Athlete, coach, and relational influences on athletes’ attitudes, intentions, and willingness to dope.

Abstract

To address calls for anti-doping research to go beyond individual-focused approaches, we employed generalizability theory to explore the extent to which thoughts about doping reflected differences (a) between athletes averaged across coaches (“athlete components”), and (b) in how athletes’ thoughts varied in response to different coaches (“relational or social components”). In Study 1 (263 athletes), using a fully-crossed design, athletes’ attitudes, intentions, and willingness to dope all comprised significant athlete and relational components. In Study 2 (192 athletes), using a nested design, athletes’ attitudes, intentions, and willingness to dope all comprised significant athlete and social components, and these were consistently related to athletes’ perceptions of their coaches’ attitudes to doping. These findings demonstrate that athletes’ thoughts about doping partly reflect stable characteristics and that they also vary in response to different coaches. Generalizability theory may, therefore, provide a useful framework to examine individual and social factors within anti-doping research.