Violence In Sports Essay Research Paper For

Violence In Sports Essay, Research Paper

For the purpose of this assignment our group chose to do research concerning violence in sports. I wanted to know whether violence in sports lead to aggressive behaviours in people. I found scholarly journal articles to help answer my question.

Journal of Sport and Social Issues:

?Spectator Enjoyment Of Aggression In Intercollegiate Hockey Games?

The study wanted to find out whether the hockey players aggression on the ice is directly related to the spectator enjoyment of the game in the crowd.

The researchers had made a few predictions prior to commencing their study. They predicted that the male spectators would enjoy more acts of aggression than would the female spectators. They had also imagined that the younger sport fan would like more aggressive acts in the game than would the older spectators.

To test their predictions they surveyed the spectators at the hockey games and used the actual game statistics. The researchers attended 16 intercollegiate hockey games at one Midwestern University. Thirty-two subjects per game were randomly selected to complete a short survey concerning their age, gender, and their interest in the game. In total 654 people (248 females and 376 males) ranging in age from 8-82yrs participated in the study. They used both non-aggressive indexes such as shots on goalie, team saves, and home and away scores, and aggressive indexes such as penalty minutes, and power plays to measure the level of spectator enjoyment.

The study yielded surprising results. Contrary to their predictions, enjoyment of the games was directly related to the aggressiveness of the game for both men and women. Also, the researchers did not find any strong differences between younger to older spectators. They equally enjoyed aggressive acts in sports.

International Sports Journal:

?The Verbal Aggression Of Sport Spectators: A Comparison of Hostile and Instrumental Motives?

This study set out to find the motives behind verbal aggressions in sport spectators. They defined 2 aggressions called hostile and instrumental. Hostile aggression is referred to as the actions that are motivated by anger. The goal is to harm another person. Instrumental aggression is intended to harm another person but the goal is to achieve a result such as a victorious game.

They predicted that spectators who viewed an aggressive sport would report higher levels of aggression than those who viewed a less aggressive sport.

The researchers went to six intercollegiate basketball games and 2 intercollegiate hockey games. 402 participants were randomly selected at the end of the game to complete a questionnaire about their reactions to the game and the extent to which the participant had acted verbally aggressive toward the opposition and/or officials.

This study resulted in favourable conclusions for the researchers. They found that those whom witnessed the least aggressive sport reported the least amount of aggression, and the most amount of aggression came from those whom watched a more aggressive sport. They concluded that by watching aggressive sports like hockey where the players are checking, high sticking, and fighting each other, leads to particularly high levels of hostile aggression mostly targeted at the officials of the game.