Relationship between Athletes’ Values and Moral Disengagement in Sport, and Differences Across Gender, Level and Years of Involvement

Abstract

Research background and hypothesis. The research focuses on university athletes’ values and moral disengagement in sport. Hypothetically moral and competence values would negatively correlate with moral disengagement in sport. Also, values in sport would differ across gender and sports mastery. Research aim was to examine the relationship between athletes’ values and moral disengagement in sport, and to determine the manifestation of athletes’ values and moral disengagement in sport by gender, sports mastery and sports experience. Research methods. The sample included 318 athletes recruited from Lithuanian universities. The participants completed the Youth Sport Value Questionnaire-2 (YSVQ-2; Lee et al., 2008) and the Moral Disengagement in Sport Scale-Short (MDSS-S; Boardley, Kavussanu, 2008). Research results. The positive correlation between values in sport and negative correlation between moral values and moral disengagement in sport were established. Moral values were more important to females compared to males (p < 0.01). Competence values were more important to international level athletes compared to the national level athletes (p < 0.01). ANOVA indicated the differences of years of involvement in sport in dependence on moral values (p < 0.05) and competence values (p < 0.01). Discussion and conclusions. Research established negative correlation between moral values and moral disengagement, but there were no correlations with status values. The study confirmed the hypothesis that female athletes’ scores on moral values would be higher comparing to those of male, but there were no differences comparing moral disengagement in sport. Athletes of higher levels of competition (international level athletes) scored higher on competence values. Research supported the hypothesis that athletes’ moral disengagement in sport would not differ across sport experience. Keywords: sport, athletes’ moral behavior, values in sport, moral disengagement in sport