How important are ethical attitudes? Development of the attitudes to moral decisions in youth sport questionnaire

The view that sport is a theatre for the expression of moral behaviour and indeed has an influence on moral development, has been widespread, yet research to investigate the credibility of the claims has been somewhat equivocal (Shields and Bredemeier, 1995). The bulk of early research into fair play, or violations of its principles, was conducted through a variety of attitudinal studies (e.g. Blair, 1985; Goodger and Jackson, 1985; Maloney and Petrie, 1972). The results of these studies in North America suggest that instrumental attitudes are more commonly associated with older athletes, competitive success, males rather than females, and higher levels of participation. However, Lee and Williams (1989) found no reliable relationships between the endorsement of fouls and experience, playing position, or level of performance, among young athletes in the United Kingdom. Subsequently several studies by Kavussanu (e.g. Kavussanu and Ntoumanis, 2003) have sought to clarify the roles of the many interacting variables which underpin inconsistent findings in this field.