https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6252-1096
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ABSTRACT
Prior research has examined the relationships between morality, attitudes, and intentions related to doping predominantly via correlational studies based on the theoretical frameworks provided by extensions to the theory of planned behaviour, and the social cognitive theory of moral thought and action. In contrast, the present study experimentally analysed a psychological process (i.e., self-validation) through which thought morality can influence attitudes and intentions. Two hundred and forty-two participants (122 males and 120 females) were randomly assigned to read a message either against or in favour of legalising several doping behaviours in sports, then listed their thoughts regarding that proposal. Next, they were randomly assigned to perceive their thoughts as either moral or immoral, then indicated the extent to which they considered their thoughts as valid. Finally, participants reported their attitudes and intentions regarding the legalisation proposal. As hypothesised, the anti-legalisation (vs. pro-legalisation) message produced more unfavourable thoughts and attitudes, as well as lower intentions to support the legalisation proposal and engage in banned behaviours if legalised in sport. Most importantly, the effects of message direction on attitudes and intentions were greater for participants in the moral (vs. immoral) thought condition. Furthermore, changes in attitudes were consistent with a self-validation process.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 Elaboration refers to “the extent to which a person carefully thinks about issue-relevant information”, and this “issue-relevant elaboration will typically result in the new arguments, or one’s personal translations of them, being integrated into the underlying belief structure (schema) for the attitude object”. Relevantly, elaboration can be viewed “as a continuum going from no thought about the issue-relevant information presented, to complete elaboration of every argument, and complete integration of these elaborations into the person’s attitude schema” (Petty & Cacioppo, Citation1986, pp. 7–8).
2 Some substances and behaviours are legal in society under medical guidance, but prohibited in the realm of sports, while others are legal in society and permitted in sport. In the present research, the term “legalisation” is used to refer to permitting some banned substances and behaviours in sports.
3 From now on we will not always use the term “perceived” when we refer to “thought morality” and “thought validity” to simplify reading.
4 In this relationship (i.e., thought validity predicting attitudes), the message direction would act as a moderator because if individuals rely on more favourable thoughts regarding the legalisation proposal (e.g., produced by the pro-legalisation message), they are more likely to form more favourable attitudes. By contrast, if they rely on more unfavourable thoughts (e.g., produced by the anti-legalisation message), they are more likely to form more unfavourable attitudes.
We did not make a specific prediction regarding moderated mediation on behavioural intentions because it could be a result of more complex relationships between thought morality, thought validity, attitudes, and intentions, as well as other variables and constructs, such as the extent of elaboration and attitude strength (e.g., Horcajo et al., Citation2019).
5 Although it could be hypothesised, we did not explicitly predict the same result for intentions because the relationship between thought favourability and behavioural intentions could also be influenced by attitudes (and/or attitude strength).
6 We conducted the dimensionality detection methods that have shown higher performance in several contexts, as reported in prior research (e.g., Golino et al., Citation2020; Nájera et al., Citation2021). That is, the dimensionality of both the attitudes and behavioural intentions scales was tested conducting parallel analysis with principal component extraction, column permutation, Pearson correlations, and mean eigenvalue criterion (e.g., Nájera et al., Citation2021), and bootstrap exploratory graph analysis (EGA) using a Gaussian graphical model, the Louvain algorithm, and 500 replications (e.g., Christensen & Golino, Citation2021; Golino et al., Citation2017). The analyses were conducted in R version 2022.12.0 + 353 (R Core Team, Citation2022) making use of the EGAnet version 1.2.3 and cdmTools version 1.0.2 packages (e.g., Golino & Christensen, Citation2022; Nájera et al., Citation2022). The results of the parallel analysis and EGA for both scales (i.e., attitudes and behavioural intentions) suggested that the items composed a single underlying dimension in both cases.
7 b and B values refer to unstandardised coefficients. sr refers to the semipartial correlation. ΔR2 represents the additional proportion of variance explained in the overall model as a result of including the interaction term.
8 We conducted the same moderated mediation analysis including behavioural intentions (instead of attitudes) as the dependent variable. Results revealed that the confidence interval of the index of moderated mediation included the value 0 , b = −0.05, SE = 0.07, 95% CI [−0.227, 0.055], thus not supporting this moderated mediation model on intentions.
9 Very similar results were found on behavioural intentions. That is, the interaction between thought favourability and thought morality on intentions was significant (H5), B = 0.59, t(238) = 2.64, p = .009, 95% CI [0.151, 1.034], ΔR2 = .017. This interaction also showed that thought favourability was a better predictor of behavioural intentions for participants assigned to the moral thought condition, B = 1.73, t(238) = 10.26, p < .001, 95% CI [1.397, 2.060], than for those assigned to the immoral thought condition, B = 1.14, t(238) = 7.68, p < .001, 95% CI [0.845, 1.428].