The Moral Frameworks and Foundations of Contesting Orientations.

According to contesting theory (Shields & Bredemeier, 2011), people conceptualize competition either through a metaphor of partnership or war. These two alternate metaphors suggest differing sociomoral relationships among the participants. In the current study of intercollegiate athletes (n = 610), we investigated the two approaches to contesting in relation to formalist and consequentialist moral frameworks (Brady & Wheeler, 1996) and individualizing and binding moral foundations (Haidt, 2001).

Predictors of Moral Disengagement in Sport.

Researchers have made productive use of Bandura's (1991) construct of moral disengagement (MD) to help explain why sport participants deviate from ethical ideals. In this study of intercollegiate athletes from diverse sports (N = 713), we examined MD in relation to other character-related variables: empathy, moral identity, moral attentiveness, and contesting orientations. We also examined whether moral attentiveness conforms to the pattern of "bracketed morality" found in moral reasoning (Shields & Bredemeier, 1995) and moral behavior (Kavussanu, Boardley, Sagar, & Ring, 2013).