Development of moral disengagement and self-regulatory efficacy assessments relevant to doping in sport and exercise

Abstract

1Objectives: To develop Moral Disengagement (MD) and Self-Regulatory Efficacy (SRE) 2 instruments relevant to doping in sport and exercise and provide evidence for their validity and 3 reliability. 4Design: Cross-sectional, correlational 5 Methods: Data were collected from male and female team-and individual-sport athletes and 6 corporate-and hardcore-gym exercisers. Two samples (n sample 1 = 318; n sample 2 = 300) were 7 utilized in instrument development and score validation and another (n sample 3 = 101) in 8 examining test-retest reliability. Samples 1 and 2 responded to the newly developed items 9 alongside others assessing theoretically-related variables, whereas Sample 3 completed the new 10 instruments on two separate occasions. 11Results: Factor analyses identified the final items and dimensional structures for the Doping 12Moral Disengagement Scale (DMDS), Doping Moral Disengagement Scale-Short (DMDS-S) 13 and Doping Self-Regulatory Efficacy Scale (DSRES). The DMDS has six lower-and one higher-14 order factor, whereas the DMDS-S and DSRES are unidimensional. These structures were 15 invariant by sex and sport/exercise context. Evidence supporting external validity and test-retest 16 reliability was also provided. rates are difficult to obtain, the estimated prevalence of doping in athletes ranges between 5 and 7 31% (Momaya, Fawal, & Estes, 2015). An important aim for researchers investigating doping is 8 to identify and understand psychosocial factors that influence the likelihood of athletes and 9 exercisers using PIED (i.e., doping). To conduct such research instruments assessing key 10 variables with scores shown to be reliable and valid are required. Accordingly, we sought to 11 develop and validate scores for psychometric instruments assessing two psychological variables 12 relevant to doping. 13The theoretical framework for the current work was Bandura's (1991) social cognitive 14 theory of moral thought and action. Bandura proposed that harmful activities -such as doping - which sport and exercise participants use these six mechanisms, supporting the potential benefits 12 of developing a single measure of doping MD appropriate for use in both contexts. 13The first of these six mechanisms -moral justification -occurs when harmful activities 14 are made personally and socially acceptable by portraying how they achieve commendable social conducted with Italian high-school students, a significant proportion of whom (43.0 -45.2%) did 7 not partake in any extracurricular sport. As such these findings may not extend to participants 8 from all sport and exercise contexts, including those in which prevalence rates for doping are 9 likely to be much higher. 10Another variable from Bandura's (1991) theory that has been empirically linked with scores obtained with these instruments. One concern relates to the item-development process. 21Specifically, items were developed based on interviews with 35 high-school students who played 22 sport. However, no information was provided as to whether an...

Perceptions of coach doping confrontation efficacy and athlete susceptibility to intentional and inadvertent doping

“…Higher scores indicate enhanced levels of doping MD. Past research has provided evidence supporting the construct validity, test‐retest reliability, and internal consistency for scores obtained with the doping SRE and doping MD Scales …”

“…Doping SRE was examined with the Doping SRE Scale, a 6‐item (eg, “Resist doping even if you knew you could get away with it?”) measure of doping SRE . Items were preceded by the stem “How confident are you right now in your ability to...” and rated using a 7‐point scale ranging from 1 ( no confidence ) to 7 ( complete confidence ).…”

“…Higher scores indicate greater levels of doping SRE. Doping MD was measured using the Doping MD Scale—Short, a 6‐item (eg, “Compared to most lifestyles in the general public, doping isn't that bad”) measure of doping MD . Items were preceded by the stem “What is your level of agreement with the following statements?” and rated using a 7‐point scale ranging from 1 ( strongly disagree ) to 7 ( strongly agree ).…”

“…measure of doping SRE. 17 Items were preceded by the stem "How confident are you right now in your ability to..." and rated using a 7-point scale ranging from 1 (no confidence) to 7 (complete confidence). Higher scores indicate greater levels of doping SRE.…”

“…This promotes honest responding because only respondents know which question is answered . However, very few studies have used the RRT to estimate the prevalence of intentional doping . Thus, we used the RRT with our sample to build the descriptive database on doping prevalence.…”