In force Publication date 29 Apr 16
The interactive effects of moral identity and moral disengagement on doping: An experimental investigation
Project description
Summary:
Doping can be considered a moral issue, particularly if undertaken intentionally with the purpose to gain an unfair advantage over others. This project aimed to investigate the joint influences of moral disengagement (justifications people provide to commit immoral acts without experiencing the usual negative emotional consequences) and moral identity (the importance one places on being a moral person, such as being honest, kind and fair) on athletes’ likelihood to dope. This multi-phase investigation had three main research aims:
(1) To examine whether moral disengagement was associated with doping by blunting emotions and perceiving such behavior as less morally wrong.
(2) To investigate whether manipulating moral disengagement influenced athletes’ likelihood to dope.
(3) To examine whether any effects of moral disengagement on doping were moderated by moral identity.
Methodology
This project has 3 phases. In phase one, 144 team sport players completed measures of doping moral disengagement, doping intention, and reported doping. Then, at least 3 days later completed an adapted picture viewing task whereby they viewed images that depicted doping and rated their emotional involvement and moral judgements towards doping represented in each picture.
In phase two, a subsample of 72 players read two blocks of scenarios manipulating low moral disengagement and high moral disengagement. Then, participants were asked to report their anticipated guilt for taking banned drugs, moral judgments, and likelihood of doping in relation to each of these situations.
In phase three, a separate subsample of 72 players were then randomly allocated to a high moral identity or low moral identity priming group. Following a moral identity prime, participants then read two block of scenarios manipulating low moral disengagement or high moral disengagement, and rated their anticipated guilt, moral judgment and
likelihood to dope in relation to each situation (as per Phase 2).
Results
1) Dispositional doping moral disengagement was associated with less negative emotional reactions, and perceptions that doping is more acceptable and less wrong.
2) In situations where opportunities for moral disengagement were amplified, this increased the likelihood of athletes to dope via reducing anticipated guilt.
3) Dispositional moral identity moderated the effect of moral disengagement on doping likelihood. Specifically, the results suggest that moral identity may protect athletes from being likely to dope even if athletes have a high inclination to morally disengage. However, this protective effect was only found in situations where opportunities for moral disengagement was low. In other words, moral identity did not have a significant protective effect on athletes’ likelihood of doping under conditions when there were greater opportunities for moral disengagement.
4) Priming moral identity did not appear to have a main effect on reducing athletes’ likelihood to dope.
Significance for Clean Sport
The findings highlight that anti-doping efforts would benefit from interventions that target enhancing athletes’ moral identity particularly at a dispositional level, and reducing athletes’ inclination to morally disengage (e.g., enhancing personal responsibility). Moreover, these strategies should be used in conjunction with interventions targeted towards athlete support personnel to help reduce potential situations where athletes may be more susceptible to morally disengage.
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