Basic values predict unethical behavior in sport: the case of athletes’ doping likelihood

ABSTRACT

Although basic values have been linked with unethical attitudes and behavior in non-sport contexts, their association with doping in sport has yet to be established. We examined the relationships between basic values and doping likelihood. College athletes (N = 233, 61% females) rated the importance of basic values using the Portrait Values Questionnaire Revised and indicated their likelihood of doping in a hypothetical scenario. In terms of basic value dimensions, self-enhancement values were positively related to doping likelihood, openness to change values were unrelated to doping likelihood, and self-transcendence and conservation values were negatively related to doping likelihood. In terms of the values categories, the values-doping relationship was best characterized by an unethicality pattern of coefficients. In conclusion, the current evidence extends the values-unethicality relationship to the context of sport and confirms that doping resembles other forms of unethical behavior.

KEYWORDS:

• Doping
• unethicality
• values

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 In contrast, the present study measured basic values using the latest 57-item Portrait Values Questionnaire Revised (Schwartz et al., 2012) and doping likelihood in a 9-situation hypothetical scenario describing use of a banned substance in situations (e.g., coach recommendation, injury recovery, payment) that have been found to motivate athletes to engage in doping (Donovan et al., 2002; Strelan & Boeckmann, 2006). The present study therefore sought to replicate and extend the study by Ring et al. (2020a) using more reliable measures of values and doping likelihood to evaluate the unethicality profile of the values-doping relationship.

² The current report was based on analysis of a unique subset of variables from a larger dataset.

³ The mean and confidence intervals of the mean-centered scores for each of the 10 value categories were: power (M = −1.18, 95% CI = −1.29, −1.08), achievement (M = 0.36, 95% CI = 0.28, 0.44), hedonism (M = 0.57, 95% CI = 0.50, 0.65), stimulation (M = 0.00, 95% CI = −0.09, 0.09), self-direction (M = 0.35, 95% CI = 0.29, 0.42), universalism (M = 0.22, 95% CI = 0.15, 0.29), benevolence (M = 0.69, 95% CI = 0.63, 0.75), conformity (M = −0.38, 95% CI = −0.49, −0.27), tradition (M = −0.57, 95% CI = −0.65, −0.48), and security (M = −0.06, 95% CI = −0.13, 0.18).

⁴ Feldman et al.’s (2015) theoretical unethicality profile was based on their review of the literature concerning basic values and variables concerning unethical attitudes and behavior. Based on the Boer and Fischer (2013) methods, they set the expected value-unethical coefficient for each of the 10 basic values to one of three vectors: 0.95 or −0.95 for values with strong links to unethical variables; 0.59 or −0.59 for values with weak links to unethical variables; and 0 for values with no links to unethical variables. The direction of the vector, positive or negative, reflected the direction of the association between the value and the unethical variables reviewed. The vectors for each of the 10 individual values were set as follows: power = 0.95, achievement = 0.95, hedonism = 0.59, stimulation = 0, self direction = 0, universalism = −0.95, benevolence = −0.95, conformity = −0.95, tradition = −0.59, security = −0.59. These vectors were then multiplied by 0.25 (the average association between values and unethical attitudes and behavior identified by their review of the literature) and used to depict their expected theoretcial unethicality profile (see Feldman et al., 2015, Figure 3, p. 74); these transformed vectors are shown in our Figure 2. Based upon Boer and Fischer (2013), the consistency between the observed pattern and theoretically expected pattern is computed, with weak, moderate, and strong effect sizes corresponding to shape consistency coefficients of .40, .60, and .80, respectively.