Attitudes towards high achievers in sport: An adaptation of Feather's tall poppy scale

Abstract

A sport-specific version of Feather et al.'s (1991) Tall Poppy Scale, the Sportsperson Attitude Scale, was correlated with measures of global self-esteem, deservingness, and aspects of perfectionism. Total Negative Attitude and Favour Fall were negatively correlated with estimates of how much high-profile sports performers deserved their present high position. while Favour Reward and global self-esteem were positively correlated with estimates of deservingness. All measures demonstrated adequate reliability. All three SPAS subscales were found to be significantly correlated with High Personal Standards (HPS), a measure of perfectionism with theoretical but undocumented relationships to tall poppy attitudes. Regression analyses revealed that HPS and deservingness were significant predictors of tall poppy attitudes. It was concluded that the Sportsperson Attitude Scale would benefit from further refinement, but that the current version possesses adequate integrity for use in studies of attitudes toward high achievers in sport.