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The present study assessed adolescent athletes’ intentions toward doping by using an integrative theoretical model. Overall, 650 adolescent athletes from team and individual sports completed an anonymous structured questionnaire including demographic information, social desirability, achievement goals, motivational regulations, sportspersonship orientations, social cognitive variables, and anticipated regret. Hierarchical regression analysis showed that the integrative model predicted 57.2% of the variance in doping intentions. Social cognitive variables and anticipated regret directly predicted doping intentions. Anticipated regret added 3% incremental variance on top of other predictors. Multiple mediation analyses showed that the effects of achievement goals on intentions were mediated by self-efficacy beliefs, whereas the effects of sportspersonship were mediated by attitudes and anticipated regret. The present study confirmed the dual structure of an integrative model of doping intentions and further highlighted the role of anticipated regret in the study of adolescent doping use.

Doping use is an ongoing problem in contemporary sports. Despite efforts to detect and control doping, research on its etiology is limited, especially among elite-level athletes. The present study used an integrated social cognition model to examine the predictors of doping intentions. Structured anonymous questionnaires were completed by 1075 Greek adult elite-level athletes (M age = 25 years, SD = 5.89, 36.1% females) from both team and individual sports. Multiple regression and mediation analyses showed that attitudes, normative beliefs, situational temptation, and behavioral control significantly predicted doping intentions. A normative process was identified whereby situational temptation mediated the effects of normative beliefs on intentions. The findings provide the basis for future social cognition research in doping use, and set the framework for the development of evidence-based preventive interventions.

Whistleblowing against doping misconduct represents an effective deterrent of doping use in elite competitive sport. The present study assessed the effects of social cognitive variables on competitive athletes’ intentions to report doping misconduct. A second objective was to assess whether the effects of social norms on whistleblowing intentions were mediated by actor prototype evaluations and group identification and orientation. In total, 1,163 competitive athletes from Greece, Russia, and the United Kingdom completed a questionnaire on demographics, past behavior, social cognitive variables, and intentions toward whistleblowing. Regression analyses showed that whistleblowing intentions were associated with different social cognitive variables in each country. Multiple mediation modeling showed that attitudes and subjective norms were associated with whistleblowing intentions indirectly, via the effects of anticipated negative affect and group identification and orientation, respectively. The findings of this study are novel and have important implications about the social, cognitive, and normative processes underlying decision making toward reporting doping misconduct.