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Attitudes and doping: a structural equation analysis of the relationship between athletes' attitudes, sport orientation and doping behaviour

Overview of attention for article published in Substance Abuse Treatment, Prevention, and Policy, November 2007
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  • In the top 25% of all research outputs scored by Altmetric
  • High Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age (93rd percentile)

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1 blog
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7 X users

Citations

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119 Dimensions

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192 Mendeley
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Title
Attitudes and doping: a structural equation analysis of the relationship between athletes' attitudes, sport orientation and doping behaviour
Published in
Substance Abuse Treatment, Prevention, and Policy, November 2007
DOI 10.1186/1747-597x-2-34
Pubmed ID
Authors

Andrea Petróczi

Abstract

For effective deterrence methods, individual, systemic and situational factors that make an athlete or athlete group more susceptible to doping than others should be fully investigated. Traditional behavioural models assume that the behaviour in question is the ultimate end. However, growing evidence suggests that in doping situations, the doping behaviour is not the end but a means to an end, which is gaining competitive advantage. Therefore, models of doping should include and anti-doping policies should consider attitudes or orientations toward the specific target end, in addition to the attitude toward the 'tool' itself. The aim of this study was to empirically test doping related dispositions and attitudes of competitive athletes with the view of informing anti-doping policy developments and deterrence methods. To this end, the paper focused on the individual element of the drug availability - athlete's personality - situation triangle. Data were collected by questionnaires containing a battery of psychological tests among competitive US male college athletes (n = 199). Outcome measures included sport orientation (win and goal orientation and competitiveness), doping attitude, beliefs and self-reported past or current use of doping. A structural equation model was developed based on the strength of relationships between these outcome measures. Whilst the doping model showed satisfactory fit, the results suggested that athletes' win and goal orientation and competitiveness do not play a statistically significant role in doping behaviour, but win orientation has an effect on doping attitude. The SEM analysis provided empirical evidence that sport orientation and doping behaviour is not directly related. The considerable proportion of doping behaviour unexplained by the model suggests that other factors play an influential role in athletes' decisions regarding prohibited methods. Future research, followed by policy development, should incorporate these factors to capture the complexity of the doping phenomenon and to identify points for effective anti-doping interventions. Sport governing bodies and anti-doping organisations need to recognise that using performance enhancements may be more of a rational, outcome optimizing behaviour than deviance and consider offering acceptable alternative performance-enhancing methods to doping.

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X Demographics

The data shown below were collected from the profiles of 7 X users who shared this research output. Click here to find out more about how the information was compiled.
Mendeley readers

Mendeley readers

The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 192 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.

Geographical breakdown

Country Count As %
Portugal 2 1%
United Kingdom 2 1%
Spain 2 1%
Indonesia 1 <1%
Germany 1 <1%
United States 1 <1%
Unknown 183 95%

Demographic breakdown

Readers by professional status Count As %
Student > Master 28 15%
Student > Ph. D. Student 26 14%
Researcher 21 11%
Student > Bachelor 20 10%
Student > Doctoral Student 15 8%
Other 39 20%
Unknown 43 22%
Readers by discipline Count As %
Sports and Recreations 47 24%
Psychology 32 17%
Medicine and Dentistry 20 10%
Social Sciences 20 10%
Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology 5 3%
Other 19 10%
Unknown 49 26%
Attention Score in Context

Attention Score in Context

This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 15. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 01 December 2016.
All research outputs
#2,157,937
of 23,597,497 outputs
Outputs from Substance Abuse Treatment, Prevention, and Policy
#89
of 671 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#5,167
of 78,736 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Substance Abuse Treatment, Prevention, and Policy
#4
of 4 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 23,597,497 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done particularly well and is in the 90th percentile: it's in the top 10% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 671 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 11.6. This one has done well, scoring higher than 86% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 78,736 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 93% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 4 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one.