Moral Disengagement in the Legitimation and Realization of Aggressive Behavior in Soccer and Ice Hockey

The aim of the present study was to verify that the level of tolerance for aggression is higher in a collective context than in an individual context (polarization effect), and to test the association between moral disengagement, team and self-attitudes toward aggression, and tolerance and realization of aggressive acts in Swiss male soccer and ice hockey. In individual or collective answering conditions, 104 soccer and 98 ice hockey players viewed videotaped aggressive acts and completed a questionnaire, including measures of the perceived legitimacy of videotaped aggression, of the teammates, coach, and self attitudes toward transgressions (modified TNQ), of the moral disengagement in sport (modified MDSS-S), and of self-reported aggressive behavior. A multilevel analysis confirmed a strong polarization effect on the perception of instrumental aggression, the videotaped aggressive acts appearing more tolerated in the collective than in the individual answering condition. Using a structural equation modeling, we found that the moral disengagement, which mediates the effects of perceived coach and ego attitudes toward transgressions, correlates positively with the tolerance of hostile aggression within teams, and with the level of aggressive acts reported by the participants. (C) 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.