Cheater, cheater, pumpkin eater: the Dark Triad, attitudes towards doping, and cheating behaviour among athletes

Abstract

We examined the relationships between the Dark Triad personality traits (Machiavellianism, narcissism, and psychopathy), attitudes towards doping, and cheating behavior among athletes. One-hundred and sixty-four athletes completed a questionnaire that assessed the Dark Triad and their attitudes towards doping. Following this, athletes completed a matrix solving task within a specific time limit. Participants were told they would receive a financial reward for the total number matrices they could solve, but only 13 of the 20 matrices were solvable. This provided the incentive and an opportunity for the athletes to cheat. All three Dark Triad personality traits correlated positively with attitudes towards doping and cheating behavior. In regression analyses, psychopathy emerged as a significant positive predictor of attitudes towards doping, and narcissism emerged as a significant positive predictor of cheating behavior. Attitudes towards doping correlated positively with cheating behavior. The Dark Triad appears to be important in relation to both attitudes towards doping and cheating behavior among athletes. In addition, our findings illustrate that favorable attitudes towards doping were linked with actual cheating among athletes. National Anti-Doping Organizations, sports federations, and coaches could assess athletes' Dark Triad scores and attitudes towards doping in order to identify who may be more likely to cheat.

The Susceptibles, Chancers, Pragmatists, and Fair Players: An Examination of the Sport Drug Control Model for Adolescent Athletes, Cluster Effects, and Norm Values Among Adolescent Athletes

“…Other scholarly activity has revealed that other personality factors are associated with doping attitudes such as perfectionism ( Madigan et al, 2016 ), risk-taking propensity ( Jalleh et al, 2014 ), and honesty and humility ( Nicholls et al, 2019a ). Further, doping attitudes have also been associated with a taxonomy of personality traits, the Dark triads ( Nicholls et al, 2017c , 2019b ). It appears that personality may play an important role in shaping attitudes toward doping, so the SDCM and the SDCM-AA may need revising as other research identifies personality factors and alternative taxonomies of personality traits that are associated with doping attitudes and doping susceptibility.…”

Understanding Factors Related with Cheating in Sport: What We Know and what is Worth Future Consideration

“…Therefore, narcissism may be not as important to doping compared to Machiavellianism and psychopathy. Recently Nicholls et al (2019) re-examined the relationship between the Dark Triad and attitudes towards doping. It was found that all the Dark Triad dimensions were positively correlated with attitudes towards doping and cheating behaviours.…”

Annual banned‐substance review: Analytical approaches in human sports drug testing 2019/2020

“…The year 2020 has been unprecedented and exceptionally complex, also in the context of anti-doping efforts in situations of considerable restrictions, lockdowns, reduced options for training and competition, and collection and analysis of anti-doping samples. Probably more than ever, understanding an athlete's attitude towards doping, [1][2][3] the susceptibility and motivation(s) to cheat, identifying factors that influence or predict an athlete's (anti-)doping position and behavior, [4][5][6][7][8] and approaches that support strengthening and consolidating highest levels of sportspersonship as well as harm reduction strategies, 9 have been required to effectively limit intentional anti-doping rule violations (ADRVs).…”

“…ence or predict an athlete's (anti-)doping position and behavior, [4][5][6][7][8] and approaches that support strengthening and consolidating highest levels of sportspersonship as well as harm reduction strategies, 9 have been required to effectively limit intentional anti-doping rule violations (ADRVs).…”