A meta-cognitive approach to doping in sports: The effects of thought validation on attitudes related to doping

ABSTRACT

To better understand doping-related attitude change, it is important to consider not only the amount of thinking (i.e., elaboration) done by message recipients, but also the favourability of their thoughts in response to the proposal, as well as the perceived validity in their thoughts. The main goal of the present study was to analyse the effects of a meta-cognitive process (i.e., thought validation) on attitudes related to doping. Thus, we randomly assigned participants to read a message either against or in favour of legalising several doping behaviours. Participants listed their thoughts regarding the proposal and indicated the perceived validity in their thoughts, then reported their attitudes. As hypothesised, the message against legalisation elicited more unfavourable thoughts and attitudes than the message in favour of legalisation. Most relevantly, the effects of the message direction on attitudes were greater for participants with higher (vs. lower) levels of thought validity. Furthermore, consistent with the thought validation process, results revealed that thought favourability was a better predictor of attitudes for participants with higher (vs. lower) perceived thought validity, indicating that perceiving one’s thoughts as valid plays an important role in persuasion. These findings provide novel insights for research and interventions regarding doping in sports.

KEYWORDS:

• Doping
• attitude
• persuasion
• meta-cognition
• validation

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

¹ According to the ELM, at the high end of the elaboration continuum (i.e., when both ability and motivation are high), a variable (e.g., the credibility of a source advocating against the use of banned performance-enhancing substances) can either (1) serve as an argument for or against the proposal, or (2) bias the direction of cognitive responses (i.e., thoughts) to be more or less favourable towards the proposal, or (3) determine whether an individual validates or invalidates their own thoughts generated in response to a message. At the low end of the elaboration continuum (i.e., when ability and/or motivation are low), (4) a variable can serve as a simple peripheral cue, whereby evaluative judgements may arise by way of heuristics (i.e., forming judgements and making decisions based on relatively low-effort thinking, for instance, the “illegal-is-effective” heuristic, see Dodge et al., 2013). In the middle of the elaboration continuum, when thinking is not constrained to be either high or low, (5) a variable can affect the actual amount of processing that occurs (see Petty & Briñol, 2012; Petty & Cacioppo, 1986; Petty et al., 2018; Petty & Wegener, 1998, 1999; for a review on the ELM).

² To check for randomization, we compared the gender distribution between the anti-legalisation message (22.35% male) and the pro-legalisation message (20.99% male; see Barkoukis et al., 2015; Horcajo, Paredes et al., 2019; for a similar analysis). The results of a chi-square test indicated no significant difference in proportions of males and females randomized to the experimental groups, χ²(1) =.046, p = .831.

³ This measure was not affected by the Message Direction manipulation, although it was close to being significant, F(1, 166) = 3.229, p = .074, η_ρ² = .019. When Thought Favourability was included as a covariable, the Message Direction did not significantly influence Thought Validity, F(1, 165) = 0.001, p = .982, η_ρ² <.001.

⁴ Both judges were PhD students who received training in the proper procedures required when coding thoughts. Specifically, before coding thoughts in this study, both judges practiced coding thoughts from a similar study, then compared their thought-ratings to ensure that they were correct and properly calibrated with one another. Given that each judge coded the same thoughts separately, this process helped to ensure that both judges understood how to correctly code the valence of participant’s thoughts, and that the application of the coding scheme was properly calibrated across judges. The same procedure was used in the current study. This process of coding was conducted under the close supervision of an experienced, senior researcher.

⁵ Even though the call to participate in our study explicitly stated that all prospective participants must practice at least one sport once a week, to ensure that this minimum threshold to be considered a recreational sports person was met, at the very end of the study all participants were required to report the number of days per week that they practiced their sport using a 1–7 scale. When this measure was included in the analysis, the three-way interaction was not significant, B = −0.190, t(163) = −1.539, p = .126, 95% CI: −0.433, 0.054. Likewise, neither the two-way interaction between the Message Direction and the Number of Days, B = 0.242, t(164) = 1.429, p = .155, 95% CI: −0.092, 0.576, nor the two-way interaction between Thought Validity and the Number of Days, B = 0.047, t(164) = 0.779, p = .437, 95% CI: −0.072, 0.166, were significant. Most importantly, the expected two-way interaction between the Message Direction and Thought Validity remained significant when controlling for the Number of Days, B = 0.350, t(163) = 2.085, p = .039, 95% CI: 0.019, 0.681. Finally, no main effect of the Number of Days on attitudes emerged, B = 0.011, t(163) = 0.126, p = .900, 95% CI: −0.155, 0.176.

In addition, we also analysed the role of gender as a potential moderator variable. When gender was included in the analysis, the three-way interaction was not significant, B = −0.135, t(162) = −0.322, p = .748, 95% CI: −0.960, 0.691. Likewise, neither the two-way interaction between the Message Direction and Gender, B = −0.368, t(163) = −0.655, p = .513, 95% CI: −1.477, 0.741, nor the two-way interaction between Thought Validity and Gender, B = 0.180, t(163) = 0.803, p = .423, 95% CI: −0.263, 0.623, were significant. Furthermore, the predicted two-way interaction between the Message Direction and Thought Validity remained significant when controlling for Gender, B = 0.349, t(162) = 2.102, p = .037, 95% CI: 0.021, 0.677. Finally, consistent with some previous studies (specifically, regarding attitudes towards the use of AAS; see S. Backhouse et al., 2016, for a review), the main effect of Gender on attitudes related to doping was close to being significant, B = −0.501, t(162) = −1.817, p = .071, 95% CI: −1.045, 0.044, indicating that women had more unfavourable attitudes towards the legalisation proposal than men.

⁶ Viewed differently, this interaction also indicated that among participants receiving the message against legalisation, those who reported relatively high levels of Thought Validity (+1SD) had significantly more unfavourable attitudes than those who reported relatively low levels of Thought Validity (−1SD), B = −0.373, t(165) = −2.902, p = .004, 95% CI: −0.627, −0.119. However, among participants who received the message in favour of legalisation, no difference between levels of Thought Validity emerged, B = −0.014, t(165) = −0.139, p = .890, 95% CI: −0.219, 0.190.

⁷ Of greatest relevance to this point is the study by Horcajo, Paredes et al. (2019). In this research, the authors found that thought validation had an impact on physical performance. It is important to note that participants in this study were actual athletes in gymnasiums and not the usual convenience sample used in psychological research. A second important point to mention is that the behaviour studied is directly related to sports: physical performance on three different measures (i.e., a vertical-jump task, a squat test, and a deadlift task). In this study, participants were randomly assigned to first generate and then listen to either positive or negative self-statements (i.e., self-talk). They were then randomly assigned to nod (up and down) or to shake (side to side) their heads while being exposed to the self-talk they had previously generated. This induction was used to influence meta-cognition. As previous research has shown, nodding (vs. shaking) increases thought validity (Briñol & Petty, 2003). Results indicated that athletes’ self-statements were significantly more impactful on physical performance in the head-nodding condition (high thought validity) than in the head-shaking condition (low thought validity).

Other studies have also shown an impact of meta-cognition on behavioural outcomes, such as punishment (Study 1, Santos & Rivera, 2015), cooperative behaviour (i.e., money given to a partner; Study 1, DeMarree et al., 2012), and academic performance (Clark et al., 2017).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Ministerio de Economía, Industria y Competitividad, Gobierno de España (Spain) [PSI2017-83303-C2-1-P] Grant to Javier Horcajo.