Because of a higher than normal incidence of pathogenic weight-loss techniques and eating disorders in athletes, 274 coaches were surveyed to discover their attitudes, knowledge, personal experiences, and recommendations regarding weight control. Coaches demonstrated relatively negative attitudes toward and limited knowledge about obesity, with a few gender and ethnic differences. They tended to make decisions about the need for weight control on the basis of appearance rather than objective indicators, and they saw more females as needing to lose weight and more males as needing to gain. Although a majority of the coaches had tried to lose weight themselves, some using dangerous weight-control techniques, they did not recommend such techniques to their athletes. Nevertheless, it is possible that their obvious concern about weight may have been interpreted by their athletes as encouragement for using pathogenic weight-loss methods.
In order to assess their cultural stereotypes and personal beliefs about women physical education teachers, we surveyed 196 individuals attending the 1995 American Alliance for Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance (AAHPERD) convention. Respondents felt that most Americans stereotyped women physical educators as masculine, aggressive, athletic, lesbian, and unintellectual. Their personal views were less extreme. Some differences in personal beliefs were found between men and women, and between lesbians, heterosexual men and heterosexual women. Occupation, age, and education were not importantly related to stereotyping. Open ended questions revealed both positive and negative aspects of physical education as a profession for women. Based upon the continued existence of some negative stereotypes, coupled with the low status of women physical educators, we suggest that the profession needs to increase its educational efforts and its appreciation of diversity.
In sport psychology, there is a need for ethnic and gender attribution research (Allison, 1988; Duda & Allison, 1989, 1990; Gill, 1993). This study examined effects of (a) ethnicity (African American, Anglo, Hispanic, Native American); (b) gender; and (c) years of track experience on causal attributional dimensions (locus of causality, stability, controllability). The 755 track athletes (ages 13—18) in this study were chosen from 32 randomly selected high schools. Two 3-way MANOVAs were used to analyze data for success and failure. Results indicated that gender and experience had no significant effects on attributional dimensions. Athletes classified causality toward internal, controllable, and unstable ends of the Causal Dimension Scale. Success, however, was perceived to be more internal, controllable, and stable than failure. Significant ethnic differences were identified. Anglos perceived success as more internal and controllable than did either African Americans or Native Americans. Anglos perceived failure as more controllable than African Americans did. Anglos perceived failure as more internal and controllable, but less stable than Native Americans did.
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