children's moral reasoning and their assertive, …s moral reasoning and their assertive,...

JOURNAL OF SPORT & EXERCISE PSYCHOLOGY, 1994.16, 1-14 O 1994 Human Kinetics Publishers, Inc.

Children's Moral Reasoning and Their Assertive, Aggressive, and Submissive Tendencies

in Sport and Daily Life

Brenda Jo Light Bredemeier University of California a t Berkeley

The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between children's moral reasoning and their assertive, aggressive, and submissive action tendencies in sport and daily life contexts. The 106 fourth- through seventh- grade children were asked to reason about hypothetical sport and daily life moral dilemmas and to respond to two behaviorally validated, self-report instruments designed to assess action tendencies in sport and daily life conflict situations. Multiple regression analyses indicated that moral reasoning scores were predictive of action tendencies, with reasoning positively related to assertion and negatively related to aggression. Results were interpreted in light of a congruence between Haan's (1978) descriptions of moral levels and the moral implications of the action tendencies under consideration. Gender and school-level differences in action tendencies were also noted; no gender or school-level differences in moral reasoning were found.

Key words: assertiveness, aggressiveness, submissiveness, moral development

Moral reasoning in sport-specific and daily life contexts has been a topic of growing interest among sport psychologists (cf. Bredemeier & Shields, 1984a, 1986b, 1987; Bredemeier, Weiss, Shields, & Shewchuk, 1986; Hall, 1986; Ro- mance, Weiss, & Bockoven, 1986; Shields & Bredemeier, in press). One reason for this interest in moral reasoning has been its demonstrated relation to athletic aggression (Bredemeier, 1985; Bredemeier & Shields, 1984b; Bredemeier, Weiss, Shields, & Cooper, 1986). In this study, I examine the link between children's moral reasoning and their behavioral tendencies (assertion, aggression, and submission) in sport and everyday life.

Morality, according to Haan's (1978,1983,1991) interactional formulation, is rooted in negotiations about the situation-specific good that arises in response to interpersonal difficulties or potential conflicts of interest. The maturing individual's capacity to engage in constructive moral dialogue is thought to evolve

Brenda Jo Light Bredemeier is with the Department of Human Biodynamics at the University of California at Berkeley, 200 Hearst Gym, Berkeley, CA 94720.

1

2 / Bredemeier

through five levels of increasing adequacy that can be described in structural terms. The five levels, in turn, can be divided into three phases. During the assimilation phase, consisting of Levels 1 and 2, others' interests and needs are not given equal consideration to those of the self. In contrast, the accommodation phase, which includes Levels 3 and 4, is characterized by the subordination of personal interests and needs to those of others. Only at Level 5, the equilibration phase, are all interests and needs coordinated in an attempt to optimize situation- ally specific potentialities for mutually satisfying responses to interpersonal difficulties.

Haan's model of moral processes was derived from her analysis of interpersonal action in the context of simulation games (Haan, 1978; Haan, Aerts, & Cooper, 1985). The central process of interactional morality is moral dialogue, which refers to communication oriented toward the negotiation of moral agreements, or "balances," that are mutually acceptable to the parties involved. Moral dialogue can take many forms: formal negotiation, informal dialogue, nonverbal communication, indirect communication, and so on. Sport is replete with instances of moral dialogue as players negotiate the informal norms that guide their play.

Adequate moral dialogue, according to Haan, requires that all parties give detailed attention and equal consideration to the needs of the self and all others involved in the negotiation. Thus, the inherent norms of moral exchange are violated when one party forces its resolution on another party or, alternately, when one party fails to adequately consider its own welfare.

The action-based nature of interactional morality suggests that moral reasoning may be closely linked to such action tendencies as assertion, aggression, and submission in conflict situations. Alberti and Emmons (1971) have empha- sized these three alternate modes of behavioral response to interpersonal conflict. Assertion is defined as the direct, nonhostile, noncoercive expression of one's thoughts, feelings, beliefs or desires; aggression is characterized as a hostile, coercive act involving self-expression at the expense of others, whereas submission is described as nonhostile, noncoercive behavior in which the feelings, power, or authority of others are considered at the expense of one's own needs or rights.

These behavioral options have moral implications. From the standpoint of interactional morality, assertiveness is the most adequate of the three response options because it requires that resolutions for conflict reflect the interests of both self and other, thereby maximizing the potential for a moral balance. Unas- sertiveness, in the form of either aggressiveness or submissiveness, often reflects moral default. Aggressiveness violates moral balance because aggressors seek to impose their will on others, and force is used to gain personal advantage or to express frustration or anger at others' expense. Submissiveness violates moral balance'because one's own interests or needs are forfeited.

Both moral reasoning (Bredemeier & Shields, 1984a; Haan, Aerts, & Cooper, 1985) and action tendencies (Rich & Schroeder, 1976) may be influenced by the context in which they occur. Play, games, and sport are important socializing contexts that frequently have been described as conceptually and emotionally distinct from everyday life (Bateson, 1955; Corsaro, 1981; Durkin, 1984; Firth, 1973; Giffii, 1982; Goffman, 1974; Handelman, 1977; Huizinga, 194411955). Bredemeier and Shields have offered theoretical (1986a, 1993; Shields & Bredemeier, 1984) and

Children's Moral Reasoning / 3

empirical (Bredemeier & Shields, 1984a) support for the contention that reasoning about moral issues set in sport specific contexts is organized more egocentrically than is moral reasoning about issues in daily life settings. It may be that people's action tendencies also change when they enter the sport realm. Thus, for example, aggressiveness may be valued by some athIetes or coaches on the playing field, but disavowed elsewhere.

In addition to within-subject variations due to contextual differences, moral reasoning and action tendencies may also vary across gender and school level. Haan (1978; Haan et al., 1985) has not found gender differences in interactional morality, but school level or age differences have been reported consistently (Bredemeier & Shields, 1984a; Haan et al., 1985). Deluty (1979,1981,1983,1984) has found gender and school level differences in action tendencies. His data suggest that boys have a greater tendency to aggress than girls do, a pattern that is well established in the aggression literature (cf. Hyde, 1984; Maccoby & Jacklin, 1974). Deluty found, however, irregular gender differences in assertion and submission. School-level differences in children's action tendencies have not been reported by Deluty, with the exception of one study (Deluty, 1984) which found that aggression increased and assertion decreased from third through fifth grades.

The present study was designed to illuminate the relationship between children's moral reasoning and their behavioral tendencies in conflict situations. Specifically, the purpose of the present study was to investigate two interrelated issues: (a) the relationship between children's moral reasoning about sport and everyday life issues and their tendencies to behave assertively, aggressively, and submissively in sport and daily life contexts, and (b) gender and school-level differences in moral reasoning and action tendencies.

Method

This investigation was conducted at a summer camp sponsored by a major university in the northwestern region of the United States. The camp program was designed to facilitate development of participants' physical performance and social skills; at the same time, it provided a unique laboratory for the study of participants' motor and psychosocial development.

Subjects

The subjects were 106 camp participants in the fourth, fifth, and sixth- seventh grade. Although 117 children were enrolled in these classes, only 42 girls and 64 boys completed all of the measures used in the present investigation. The mean chronological age of the 16 female and 23 male fourth graders was 10.1 years; the 15 female and 26 male fifth graders averaged 11.2 years; and 12.5 years was the mean for the 11 female and 15 male sixth-seventh graders. Study participants were primarily Caucasian and represented predominantly the middle and upper-middle socioeconomic classes.

Procedures

Parents of the camp participants were informed of the general nature of this research project and granted permission for their children's involvement.

4 / Bredemeier

Early in the 7-week program, the investigator described the nature and purpose of the children's study involvement and introduced the research associates. Of those present at the time of their scheduled assessment, only one child, a fourth- grade female, elected not to participate.

The children's moral reasoning level was assessed by means of 45-minute individual interviews conducted during the first 3 weeks of camp. Action tendencies were assessed during the fourth week via administration of two paper-and- pencil measures. The action tendency questionnaires were group administered to children in a classroom setting; approximately 20 minutes were needed to complete the questionnaires.

Moral Measures

The moral interview consisted of four hypothetical moral dilemmas, two set in sport contexts and two reflecting daily life situations. The dilemmas were designed to provide continuity of moral issues across the two different contexts and to reflect experiences common to the children. One sport and one life dilemma featured a girl forced to choose between honesty and keeping a promise to a girlfriend. The second set of sport and life stories featured boys faced with a decision about whether to risk hurting another boy to prevent him from continuing an unfair activity. Each dilemma was followed by a standard set of probe ques- tions, with the interviewer free to ask additional probes to obtain clarifications. Interviewers manipulated the sequence of dilemma presentation so that the relative position of each of the four interview stories was varied systematically. Sport and life stories were always alternated.

The research associates who interviewed subjects and scored protocols had previously completed a semester-long training program on Haan's interactional model of morality and the techniques of structural scoring. Children's interview responses were recorded in writing and on audiotape. Each protocol was scored independently by two raters in accordance with Haan's (1977) scoring manual. Raters did not score protocols of the children they interviewed.

Each rater assigned a major and minor score to each story. The major score reflected that moral level that most closely corresponded to the underlying structure of the reasoning offered, while the minor score reflected secondary themes presented by the respondent. Scores were translated into a 5-point scale by doubling the major score, adding the minor score, and dividing by 3 (cf. Haan, 1978). Subjects were assigned a "life score," representing an average level of moral reasoning about the two life dilemmas, and a "sport score," depicting the average level of reasoning employed in response to the two sport dilemmas.

An additional rater was recruited if the original two raters did not agree on their scoring. To determine rater agreement, modal designations for each story were transformed to continuous scores on a 19-point scale through use of a conversion chart that took both major and minor score designations into account (cf. Haan, 1977). Agreement was defined as rater scores within 4 scale points; the original two raters met this criterion 90% of the time for the 424 stories. A fourth rater was never required. Interrater reliability was equally high for the four stories; the Spearman-Brown correlation was .91 for ratings for each story.


Action Tendencies in Daily Life

The Children's Action Tendency Scale (CATS) was designed by Deluty (1979) to assess children's self-reported behavioral tendencies in daily life situations. This instrument presents 10 situations involving provocation, frustration, loss, or conflict in the home or at school.' Each situation is followed by three response alternatives--one aggressive, one assertive, and one submissive-which are offered in a paired-comparisons format, thereby yielding three pairs of choices for each situation. It is also possible to subdivide the Aggression scores into Physical and Nonphysical Aggression subscales, 4 of the 10 items present physical aggression alternatives, and the remaining items offer nonphysical aggression alternatives.

Scoring of the CATS requires summing the number of times assertive, aggressive, &d submissive alternatives are selected. Because a paired-comparisons fonnat is used, a subject could receive two aggressiveness points, two assertiveness points, or two submissiveness points for each of the 10 conflict situations. Thus, scores on a particular subscale could range from 0 to 20. The Aggression scores are subdivided, with CATS Physical Aggression scores ranging from 0 to 8 and Nonphysical Aggression scores from 0 to 12.

Validity and Reliability. The CATS subscales have been shown to correlate highly with peer and teacher reports of interpersonal behavior and to possess moderate split-half and test-retest reliability (Deluty, 1979). Construct and concurrent validity of the measure has been demonstrated in conjunction with paper- and-pencil inventory responses (Deluty, 1981, 1983) and, most importantly, with extensive behavioral observations in naturalistic settings (Deluty, 1984).

In the present investigation, the internal consistency reliability of each CATS subscale was examined via the Kuder-Richardson (K-R) 20 formula for

\ ,

dichotomous responses. The values were as follows: Assertion = .54, Aggression = .80, and Submission = .58. These K-R 20 values should be interpreted as lower bound estimates with a paired comparison procedure. For example, even though an assertive girl may most frequently select assertive CATS alternatives, she is forced to choose between an aggressive and submissive alternative on one third of the instances. Overall, however, we would expect our hypothetical subject to select assertive alternatives where vossible and have low selection rates for the aggressive and submissive alternatives.

Action Tendencies in Sport

The Scale of Children's Action Tendencies in Sport (SCATS) was devel- oped for the purpose of the present study because there were no self-report instruments available to assess children's behavioral responses to conflict situations within the sport realm. A small pilot study was conducted in which 15 children in Grades 4 through 7 were asked to identify conflict situations they had experienced in sport and to describe possible behavioral responses to such conflict situations. These two procedures were based on the behavioral-analytic model outlined by Goldfried and D'Zurilla (1969) and were employed by Deluty (1979) in his development of the CATS.

The SCATS format is identical to that of the CATS, but SCATS stories

6 / Bredemeier

are set in game or sport contexts. For example, 1 of the 10 SCATS items reads as follows:

You're running in a long distance race, and one of the other runners comes up from behind, trips you, and runs on ahead.

What would you do?

Circle a or b a) Forget about it. Or

b) Report that runner to the race official.

Circle a or b a) Try to catch up and get that runner back. Or

b) Forget about it.

Circle a or b a) Report that runner to the race official. Or

b) Try to catch up and get that runner back.

As with the CATS, the aggression scores can be divided into physical and nonphysical aggression subscales. Six of the 10 SCATS items present physical aggression alternatives, and the remaining items offered nonphysical aggression alternatives.*

Scoring the SCATS, like the CATS, requires summing the number of times assertive, aggressive, and submissive alternatives are selected. The Aggression scores are subdivided, with SCATS Physical Aggression scores ranging from 0 to 12, and Nonphysical Aggression scores from 0 to 8:

Validity and Reliability. Face validity for the SCATS was obtained by having four psychologists and four physical educators identify which of the three action tendencies, if any, they believed each SCATS item alternative was designed to portray. The judgments were accurate in all instances. The concurrent validity of the SCATS was tested in two ways. First, relationships between SCATS and CATS subscales were tested, yielding moderate-to-high correlations: Assertion (r = .53, p < .001), Physical (r = .74, p < .001) and Nonphysical (r = .68, p < .OOl)Aggression, and Submission (r = .58, p < .001).

The validity of the SCATS was also tested against a behavioral index provided by teachers' ratings. Instructors were provided with action tendency definitions; after observing the children in one class for 4 weeks, instructors rated students on their behaviors using a 5-point Likert scale. One female and one male instructor of an interactive team sport (e.g., basketball or soccer) rated each child. Correlations between averaged teachers' behavioral ratings and SCATS subscales were significant for all but the Submission subscale: Assertion (r = .24, p < .01), Physical Aggression (r = .33, p < .001), Verbal Aggression (r = .22, p < .05), and Submission (r = .06, p > .05).

The internal consistency reliability within each subscale was examined via the K-R 20 formula for dichotomous responses. The values were as follows: Assertion = .68, Aggression = 35, Submission = .66. As noted before, these K- R 20 values should be interpreted as lower bound estimates, given the paired- comparison procedure.


Table 1 Correlations Between Moral Reasoning and Action Tendencies for Children's Action Tendency Scale (CATS) and Scale of Children's Action Tendencies in Sport (SCATS)

CATS SCATS

Moral reasoning Asrt. P. Ag. NP. Ag. Subm. Asrt. P. Ag. NP. Ag. Subm.

Sport .378*** -.327*** -.373*** .I28 .384*** -.368*** -.439*** .222* Life .278** -;386*** -.375*** .244* .316** -.280** -.464*** .218

Note. Asrt. = assertion; P. Ag. = physical aggression; NP. Ag. = nonphysical aggression; Subm. = submission. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001.

Results

Moral Reasoning and Action Tendencies

Correlations. The correlation matrix presenting scores on sport and life moral reasoning and sport and life action tendencies is presented in Table 1. A clear correlational pattern across sport and life contexts was evident: Moral scores were positively correlated with the Assertion and Submission subscales and were negatively correlated with the Aggression subscales. The correlations of moral reasoning with Assertion and Aggression subscales were relatively strong, whereas the correlations with Submission were generally weak and, in two instances, not significant.

Predictions. The ability of moral reasoning scores to predict action tendencies, corrected for any influence by children's gender or grade level, was examined via hierarchical multiple regressions for each action tendency subscale (Cohen & Cohen, 1975). The ability of sport moral reasoning to predict sport action tendencies (SCATS scores) and of life moral reasoning to predict action tendencies in daily life (CATS scores) was examined by testing the standardized betas of the moral scores after forcing gender and school level into the regression. As can be seen in Table 2, all tests were significant, and the increases in variance attributable to moral scores alone (adjusted for shrinkage) ranged from 4 to 20%. These results are quite striking, given that the obtained experimentwise error rates were less than .O1 for the prediction of CATS by life moral reasoning and less than .02 for the prediction of SCATS by sport moral reasoning.

Group DifSerences

Moral Reasoning. Table 3 presents the means for sport and life moral reasoning. Two-way analyses of variance (Gender x School Level) did not reveal any significant gender or school-level differences in either sport or life moral reasoning scores.

8 1 Bredemeier

Table 2 Hierarchical Multiple Regression of Action Tendencies as Predicted by Moral Reasoning

Action tendencies Moral reasoning

Sport Life

Assertion F

P adj R2 change

Physical aggression F P adj R2 change

Nonphysical aggression F

P adj R2 change

Submission F P adj RZ change

Note. Both action tendencies and moral reasoning were controlled for gender and school level differences. df = 1, 102.

Table 3 Sport and Life Moral Reasoning Means and Standard Deviations by Group

Moral reasoning group

Sport Life n M SD M SD

4th-grade females 16 2.38 .44 2.40 .44 4th-grade males 23 2.40 .41 2.38 .42 5th-grade females 15 2.51 .48 2.45 .45 5th-grade males 26 2.46 .47 2.47 .56 6ffth-grade females 11 2.56 .59 2.75 .48 6ffth-grade males 15 2.32 .41 2.48 .40

Total 106 2.43 .45 2.47 .47


Action Tendencies. The means and standard deviation for children's self-described action tendencies are presented in Table 4. To test for significant gender and school-level differences in the CATS scales of Assertion, Physical and Nonphysical Aggression, and Submission, two-way analyses of variance were conducted. The results, presented in Table 5, indicate that males scored significantly higher on the Aggression subscales and lower on the Assertion and Submission subscales. Only one school-level difference was evident: a significant linear trend toward greater physical aggression as school level became higher.

To test for significant gender and school-level differences in the SCATS, two-way analyses of variance were conducted. The results, also presented in Table 5, indicate that males again scored significantly higher on the Aggression subscales; males also scored lower on the Submission subscale. No significant gender differences were found on the Assertion subscale. Two school-level differences were evident: significant linear trends toward greater physical aggression and less assertion from younger to older children.

Table 4 Means and Standard Deviations for the Children's Action Tendency Scale (CATS) and Scale of Children's Action Tendencies in Sport (SCATS)

CATS SCATS

Grade and gender Asrt. P. Ag. NP. Ag. Subm. Asrt. P. Ag. NP. Ag. Subm.

6/7 male M SD

6/7 female M SD

5 male M SD

5 female M SD

4 male M SD

4 female M SD

Note. Asrt. = assertion; P. Ag. = physical aggression; NP. Ag. = nonphysical aggression; Subm. = submission.

10 / Bredemeier

Table 5 Analysis of Variance of Children's Action Tendency Scale (CATS) and Scale of Children's Action Tendencies in Sport (SCATS)

CATS SCATS

School School Gender level Gender level

Assertion M F

Physical aggression M F

Nonphysical aggression M F

Submission M F

Note. df = 1, 102 for gender and school level. * p < .05. ** p < .01. *** p < .001.

Discussion

Moral Reasoning and Action Tendencies

The major issue investigated in the present study was the relationship between children's moral reasoning and their self-described action tendencies. Results of product-moment correlations and multiple regression analyses strongly supported the hypothesis that moral reasoning scores would predict assertive and aggressive action tendencies in both sport and daily life contexts.Children who were relatively sophisticated in their moral reasoning described themselves as significantly more assertive and less aggressive in response to conflict situations than did children who exhibited lower levels of reasoning.

Previous research on the link between moral reasoning and moral action has produced modest results (Blasi, 1980). Weak findings have sometimes re- sulted from the assessment of action that is only ambiguously moral or action that is only remotely connected to the reasoning structure with which it is suppos- edly related. The significant findings of the current study may reflect the moral clarity of the action tendencies or the conceptual congruence between Haan's formulations of moral structures and the definitions of assertion, aggression, and to a lesser extent, submission. Assertion is congruent with the construction of moral balances that are neither egocentric nor naively altruistic; in contrast, aggression is difficult to reconcile either with equity or naive altruism, but is consistent with egocentrism.

Submission is less clear in its relation to the moral structures. Reasoning and


submission scores were positively correlated, though their relationship appeared to be weaker and less consistent than other moral reasoninglaction tendency relationships. The moderate positive correlations may reflect the fact that the most morally mature children in the study were reasoning at the accommodative phase of development, a moral phase that is certainly consistent with Deluty's description of submissive action tendencies. It should also be remembered that the SCATS submission subscale failed to correlate with teachers' ratings of children's behaviors and, consequently, caution should be exercised in interpre- ting this result.

It is not possible to interpret these results as a direct test of the relationship between moral reasoning and action tendencies because the latter were self- reported. However, in light of Deluty's (1984) behavioral validation of the CATS and the significant correlation of SCATS subscales with teachers' evaluations of children's behavior, the present study can be viewed as offering indirect evidence of consistency between interactional morality and behavioral tendencies. Minimally, the results suggest more direct tests involving behavioral observations are warranted.

Group Differences

A second question explored in the present investigation was how the vari- ables of gender and school level influenced moral reasoning and action tendencies.

Moral Reasoning. Girls and boys did not differ significantly in their sport or life moral reasoning. This is consistent with the lack of gender differences in moral reasoning reported by Haan et al. (1985).

Most researchers do report age-related changes in moral reasoning. In the current study, though the means generally conformed to such expectations, analyses did not reveal any significant school-level differences in either sport or life moral reasoning scores. The chronological age span of study participants may have been too narrow.

Action Tendencies. Gender and school-level differences in response to both the CATS and SCATS generally supported Deluty's (1979, 1981, 1983, 1984) results. Gender differences pointed to males as more aggressive and less submissive across both contexts, patterns that clearly conform to gender-role stereotypes in our culture. Deluty's mixed results for the Assertion subscale, with girls sometimes scoring higher than boys, were duplicated in the present study: Females scored higher than males, but significantly so only on the CATS. Perhaps assertiveness in daily life requires a greater degree of dialogical skill-which may be more congruent with girls' than boys' gender development (Huston, 1983)-than is necessary in the sport realm.

Grade level made a significant difference for Physical Aggression in both sport and daily life contexts and for Assertion in sport. Deluty (1984) also found an increase with age in Aggression, but interpreted this finding as idiosyncratic. In light of the present investigation and other aggression literature suggesting age-related changes (e.g., Parke & Slaby, 1983), a developmental approach to the study of aggressive tendencies needs to be raised as a critical issue. Are some developmental stages, phases, or periods more conducive to aggressive tendencies than others?

The finding that Assertion tendencies decreased with age in the sport

12 / Bredemeier

context was surprising. One explanation may be that the age range represented in the study coincides with a time when many children are becoming increasingly involved in adult-organized youth sports. As children move from the more un- structured play of elementary school to the more competitive and structured play of youth leagues, there is less opportunity for children to negotiate their interactions (Coakley, 1980); similarly, the increased emphasis on winning in youth sports subordinates personal expression to power relations, thus allowing for aggression and submission more readily than assertion. Additional research will be needed to investigate the relationship between involvement in more competitive sport and decreases in assertion.

References

Alberti, R.E., & Ernrnons, M.L. (1971). Your peqect right: A guide to assertive behavior. San Luis Obispo, CA: Impact.

Bateson, G. (1955). A theory of play and fantasy. Psychiatric Research Reports, 2, 39-51. Blasi, A. (1980). Bridging moral cognition and moral action: A critical review of the

literature. Psychological Bulletin, 88(1), 1-45. Bredemeier, B.J. (1978). The assessment of reactive and instrumental athletic aggression. In

Proceedings of the International Symposium of Psychological Assessment in Sport (pp. 136-145). Netanya, Israel: Wigate Institute for Physical Education and Sport.

Bredemeier, B.J. (1985). Moral reasoning and the perceived legitimation of intentionally injurious sport acts. Journal of Sport Psychology, 7 , 110-124.

Bredemeier, B.J., & Shields, D. (1984a). Divergence in moral reasoning about sport and life. Sociology of Sport Journal, 1, 348-357.

Bredemeier, B.J., & Shields, D. (1984b). The utility of moral stage analysis in the under- standing of athletic aggression. Sociology of Sport Journal, 1, 138-149.

Bredemeier, B.J., & Shields, D. (1986a). Athletic aggression: An issue of contextual morality. Sociology of Sport Journal, 3, 15-28.

Bredemeier, B.J., & Shields, D.L. (1986b). Moral growth among athletes and nonathletes: A comparative analysis. Journal of Genetic Psychology, 147, 7-18.

Bredemeier, B.J., & Shields, D.L. (1987). Moral growth through physical activity: A structural/developmental approach. In D. Gould & M.R. Weiss (Eds.), Advances in pediatric sport sciences: Vol. 2 . Behavioral issues (pp. 143-165). Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics.

Bredemeier, B.J.L., & Shields, D.L.L. (1993). Moral psychology in the context of sport. In R.N. Singer, M. Murphey, & L.K. Tennant (Eds.), Handbook of research on sport psychology (pp. 587-599). New York: Macmillan.

Bredemeier, B.J., Weiss, M.R., Shields, D.L., & Cooper, B. (1986). The relationship of sport involvement with children's moral reasoning and action tendencies. Journal of Sport Psychology, 8, 304-3 18.

Bredemeier, B.J., Weiss, M.R., Shields, D.L., & Shewchuk, R.M. (1986). Promoting moral growth in a summer sport camp: The implementation of theoretically grounded instructional strategies. Journal of Moral Education, 15, 212-220.

Coakley, J. (1980). Play, games, and sport: Developmental implications for young people. Journal of Sport Behavior, 3, 99-1 18.

Cohen, J., & Cohen, P. (1975). Applied multiple regressionlcorrelation analysis for the behavioral sciences. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.


Corsaro, W.A. (1981). Friendship in the nursery school: Social organization in a peer environment. In S.R. Asher & J.M. Gottman (Eds.), The development of children's friendships. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Deluty, R.H. (1979). Children's Action Tendency Scale: A self-report measure of aggressiveness, assertiveness, and submissiveness in children. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 47, 1061-1071.

Deluty, R.H. (1981). Alternative-thinking ability of aggressive, assertive, and submissive children. Cognitive Therapy and Research, 5, 309-312.

Deluty, R.H. (1983). Children's evaluations of aggressive, assertive, and submissive responses. Journal of Clinical Child Psychology, 12, 124-129.

Deluty, R.H. (1984). Behavioral validation of the Children's Action Tendency Scale. Journal of Behavioral Assessment, 6 , 115-130.

Durkin, J.F. (1984, July). Strategies and contexts in play boundary interactions. Paper presented at the International Olympic Scientific Congress, Eugene, Oregon.

Firth, R. (1973). Symbols public and private. New York: Cornell University Press. Giffin, H.L.N. (1982). The metacommunicative process in a collective make-believe play.

Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Colorado, Boulder. Goffman, E. (1974). Frame analysis: An essay on the organization of experience. New

York: Harper & Row. Goldfried, M., & D'Zurilla, T. (1969). A behavioral-analytic model for assessing compe-

tence. In C. Spielberger (Ed.), Current topics in clinical and community psychology (Vol. 1, pp. 151-196). New York: Academic Press.

Haan, N. (1977). A manual for interactional morality. Unpublished manuscript, University of California at Berkeley, Institute of Human Development.

Haan, N. (1978). Two moralities in action contexts: Relationship to thought, ego regulation, and development. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 36, 286-305.

Haan, N. (1983). An interactional morality of everyday life. In N. Haan, R. Bellah, P. Rabinow, & W. Sullivan (Eds.), Social science as moral inquiry (pp. 218-250). New York: Columbia University Press.

Haan, N. (1986). Systematic variability in the quality of moral action, as defined in two formulations. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 50, 1271-1284.

Haan, N. (1991). Moral development and action from a social constmctivist perspective. In W.M. Kurtines & J.L. Gewirtz (Eds.), Handbook of moral behavior and development: Vol. I . Theory (pp. 25 1-273). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.

Haan, N., Aerts, E., & Cooper, B. (1985). On moral grounds: The search for practical morality. New York: New York University Press.

Hall, E.R. (1986). Moral development levels of athletes in sport-specific and general social situations. In L. Vander Velden & J.H. Humphrey (Eds.), Psychology and sociology of sport: Current selected research (Vol. 1, pp. 191-204). New York: AMS Press.

Handelman, D. (1977). Play and ritual: Complementary frames of metacommunication. In A.J. Chapman & H.C. Foot (Eds.), It's afunny thing, humour (pp. 185-192). Oxford: Pergamon Press.

Huizinga, J. (1955). Homo ludens: A study of the play-element. Boston: Beacon Press. (Original work published in 1944)

Huston, A. (1983). Sex typing. In P. Mussen (Ed.), Handbook of child psychology: Vol. 4. Socialization, personality and social development (4th ed., pp. 387-467). New York: Wiley.

14 / Bredemeier

Hyde, J.S. (1984). How large are gender differences in aggression? A developmental meta-analysis. Developmental Psychology, 20, 722-736.

Maccoby, E.E., & Jacklin, C.N. (1974). The psychology of sex diflerences. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

Parke, R.D., & Slaby, R.G. (1983). The development of aggression. In P.H. Mussen (Ed.), Handbook of child psychology: Vol. 4 . Socialization, personality, and social development (pp. 547-641). New York: Wiley.

Rich, A.R., & Schroeder, H.E. (1976). Research issues in assertiveness training. Psycholog- ical Bulletin, 83, 1081 - 1096.

Romance, T.J., Weiss, M.R., & Bockoven, J. (1986). A program to promote moral development through elementary school physical education. Journal of Teaching in Physical Education, 5 , 126-136.

Shields, D.L., & Bredemeier, B.J. (1984). Sport and moral growth: A structural and developmental perspective. In W. Straub & J. Williams (Eds.), Cognitive sport psychology (pp. 89-101). Lansing, NY: Sport Science Associates.

Shields, D.L.L., & Bredemeier, B.J.L. (in press). Characters in action: Moral development and physical activity. Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics.

Notes

'In the Children's Action Tendency Scale (CATS), Deluty (1979) includes one item that presents a conflict situation encountered in the context of a game. I modified that item to provide a school environment as the context.

2Although all of the CATS aggression responses are reactive in nature, the SCATS includes five instrumental aggression alternatives, due to the prominence of this form of aggression in game and sport settings. Reactive aggression is an injurious act motivated for the sake of the injury itself, while instrumental aggression is an aggressive act motivated for some goal other than that of the injury itself (e.g., intimidation or winning). The relationship between reactive and instrumental aggression has not been investigated for youth sport participants, but Bredemeier (1978) found that college athletes described themselves as more instrumentally than reactively aggressive in the sport realm.

3The physical nature of sport, together with constraints inherent in the sport structure, make opportunities for physically aggressive acts more prevalent than opportunities for nonphysically aggressive acts. For this reason, the SCATS Aggression subscale presented more physical aggression altematives and fewer nonphysical aggression altematives than the CATS Aggression subscale.

Appreciation is extended to Maureen Weiss, Director of the Summer Sports Camp Program at the University of Oregon, Eugene, to David Shields and Renee Juillerart who collaborated on the data collection, and to Bruce Cooper for assistance with data analysis.

Manuscript submitted: March 16, 1993 Revision received: October 3, 1993

children's moral reasoning and their assertive, …s moral reasoning and their assertive,...

Documents