|
COPYRIGHT 2007 University of South Alabama
Aggression is a negative personality trait that has been associated with sport participation. Aggression is operationally defined as an intentional physically or psychologically harmful behavior that is directed at another living organism (Thirer, 1993). The frequency of aggression in sports on all levels has led to a great deal of academic research. Even the International Society of Sport Psychology recently recognized that sport aggression has become a social problem both on and off the playing field and has recommended ways to curtail this behavior (Tenenbaum, Stewart, Singer, & Duda, 1997). The particulars of this position have recently been challenged (Kerr, 1999), reaffirmed (Tenenbaum, Sacks, Miller, Golden, & Doolin, 2000), and clarified (Kerr, 2002).
Aggression has been studied on many levels including behavior within the context of sport and within daily life. A popular theory explaining aggression is the Revised Frustration-Aggression Theory (Berkowitz, 1965). This theory consists of aspects from Bandura's (1973) Social Learning Theory and Smith's (1972) theory on frustration and aggression. Berkowitz proposed that either frustration or another stimulus (e.g., threat) increases a person's arousal and anger levels, which increases one's readiness to aggress. However, aggression will only occur if the person has learned the appropriateness of such behavior in that specific situation. In other words, aggression not only depends on the strength of the association between the situation and aggressive behavior, but also the degree of readiness to aggress and the presence of aggressive cues (Berkowitz). This easily generalizes to the sport socialization process. During an athletic contest, the potential for a frustrating situation is unlimited. Combine that with aggressive behavior that is rewarded by teammates, coaches, and parents, or vicariously learned from role models on television or during live contests, and the potential for aggression in sport rises exponentially.
Two types of aggression have been defined in sport research, hostile and instrumental. Hostile, or reactive aggression is behavior performed with the sole intention of inflicting harm on a person (Silva, 1983). Instrumental aggression in sport is behavior that intentionally causes injury or harm to an opponent in pursuit of another non-aggressive goal such as scoring or winning (Bredemeier, 1975). Assertiveness is distinct from aggressiveness in that it is the nonhostile, noncoercive tendency to behave with intense and energetic behavior to accomplish one's goal (Bredemeier, 1994; Silva, 1978). In the sport realm, these types of behavior are often within the rules of competition. It is hard to distinguish the relationship between aggression and assertion because they have often been conceptually confused in the literature (Silva, 1978), and can usually only be differentiated by a person's intention, which remains dependent on self-report. However, researchers have utilized various measurements to assess athlete aggression (Allawy, 1981; Bredemeier, 1994; Reid & Hay, 1979; Ryan, Williams, & Wimer, 1990; Silva, 1983; Wall & Gruber, 1986).
Recent trends in research link patterns of sport aggression to goal orientations (Duda et al., 1991; Dunn & Dunn, 1999), moral reasoning (Bredemeier & Shields, 1986; Bredemeier, 1994; Rosenberg, 2003), and gender (Silva, 1983). Aggression has also been examined in reference to different sport types (e.g., contact vs. non-contact and individual vs. team; Allawy, 1981; Bredemeier & Shields, 1986; Colley, Roberts, & Chipps, 1985; Mace & Baines, 1989; Silva, 1983). It has been shown that sports with contact have positive associations with the amount of aggressiveness of their participants (Allawy; Bredemeier, 1994; Gardner & Janelle 2002; Reid & Hay, 1979; Silva, 1983; Tucker & Parks, 2001). Silva has differentiated contact sports into three distinct levels: collision (contact is necessary and integral to play), contact (contact is legal and occurs incidentally), and non-contact (contact between opponents is not allowed). Silva studied the relationships between the contact level of sport and legitimacy ratings of rule violations (i.e., aggressive behavior) in sport across women and men. Differences were found between amount of contact and years of experience in legitimacy ratings for men and women. In a similar study, Tucker and Parks found that athletes in collision sports scored higher on legitimacy ratings than those in contact and non contact sports. Further, a significant interaction effect was found in this study with greater gender differences in non contact sports than in collision and contact sports with women scoring lower than men. More recently, Gardner and Janelle did not find differences in legitimacy ratings across low and high contact, college sport athletes, but did find males to perceive aggressive and assertive behavior as more legitimate than females. In addition, behavior in sport situations was overall perceived as more legitimate than in life situations.
A limitation in the research on aggression is that studies in collision sports may be gender biased. Most collision sports have traditionally only been available for men, excluding women from participation and therefore from research. Further, many traditional collision sports for men have modified rules to disallow certain types of contact in the women's version (e.g. ice hockey, lacrosse). This has created a gap in the literature regarding aggression and contact sport type utilizing male and female athletes from the same sports. The relationship between aggression and female collision sport athletes may be different from the relationship for male athletes. The Revised Frustration-Aggression Theory would predict that through participation in sport, females would learn to be as aggressive as their male counterparts because of the opportunity for observational learning and the presence of situational cues and reinforcements. More specifically, if women played the same collision sports as men they would show similar aggression levels because of the similar sport socialization processes. In fact, given similar situations, women have shown to be just as aggressive as men (White & Kowalski, 1994). However, women and men have been shown to differ on their acceptance of sport aggression in relation to sport type participation (Bredemeier, 1994; Silva, 1983; Gardner & Janelle, 2002).
The reason for aggression differences remains vague. It is unclear whether the differences found across gender and sport types are due to different sport socialization processes or from an existing disparity in those who gravitate towards certain sports (Morgan,...
Read the full article for free courtesy of your local library.
|
Bookmark this article
Print this article
Link to this article
Email this article
Digg It!
Add to del.icio.us
RSS
