The “selves” in doping: A multi-country study

Summary: 

The purpose of this project is to investigate the relationship of narcissism and self-compassion on indices related to doping behavior, while accounting for potential underlying mechanism of these two self-concepts. To achieve this, a quantitative survey design will be employed to investigate the influences of narcissistic and compassionate selves in risks factors for doping among national and international level athletes.

The project also examines the psycho-behavioral explanations of how narcissism contributes to doping (i.e., via indulgence in sport fantasy) and how self-compassion helps prevent doping (i.e., via enhanced coping). In addition, data will be collected from athletes from the United Kingdom, China, and the United States, enabling cross country comparisons.

This research provides insights into psychological characteristics that may influence doping behavior by identifying risk and protective factors for doping, which is one of the key social science research agenda priorities (Boardley et al., 2021).

Furthermore, by taking a multi-country approach, implications for practice and deterring doping in both western (e.g., United Kingdom, United States) and eastern (e.g., China) countries are explored.

This study addresses the following research questions:

• How does athletes’ personal characteristics of vulnerable narcissism, grandiose narcissism, and compassionate mind (i.e., self-compassion, fears of compassion) interactively predict risk factors for intentional doping?
• To what extent resilient coping, fear of failure, and athletes’ perception of deflated reality in sport explains the relationship between narcissism and doping and between compassionate mind and doping?
• How does athletes’ fantasy proneness, perception of deflated reality in sport interplay to predict risk factors for intentional doping, and to what extent resilient coping can moderate such an interplay?
• Are there cross-country differences in the highlighted person-level risk and protective factors (e.g., narcissism, compassion, fantasy proneness) and psycho-behavioral mechanisms (e.g., resilient coping, fear of failure, deflated reality) in the context of doping?

Methodology

We implemented a cross-sectional data collection in the UK, China, and US during January – October 2023. Four hundred ninety-nine high- performing athletes (Mage = 21.89 years; 54.5% male; 58.4% team sports; 80% competing at national level or above) from the three study countries completed psychometric measures assessing the relevant study variables. We performed a series of multi-group (i.e., UK, China, US) multi-variant (i.e., two doping risk factors) cluster- controlled (i.e., adjusting for athletes’ coach/team membership) path models for hypothesis testing. For the cost-effectiveness of the project, we used combined data collection to enable two work packages (WPs) examining RQs 1-2 and 3, respectively (RQ4 was examined in both WPs).

Results

Vulnerable narcissism was consistently associated with greater doping risks in all study countries especially when grandiosity was low compared to high. The protection of a compassionate mind (i.e., high self-compassion, low fears of compassion) in resisting doping appeared greater when narcissistic grandiosity co-existed in athletes. Resilient coping appeared to the most consistent mechanism explaining narcissism’s risk and compassion’s protection in all study countries. 

High resilient coping consistently contributed to reduced doping moral disengagement regardless of the level of deflated reality in sport. Resilient coping also protected against sport fantasy-related doping willingness, especially when an athlete suffers deflated reality. A combination of low sport fantasy proneness, low sense of deflated reality, and high resilient coping predicted the lowest doping willingness among athletes from all study countries.

Significance for Clean Sport

The project provides support to usefulness of a self-compassionate approach for anti-doping. When designing and delivering a compassion-focused program for doping prevention, incorporating an element of resilient coping to facilitate coping with adversities and tackling potential fantasy-reality discrepancies in athletes may be particularly beneficial. Future psychology-based clean sport education and anti-doping programs should consider not only existing value-based intervention strategies that tackle morality issues but also enhance athletes coping thus addressing intention proxies of doping behaviors.