Dr Kate Kirby School of Psychology UCD Presentation.pdf

How Sport Psychology Can Inform
Anti-Doping Strategies
Dr. Kate Kirby
School of Psychology, University College Dublin
Funded by World Anti-Doping Agency/Irish Sports Council
UCD School of Psychology
Scoil na Síceolaíochta UCD

Introduction
• Doping in sport has attracted increased research
interest from psychologists in recent years
• Such research has tended to investigate correlates
or predictors of athletes’ attitudes to doping and/or
their intent to engage in doping
• These studies have typically measured demographic,
motivation & sportspersonship/moral variables

Linking doping research and
practice
• Doping controls have traditionally relied on
detection-based methods to deter athletes from
doping
• Prevention-based methods have historically offered
little beyond the provision of information about
avoiding testing positive and outlining the dangers
& consequences of doping (Dimeo, 2011)
• BUT...by identifying social & personality variables
associated with permissive doping attitudes,
intentions or behaviours we can:
– (a) identify the factors that predict doping and thereby
detect ‘at-risk’ athletes
– (b) develop evidence-based doping prevention methods

Study 1
What are the psycho-social predictors of
athletes’ attitudes to doping
Variables measured
• Demographic & sporting
background, doping experience
• Psychological variables
including confidence,
perfectionism, motivation,
coaching climate
• Correlated with Performance
Enhancement Attitudes Scale
Demographics
• N = 375 (64% m; 36% f)
• Mean age = 23.8 yrs
• 16 countries, 27 sports
• International: 46.3%
National: 20.7%
Regional: 33%
• 49.3% hardcopy
50.7% online

Significant predictors of athletes’ attitudes to
doping, using multiple regression analysis
Predictors B SE B β
Ego orientation 0.27 .08 .16*
Gender -3.33 1.01 -.17*
Knowing dopers -3.11 0.98 -.16*
Coach criticism 0.39 0.92 .22**
Team sport -3.14 1.01 -.16*
R 2 = .02. *p

What does this mean in practical terms
• The combination of
variables that predicted
the most permissive
doping attitudes were:
• High ego orientation
• Male
• Personally knowing other
doping athletes
• Having an overtly critical
coach
• Being a non-team sport
athlete

Study 2: A qualitative investigation of
elite athletes’ doping experiences
• Rationale
– Dissatisfaction with proportion of variance explained
in study 1 (80% still unexplained).
– No study had attempted this before with competitive
athletes, yet such information is vital to inform
evidence-based doping prevention methods.
• Aims
– Explore in greater depth the individual, social and
contextual factors that influenced athletes’ doping
decisions

Study 2: Qualitative Research
Research design:
• Semi-structured interviews with
athletes who admitted to doping
for the purpose of illegally
enhancing performance
Participants:
• N = 5 (All male; 2 Irish, 2 US;
1 Scandinavian)
• Age 29-45 years
• All pro or Olympic level
• 3 road cyclists
• 1 mountain biker
• 1 weightlifter

Summary of themes identified as
significant in athletes’ doping decisions
Factors influencing doping decision
1. Internal factors 2. External factors 3. Doping deterrents
a. Consideration and justification
a. Pressure
a. Internal factors
b. Psychology and personality
b. Ease of access
b. External factors
c. Personal circumstances
c. Sources of influence within sport
d. Sources of influence outside sport

Practical Implications of Findings – Part 1
1. Morality and ethical concerns were the most
prominent factors in athletes’ decision-making and
acted as the strongest deterrent to doping
“...their upbringing and their moral character and you know,
what their value system is, that can be the crux of whether
or not they decide to dope”
– Anti-doping programmes should move beyond provision
of information, to teaching of moral decision-making
2. ‘Critical incidents’ that led to doping included:
injury, time off from sport, sudden drop in performance, new
training environment & removal of coaching role model
– Identifying these ‘doping tipping points’ in the careers of
elite athletes should inform the timing of preventative
interventions

Practical Implications of Findings – Part 2
3. In a team sport environment, the desire to
remain part of the group was a strong incentive to
dope
“It’s this almost implied pressure to participate in the same
kind of illegal and unethical activities as everyone else
because if you don’t, it calls into question your eh, your
ability to be trusted, I guess, by your team-mates.”
– Pressure from teammates to dope was not direct, but
implied
– Teaching athletes how to withstand such forms of
pressure is likely to be an effective preventative measure
– When the athletes were caught doping, these team
‘bonds’ quickly disappeared

Practical Implications of Findings – Part 3
4. Potential health consequences of doping were not
serious concerns for athletes in their initial decision
to engage in doping
“The health consequences I didn’t worry about at all”
– Threat-based deterrence methods are less effective than
ones which emphasise development of self-control &
willpower to resist the temptation to cheat
5. Athletes often did not consider the likelihood of
testing positive when deciding to dope
“I told myself, you’re not going to get caught anyway so why
bother worrying about it”
– On its own, the detection-based system of drug testing &
sanctioning is an ineffective deterrent for some athletes
– Preventative measures which go beyond provision of
information and are based in social science research also
have an important role to play in the fight against doping.

Future research directions
• Research with high performance coaches on knowledge,
attitudes and intentions with respect to promoting anti-doping
• Data will be collected through online questionnaire.
• If you have access to a database of coaches, your help with
distributing the questionnaire would be much appreciated!
For more information please contact
kate.kirby@ucd.ie
Research Team: Dr. Kate Kirby, Prof. Aidan Moran, Dr. Suzanne
Guerin