program delivery for men such as those in this study can be enhanced by providing opportunities for accruing masculine capital.

The goal of the present paper was to investigate whether soccer referees’ nonverbal behavior (NVB) differed based on the difficulty of their decisions and whether perceivers could detect these systematic variations. On the one hand, communicating confidence via NVB is emphasized in referee training. On the other hand, it seems feasible from a theoretical point of view that particularly following relatively difficult decisions referees have problems controlling their NVB. We conducted three experiments to investigate this question. Experiment 1 (N = 40) and Experiment 2 (N = 60) provided evidence that perceivers regard referees’ NVB as less confident following ambiguous decisions as compared with following unambiguous decisions. Experiment 3 (N = 58) suggested that perceivers were more likely to debate with the referee when referees nonverbally communicated less confidence. We discuss consequences for referee training.