Effects of Gender and Sport Type on Intercollegiate Athletes’ Perceptions of the Legitimacy of Aggressive Behaviors in Sport

Abstract

This study examined 162 Division I-A intercollegiate athletes’ perceptions of the legitimacy of aggression in sport. Athletes in collision, contact, and noncontact sports completed the Sport Behavior Inventory (Conroy, Silva, Newcomer, Walker, & Johnson, in press). Overall, the athletes did not consider aggression legitimate. A 3 (sport type) x 2 (gender) ANOVA (alpha = .05) with post hoc comparisons showed that athletes in contact and noncontact sports scored lower than those in collision sports. Females scored lower than males. A significant interaction revealed a greater gender difference in noncontact sports than in collision or contact. In noncontact sports, gender role expectations could be the dominant influence for males, while role expectations and in-sport behavioral norms influence females. In collision and contact sports, in-sport norms could reinforce role expectations for males but encourage females to demonstrate behaviors inconsistent with traditional expectations.