Lecture 10 - Morality Flashcards
Outline Turiel (1983)'s definition of morality - paragraph 1 - introduction
•Morality is about behaviours that have consequences for others rights & psychological & physical well being
- E.g. the right for fair play can be breached – anything that would give someone an unfair advantage would break others right to play fairly
- E.g. verbally abusing someone might cause them psychological harm
- E.g. fouls/ fighting might cause physical well-being to be harmed
Outline Bandura (1999) Dual Aspects of morality
- paragraph 1 - introduction
- paragraph 2- theory
Bandura (1999) introduced 2 aspects of morality
- Inhibitive Morality
- The power to refrain from behaving antisocially
- Inhibiting yourself from engaging in those immoral behaviours
- Being anti-social might benefit your performance really, e.g. by injuring an opponent, but you need to inhibit these- e.g. Zidane headbutt, shows low levels of inhibitive morality - Proactive Morality
- The power to behave prosocially
- E.g. congratulate/ support a team mate, or help an opposition player- e.g. Brownlee brothers – prosocial behavior, helping him across the line
Ultimately, we want:
- High amounts of prosocial behaviours and low amounts of anti-social behaviours
- And we use these dual aspects to work towards achieving this
- might use different strategies to teach each of these 2
- You can have both: a player that is prosocial but sometimes antisocial
How did Kavussanu & Boardley (2012) Describe moral behaviour in sport?
- paragraph 1 - introduction
- paragraph 2- theory
•“A broad range of intentional acts that could result in positive or negative consequences for others psychological and physical welfare”
- Intentional! – not accidental
- Positive or negative consequences – dual aspect of this definition
What are the 2 divisions of moral behaviour, as described by Eisenberg & Fabes (1998) and then Sage et al (2006)
- paragraph 1 - introduction
- paragraph 2- theory
- Prosocial Behaviour:
- “Voluntary behavior intended to help or benefit another individual or group” (Eisenberg & Fabes, 1998) - Antisocial Behaviour
- “Voluntary behavior intended to harm or disadvantage another individual or group” (Sage et al, 2006)
- e.g. disadvantage in terms of rule breaking, or could be physical/ psychological harm
Both are VOLUNTARY
Outline Kavussanu & Boardley (2009)
- paragraph 2 - theory
- Paragraph 3 - research?
Methods:
- Took 1300 Athletes
- Tried to develop an instrument to see the types of moral behavior in team sport
Findings:
•They found that it is not as simple as prosocial and antisocial
- so they separated these constructions into who the behaviour is directed towards
- Prosocial (teamate or opponent) and Antisocial (team mate or opponent)
- Arguing moral behavior was made up of 4 things:
1. Prosocial Teamate Behaviour - e.g. congratulate, encourage, motivate
- Prosocial Opponent Behaviour
- e.g not exactly encouraging, but like helping, more of an empathic response when someone is in need. This stuff also happens for team mates, but it’s a bit more about congratulatory stuff - Antisocial Teammate behavior
- e.g. verbal, criticizing, abusing, swearing. Very rarely any physical abuse towards team mates - Antisocial Opponent Behaviour
- e.g. Still have all that verbal abuse, but also see physical ones here- e.g. trying to physically intimidate, foul them, injure them, broader range of anti-social behaviours against opponents, including verbal and physical
Outline Moral disengagement Bandura (1991)
- Paragraph 1 - introduction
- Paragraph 2 - theory
•Anticipation of guilt holds us back from antisocial behaviours
- we might not want to cheat or foul someone because we will feel guilty afterwards
- anticipating these future emotions prevents us from doing this, but these behaviors still happen, so why – what is it that allows people to do these behaviors without feeling guilt?
Therefore, Bandura came up with the concept of ‘Moral Disengagement’
- which we use to justify and rationalize doing those behaviours in certain situations- social justification as well as personal justifications
He came up with 4 main ways to morally disengage - by Cognitively restructuring:
- How we think about the harmful conduct
- thinking it might have a broader social benefit for instance, benefit the team etc - Ones responsibility for conduct/ harm – don’t take personal responsibility for the action, make it the groups or someones who’s told you to do it. If you don’t take take personal responsibility, you wont feel guilt
- Harm caused – downplay the or don’t find out the harm caused, so you wont feel guilty, or convince yourself its not too harmful
- Victim – dehumanize victim, justify it as revenge or something
There are 8 mechanisms to morally disengage
Outline Boardley & Kavussanu (2009) research into moral disengagement*** not sure i really understand this atm
- Paragraph 1, 2 or 3
RESEARCH INTO WHAT INFLUENCES THE LIKELIHOOD OF MORAL DISENGAGMENT/ IMMORAL BEHAVIOUR
‘Coach character-building competency, Moral Disengagement & Prosocial/ Anti-social Behaviour’ (Boardley & Kavussanu (2009)
Methods
Examined:
1. predictive effects of perceived coach character-building competency on prosocial and antisocial behaviours
2. whether these effects are mediated by moral disengagement
- Basically, how good is your coach at building moral character and moral behavior
- do they place importance on moral behavior of athletes
Field Hockey and Netball players completed psychometric questionnaires assessing the study variables
Used structural model testing – to see correlations and stuff- used their 4 types of moral behaviour (P-T, P-O, A-T, A-O)
Findings:
1. Moral disengagement linked to low levels of empathy - low empathy = less likely to engage in prosocial behavior
- Perceived coach character-building competency had a positive effect on prosocial behavior towards opponents- and a negative effects on both antisocial behaviours- less moral disengagement
- Moral disengagement DID mediate effects of coach character-building competency on the three behaviours- all of them except prosocial team mate behavior - dont need to morally disengage?***
- Moral disengagement negatively linked to prosocial and positively linked to antisocial
The worse your coach was at this -> the more moral disengagement -> the more antisocial behaviour
Outline Boardley & Kavussanu (2010)
- research into the impact of goal orientation and perceived value of toughness ON moral disengagement & anti-social behaviour
- Paragraph 1, 2 or 3
RESEARCH INTO WHAT INFLUENCES THE LIKELIHOOD OF MORAL DISENGAGMENT/ IMMORAL BEHAVIOUR
“Goal orientation, Perceived value of toughness, moral disenegagement & antisocial behavior in soccer “(Boardley & Kavussanu (2010)
Methods:
But this study looks at:
1. How goal orientation and toughnessmatters
- the effects of goal orientation and perceived value of toughness on anti-social behavior toward opponents and team mates in soccer
- and was these effects of ego and toughness mediated by moral disengagement
2. Looked at goal orientations (task vs ego)
3. Also tested the value of toughness, how important is it in your team to be seen as tough and one of the hard men
Male soccer players completed psychometrics about this stuff
Findings:
Used the same statistical method as before – structural model testing
In terms of task climate:
- task climate linked to more prosocial and less antisocial
- ego linked to less prosocial and more antisocial
In terms of toughness:
- If you’re in a social group with lots of value based on being tough, anti-social behavior can be a way to demonstrate how tough you are
- can also be anti-social behavior towards your team mates, which can impact interpersonal functioning and the social dynamics of the team - Moral disengagement DID mediated effects of ego orientation & perceived value of toughness ON antisocial behavior (Towards team mates and opponents)- moral disengagement is mediating the relationship between toughness and ego compared to antisocial behaviours
Other findings: not sure if it was thist study:**
•Men do more antisocial behavior than women
•Footballers do more antisocial behavior than other sports like rugby
SO:
- task climate linked to more prosocial
- ego climate linked to more anti-social
- If toughness is important, antisocial can be used
- Moral disengagement mediates the relationships in findings 2 and 3, but not for finding 1
Outline doping and its prevelance not just in elite sports
- paragraph 1 - introduction
- Doping is often just seen to occur in elite sport- but there is quite a public health issue with performance enhancing drugs in exercise
- Anti-doping agencies are trying to ban stuff, but also minimize the impacts and physical harm they will cause if people do it- people are still going to get their hands on stuff so we should minimize the harm they cause
- In exercise context: people don’t get in trouble for it, but you do get the misconception that it is safe
- Also get polydrug use (lots of different drugs) at higher doses- there’s no reprecussions for
- People in exercise contexts often dope for aesthetic reasons
What are the 3 studies into doping in elite/ recreational settings
- paragraph 1 - introduction
- paragraph 3 - research
•There were 3 pieces of Qualitative research investigating moral Disengagement & Doping
- 3 studies that applied similar methods
- Looking into if moral disengagement was relevant in doping and performance enhancing drugs
- they interviewed people who were using performance enhancing drugs
•Is there is moral disengagement, and if so, which mechanisms are being used?
- Boardley & Grix (2014)
- 9 bodybuilders (8 male) from one gym in central england
- A small case study in west midlands, - Boardley, Grix & Dewar (2014)
- they then got funding from the Anti-doping agency, and looked at a lot more peoplefrom across England, and at a lot more drugs- to see if the results were reflected in the bigger study
- 64 male bodybuilders from across england - Boardley, Grix & Harkin (2015)
- Male Uk/Us team (n=6) and individual (n=6) sport athletes
Outline the first study
- Boardley & Grix (2014)
- Paragraph 2 - theory
- paragraph 3 - research
- Boardley & Grix (2014)
- 9 bodybuilders (8 male) from one gym in central england
- A small case study in west midlands
They found 6 mechanisms of moral disengagement being used in this study – people used these to not feel as guilty for doping:
- Moral justification – justify it on a social purpose
• through myself using it I can understand how this can be done safely, and I can help others, e.g. through social media“If I tried this myself I could give people feedback on it” - Euphemistic Labelling – change how we speak/ think about it
• using softer terms sounds less harmful and don’t feel as bad”i’m trying a bit of gear” sounds better than using steroids - Advantageous comparison – the contrast principle
• comparing a behavior to something that is more harmful, our behavior doesn’t seem so bad.
- they compared themselves to general public, who drink a lot, with a bad diet, don’t exercise a lot. Frames drug use as a positive health behavior. Exercise a lot and eat well, so in comparison they are much healthier even though they dope - Diffusion of responsibility – Change personal responsibility, very powerful, especially if you are in a group with lots of performance drugs, becomes normalized, and not as bad, don’t feel guilty for it
•“The more you are around it, the more acceptable and normal it becomes” - Displacement of responsibility – Could be implicit (feel like you should from social pressure) or explicit (told to do it)
• “saw people getting bigger, so I wanted to get bigger” - Distortion of consequences**
•“as long as you are doing it properly & professional then it looks like its ok & safe as it can be
The other two mechanisms are to do with victims, so not really applicable here, these are:
- Attribution of blame (retaliation – fell justify in fowling someone back for instance)
- Dehumanising (see them as deserving it – attribute anamalistic qualities to them, empathic response is lowered in that instance)
Outline the second study
- Boardley, Grix & Dewar (2014)
- Paragraph 2 - theory
- paragraph 3 - research
- Boardley, Grix & Dewar (2014)
– Funded by world anti-doping agency- 64 body builders from across england
In this bigger study, found the same things, but a few new examples of how moral disengagement was used
- numbers 3, 4 and 6, indicated by “–>”
- Moral justification
•“I’d rather test it on myself than have people, go away not aware of what they are taking” - Euphemistic labelling
•“ Gear, tac its your tac, it’s your arsenal of what your using, bits and bobs, you try and put a nicety to it”
-> 3. Advantageous comparison
• My dose doesn’t seem as bad as others
-> 4. Displacement of responsibility
•Media, supplements in advertising, media pressuring for bigger and better athletes, supports minimization of responsibility
•“It is the fault of the media and advertising just pushing better and better sports”
- Diffusion of responsibility
•Look around and say well he has, he has, he has, and you think well i’m not the only one here am i?
-> 6. Distortion of Consequences
•Many of these drugs were originally used, e.g. in cancer treatments- “They are made to make help sick people get better”
Outline the third study
- Boardley, Grix & Harkin (2014)
- Paragraph 2 - theory
- paragraph 3 - research
- Boardley, Grix & harkin (2014 ) – male uk/ us team (n = 6) and individual (n = 6) sport athletes
Found similar stuff
1. Moral justification – “I can help people”
2. Euphemistic labelling - ”juice”
3. Advantageous comparison – “I don’t drink or smoke weed”
4. Diffusion of responsibility – “all the top sprinters are on them”
-> 5. Displacement of responsibility
•“it wasn’t my idea to take them”
- coach encouraged her to do it, explicit pressure to engage in it
- implicit: feel like I should
- she took the drug to recover quicker from injury, but then just carried on taking them – people often use this as a justification, once people see the benefits they carry on taking them
-> 6. Distortion of consequences
•“we’ve all got testosterone in our bodies, I just had more”– it’s a natural bodily substance
- or that it’s a team sport, so my individual performance didn’t make a massive difference to the performance
How did Bandura (1991) outline anticipated guilt
Paragraph 1 - introduction
Paragraph 2 - theory
Bandura (1991) argues:
- Moral disengagement impacts upon behavior through emotions such as guilt
- Guilt represents a distasteful emotional state experienced as tension and regret
- Can be adaptive in regulating harmful conduct (Bandura (1991)
Then Boardley et al (2017) investigated this concept
Outline Boardley et al (2017
- Paragraph 3 research into anticipated guilt
Boardley et al (2017):
Findings:
•Looked at if anticipated guilt mediated relationship between MD and use of drugs
•Is it anticipated guilt that is mediating the relationship between MD and use of drugs?
•Looked at other antecedents:
1. self-regulatory efficacy (increased SRE should reduce MD) – ability to withstand pressures
2. Empathy – realizing and understanding consequences on others, makes it harder to rationalize and justify doping
Sample: Compared team or individual sports, hardcover or corporate gym exercisers, with both genders and ages 16-73
Findings:
•Higher doping prevalence in males than females
•At the hardcore gym: 40% Doping, compared to 4% in average gym
•Found support for empathy and doping self-regulatory efficacy - they both lead to lower MD
- also found evidence that anticipated guilt mediated influence between moral disengagement and doping
Key findings:
- Higher MD = lower anticipated guilt = more likely to intentionally dope
- When MD is higher, we are more likely to dope, and it is anticipated guilt that is explaining/ mediating this
