Bullying in Sport and Performance Psychology

Abstract

Bullying is a growing problem in sport and performance settings. Bullying falls under the umbrella of “athlete maltreatment,” which includes any form of harm and all relationships where harm could occur in sport and performance. Specifically, bullying is defined as repeated hostile and deliberate behavior from one person (the perpetrator) to another (the target) with the intent to harm or threaten harm to the target; it is marked by an imbalance of power. Often, after extreme bullying, the target feels terrorized. Athlete maltreatment in sport and performance has been categorized into one of two forms: relational maltreatment and nonrelational maltreatment. Bullying is a relational problem. In particular, sport and performance bullying can occur from coach to player, parent to player, or player to player, and often takes the form of (1) making unreasonable performance demands of the target, (2) repeated threats to restrict or remove the target’s privileges or opportunities, (3) screaming or yelling directed at the target that is unwarranted, (4) repeated and continual criticism of the target’s abilities, (5) discounting or denying the target’s accomplishments, (6) blaming the target for his or her mistakes, (7) threats of and/or actual physical violence toward the target, and (8) social media or e-mail messages with threats or insults toward the target. Sport and performance organizations should develop and implement antibullying policies. Six potential steps toward policy development and implementation include: (1) defining bullying behaviors, (2) referring to existing “best-practice” bullying policies, (3) specifically outlining the reporting of bullying incidents, (4) outlining clearly investigation and disciplinary actions to be taken, (5) outlining specific assistance for bullying targets, and (6) including prevention and training procedures. In the meantime, coaches as well as parents and players can recognize that they are role models for everyone with whom they come into contact in sport and performance settings. Coaches, parents, and players can also accept responsibility for creating a respectful and safe sport and performance environment, have a pre-season meeting to discuss antibullying policy, foster open and honest communication, accept critical feedback, not engage or allow bullying behavior themselves, create acceptable boundaries between themselves and others, and teach players to trust their instincts when things do not feel right. More advanced bullying prevention and training procedures can then take place.

Prevalence of bullying and harassment in youth sport: The case of different types of sport and participant role

“…In recent years, scholars became increasingly interested in the "dark side of sport", looking for answers which phenomena have a negative effect on the well-being of the younger generation (Newman et al, 2016;Bean et al, 2014). Along with distinguished problems related to athlete trauma, doping use, depression, fraud, such serious social problem as negative interpersonal relationships among sports activity participants, manifesting themselves as bullying and harassment, is singled out as well (Stirling et al, 2011;Fisher and Dzikus, 2017). Despite the approach of sports practitioners and the public that bullying in sport should be a taboo (Nery et al, 2020), over the last decade, this phenomenon in sport was increasingly analysed by researchers of various countries (Steinfeldt et al, 2012;Shannon, 2013;Evans et al, 2016;Kerr et al, 2016;Nery et al, 2019;.…”

Encounter with Bullying in Sport and Its Consequences for Youth: Amateur Athletes’ Approach

“…The topic of bullying in sport has also been increasingly analyzed in the past decade [11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18,19,20], which is to be related to the increased interest in participants’ behavior in sport and raised moral and ethical questions. However, the existing lack of research in the sport context, the use of various methodological approaches and instruments, and the incompletely purified treatment of the phenomenon [21] do not allow for the formation of a complete picture of both the extent of the problem or manifestation of the phenomenon and of consequences experienced by persons involved in it, as well as the ability to propose effective prevention and intervention measures. The problem is also exacerbated by the right granted to sport “to keep its own house in order” [22] (p. 17), which often leads to the situation that interpersonal relationship problems related to unethical or antisocial behavior are insufficiently emphasized and highlighted in empirical research.…”

Bullying Trends Inside Sport: When Organized Sport Does Not Attract but Intimidates

“…This means that the sporting activity itself does not eliminate the risk of bullying behavior in the sports environment. This is confirmed by still scarce studies, but their results are often influenced by chosen research methodologies or employed instruments (Fisher and Dzikus, 2017), while the fully unpurified conception of bullying causes difficulties in recognizing this phenomenon (Mishna, 2004).…”

“…More often, though, regardless of the type of sport or institutional dependence, there is an increasing tendency in scientific literature to analyze aggressive or violent behavior of persons involved in sport, especially in athlete-coach relationships (Stefaniuk and Bridel, 2018), rather than its manifestation through bullying. In any case, bullying, regardless of the stated lack of research (Evans et al, 2016;Fisher and Dzikus, 2017), exists in sport. On the other hand, most of the results and conclusions of conducted research are based on athletes' opinion (Tamminen et al, 2013;Risner, 2014;Cervin et al, 2017;McPherson et al, 2017), and quite scarcely the phenomenon of bullying is analyzed on the grounds of the position of coaches as the key persons in the formation of interpersonal relationships in sport (Piper et al, 2013;Fathynah and Syahirah, 2015).…”