An Analysis of Sports Environment’s Effect on Athletes Aggressive Behavior

This literary review examines the impact of sports environment on the display of aggressive behaviors in participants.

Sheldon and Aimar (2001) have conducted research focusing on the behavior of ice-hockey players performing in the National Hockey League (NHL). The study randomly videotaped 11 men's professional ice hockey games, observing 13 different teams, during the 1998 regular season. Trends in aggressive behavior were established by aggressive behaviors along with performance. The first variable was calculated by observing checking and penalty deserving actions. The evaluation of the performance variable was done independently to ensure the validity of the results. Success was measured by recording whether a player was able to score a goal or steal the puck away from a player of the opposing team, thus disregarding assists. The results did not discriminate any type of ice-hockey player as the important contribution of defensive players were not disregarded or ignored in this study. Results of this study strongly supported Bandura’s (1986) social learning theory as success in ice-hockey did reinforce aggressive behaviour. A large number of illegal aggressive behaviours in ice hockey were not sanctioned by referees’. This lack of enforcement of regulation encouraged athletes to partake in aggressive behavior in order to obtain success under, in an instrumental form, or, in retaliation, in a hostile form. In fact, the majority of the aggressive data consisted of illegal aggressive acts rather then permitted body checking. Therefore, athletes are often able to engage in illegal aggressive behaviours which are reinforced by successful outcomes in the immediate future. This creates athlete who believed success is obtained through aggressive acts.

Further research by Coulomb and Pfister (1998) opted to evaluate aggressive behavior by observing the effects of the level of competition and of the time of the game. They sampled 45 soccer games, which were divided equally among the three level of competition of the French Soccer Championship. All the games were videotaped, again reinforcing validity and objectivity of the results. The data was observed and separated according to two criteria’s’: instrumental aggressive behaviours and hostile aggressive behaviours. Results show a strong correlation between the number of aggressive behaviour and the progression of the game. In the first half players indulged mainly in instrumental aggression and did not use hostile aggression very much. Whilst in the second half hostile aggression was more present and instrumental aggression was less present. The research also revealed that in higher competition levels, there is less hostile aggression and more instrumental aggression. This was however believed to be partially because in lower competition levels players are more grouped around the ball which leads to more pushing and so on. Findings also revealed that high competition and experience ultimately led to lower moral reasoning amongst athletes. Recent research by Akandere, Arslan, Bastug, and Yildiz (2009) was conducted in order to find the level of aggression of high school students who play and don’t play sports, and to evaluate the effect of sports on the aggression phenomenon. Research was conducted on 300 students playing sports and 300 other students not playing sports at Kastamonu city centre in 2007-2008. Data was collected using the aggression inventory developped by Ipek Ilter Kiper (1984). Passive aggression was found to be higher amongst females, whilst destructive aggression was found to be higher amongst males. This was believed to be due to females having an easier time expressing themselves. However, findings also reported high destructive aggression amongst students who did play sports and high passive aggression amongst student who didn’t play sports. Lastly, research found that as students got older, aggression diminished.

Aimar and Sheldon have found that participation in sports characterizes one with lower moral reasoning. This could explain higher aggression amongst athletes as they simply do not perceive violence the same way. His findings also revealed that Sports encourage aggression since such behavior often goes unpenalized and leads to success. This reinforces Bandura’s learning theory and suggests athletes learn to be aggressive because it works. His findings were supported by Coulomb and Pfister’s research which found that in higher competition level and with more experience, athletes have lower moral reasoning. However they tend to resort to hostile aggression less and to instrumental aggression more. Akandere, Arslan, Bastug, and Yildiz’ s study has shown that this aggression phenomenon starts at an early stage as in high school, students who play sports have higher destructive aggression than other students. This research also found tht increase in age leads to a decrease in aggression which supports Coulomb an Pfister as it suggests that maturity takes out hostile aggression and athletes begin to resort mainly to instrumental aggression as they think about winning rather than hurting.

Written by: Soufiane Bouhmouch