We do not live in a single value world, rather in multiple value worlds which collide and overlap, thus sending multiple messages, some in agreement and some conflicting. Developmental psychologist Uri Bronfenbrenner (1979, 1992, & 2005) developed a language of ecologies to describe how particular contexts and their processes overlap, influence, and are influenced by individual members. This is apparent in the world in which young adults live today with the influence of sport. According to Bronfenbrenner, an individual lives within multiple microsystems, each of which has proximal processes (language, interactions, and practices) by which members interact and learn the lessons of the ecology (i.e., play, love, math, reading, care, competition, or teamwork). Each microsystem is influenced by its macrosystem of overarching patterns of several microsystems. Thus, football is a microsystem in the macrosystem of NCAA athletics. Yet sport, with the rise of 24 hour ESPN, may be more than a microsystem. Sport and the structure of sport have taken on a new character with self-perpetuating motivations and thus may no longer be set apart (Tenenbaum, 2007) for individuals live in sport all the time. This is certainly true with athletes who have shown lower scores on moral reasoning tests. If sport is becoming a macrosystem, then similar scores should appear in other microsystems. The purpose of this study is to examine whether sport has taken on the characteristics of a macrosystem by examining moral reasoning across groups and settings.
Method:
315 subjects completed a demographic form and the HBVC Inventory. Qualitative follow-up interviews were then conducted among groups to determine themes.
Analysis/Results:
A MANOVA (Wilks’ Lambda=.430, p<.005) was conducted with Scheffé post hoc tests to determine differences. Athletes scored lowest (p <.001). After controlling for athletics, Sport Science majors scored equivalently (p<.001) to athletes in terms of lower moral reasoning scores. Qualitative interviews revealed that athletes and Sport Science majors spent similar amounts of time thinking, watching, reading, exercising, and discussing sport.
Conclusions:
These findings may suggest that those involved in sport (whether participating or studying) are operating in a milieu differently from those who are not. They are functioning in an all-pervasive structure or meaning-making system that does shape and has shaped how they reason morally. Future studies should look at sport as a macrosystem and how it influences other microsystems such as sport consumption, aggression, sexism, and gender roles.