Whistleblowing against doping in sport: A cross-national study on the effects of motivation and sportspersonship orientations on whistleblowing intentions

Abstract

Whistleblowing against anti-doping rule violations and related misconduct has been recognized as an important deterrent of doping behaviour in competitive sport. However, research on whistleblowing against doping is scarce and the available studies have focused on small samples using qualitative and inductive approaches. The present study used quantitative methods to assess, for the first time, the association between self-determined motivation, achievement goals, sportspersonship orientations and intentions to engage in whistleblowing against doping misconduct. A total of 992 competitive athletes from Greece (n = 480) and Russia (n = 512) completed structured measures of self-determination, achievement goals, sportspersonship orientation beliefs, and intentions to report doping misconduct. Latent profile analysis classified athletes into clusters consistent with the theoretical predictions. One-way analyses of variance further showed consistently across countries that autonomous motivated athletes reported higher intentions to whistleblow, and athletes with higher scores in achievement goals and sportspersonship orientations had significantly higher scores in whistleblowing intentions, compared to those with lower scores in these characteristics in both countries. This is the first study to demonstrate the association between motivational regulations, achievement goals, sportspersonship beliefs, and whistleblowing intentions. The theoretical and policy implications of our study are discussed.

Behaviours and Beliefs Related to Whistleblowing Against Doping in Sport: A Cross-National Study

“…The data reported in the present article was drawn from a larger-scale international study that investigated the psychosocial factors associated with whistleblowing against doping misconduct among competitive athletes, and the sampling methodology has been reported in detail elsewhere ( Lazuras et al, 2021 ; Barkoukis et al, 2021a ). Overall, 1,163 athletes from both individual and team sports from Greece, the Russian Federation, and the United Kingdom were recruited and their details are as follows: 480 competitive athletes (283 males, M age = 19.88, SD = 1.70) from Greece; 512 competitive athletes (341 males, M age = 20.08, SD = 5.49) from the Russian Federation; and 171 competitive athletes (121 males, M age = 20.31, SD = 1.95) from the United Kingdom.…”

“…Further research on whistleblowing against doping used quantitative research methods to explore how individual differences in athletes’ motivation and moral orientations were associated with whistleblowing intentions. It was demonstrated that athletes with higher levels of autonomous motivation and moral functioning, as indicated in higher scores in sportspersonship orientations (e.g., following rules, respecting officials and opponent, engaging in pro-social behaviour in sport), were also more likely to want to report witnessed or suspected doping misconduct through WBRS ( Barkoukis et al, 2021a ). Another recent study further indicated that considerations of social norms (e.g., if whistleblowing is socially approved by referent others, and if most similar others would report doping misconduct via WBRS) were also associated with intention to engage in whistleblowing among elite competitive athletes from three countries ( Lazuras et al, 2021 ).…”

Perceived Motivational Climates and Doping Intention in Adolescent Athletes: The Mediating Role of Moral Disengagement and Sportspersonship

“…Previous evidence has demonstrated that moral disengagement significantly mediated the association between ego-involving (controlling) motivational climate and antisocial variables in sport (e.g., drug-taking susceptibility, antisocial behavior, and doping intention; Hodge et al, 2013;Chan et al, 2015;Hodge and Gucciardi, 2015;Corrion et al, 2017). For sportspersonship, given its positive association with task-involving motivational climate, and its negative association with antisocial behaviors (Gano-Overway et al, 2005;Ntoumanis et al, 2014;Barkoukis et al, 2020), it is plausible that the task-involving motivational climate will be associated with doping intention and behavior via sportspersonship. Nevertheless, these relationships have yet to be examined.…”

“…This moral construct broadly describes the athlete's understanding of and their respect for the rules, officials and opponents, and rituals and traditions of sports; capacity to distinguish between good and bad practices in sport; commitment to the sport; and the relative absence of a negative approach to sport participation (Siedentop et al, 2004;Lee et al, 2008). Sportspersonship is proposed to associate with a variety of prosocial and antisocial behaviors, such as cooperation and moral reasoning (Shrout et al, 2016;Perry and Clough, 2017;Barkoukis et al, 2020;Serrano-Durá et al, 2020). The inverse associations of sportspersonship with doping intention and behavior have been demonstrated in previous studies (Barkoukis et al, 2013;Blank et al, 2016).…”

Annual banned‐substance review: Analytical approaches in human sports drug testing 2020/2021

“…In the light of alarming reports on the use of doping agents among strength sport athletes that are not subjected to anti‐doping tests, 7 the question appears warranted whether or not doping should be viewed, in some cases, from a substance‐use disorder perspective. In consideration of the acknowledged existence of a majority of athletes that strictly disapproves doping, 8,9 various different research topics were compiled and prioritized in a concerted effort including 82 anti‐doping stakeholders, 10 aiming at respecting the needs, requests, and expectations of all parties. In a variety of studies, the essential and indispensable role of conventional anti‐doping tests in combination with doping control sample long‐term storage and re‐testing programs was summarized, 11–14 highlighting the importance of harmonizing especially global anti‐doping testing frequencies, an aspect that has not been fully accomplished today 15 and which experienced a severe setback particularly during the most critical months of the COVID‐19 pandemic 16,17 .…”