Sportsiology » Morality http://www.sportsiology.com Public Sociology in a Sports Arena Wed, 22 Feb 2012 17:30:12 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 I’ll be doggone http://www.sportsiology.com/?p=83 http://www.sportsiology.com/?p=83#comments Wed, 30 Mar 2011 02:45:24 +0000 Sociology Sports Girl http://www.sociologysportsgirl.com/wordpress/?p=83 Several weeks ago, Michael Vick and Peyton Hillis were making the rounds on ESPN. This always brings people back to Vick’s legal issues and the behavior that led to them. As I didn’t get a chance to weigh in at the time, I’d like to share a perspective on what led to his behavior. When a new member is being inducted into a particular society, they are socialized by the people around them. The begins with their significant others–the people who are important to them–but eventually move to the larger community and during the formative years, the peers become the most important agency of socialization. If an individual’s family, either buys into the same values and behaviors as a child’s peers or has not instilled opposing perspectives into the child, the child is likely to allow their peers to socialize them to the values of that sub- or counter-culture.

Additionally, the theory of differential association states that people learn criminal behavior from associating with people who participate in it. Not only do you learn the actual skills required to participate in criminal activities but you also learn the moral code that allows you justify the deviant acts. If one’s exposure to these alternative moralities is greater than the exposure to more conventional moralities, the individual is likely to participate in these types of activities. I don’t know enough about Vick’s family life to say definitively, but it would seem to me that a strong moral foundation would have made what he did almost impossible.

]]> http://www.sportsiology.com/?feed=rss2&p=83 0 And the moral is… http://www.sportsiology.com/?p=79 http://www.sportsiology.com/?p=79#comments Wed, 16 Mar 2011 02:11:54 +0000 Sociology Sports Girl http://www.sociologysportsgirl.com/wordpress/?p=79 According to Emile Durkheim, discipline is the first element of morality. I am reminded of this as I have read these various stories which bring to light elements of morality in college and professional sports. We know that discipline is an important part of sports—all athletes have to have the dedication to put in the work to improve their craft—but is morality? Should programs that emphasize sports also emphasize morality? Interestingly enough, the second element of morality for Durkheim is the attachment to social groups, also described as altruism. As a member of a team, professional athletes at least have the attachment necessary to work with their social group, and many of them, additionally have the altruism that leads them to start and contribute to charities. Yet, too often, we hear stories about their lack of morality. From Miguel Cabrera telling the police to shoot him,toCappie Pondexter tweeting a derogatory term for Japanese people (among other tweets) and even Jim Tressel, and his failure to notify Ohio State’s compliance officer about the potential violations of his students.  Are athletes moral? Do we expect them to be? Or are they, in Lawrence Kohlberg’s stages of moral development, at stage 2 (individualism) where all the good they do is for the benefit of themselves, rather than for others?

And then we have Brandon Davies dismissed from Brigham Young University’s basketball team for failure to comply with the school’s honor code. He admitted to his teammates that he had premarital sex even knowing that the result would be his dismissal. Should we wish for more of sports to uphold this level of morality? Or should we find our moral compasses in other places?

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