Abstract
The purpose of this study was to examine the degree to which adolescent athletes' moral behaviour in sport is dependent on their perfectionistic orientation and their gender. Female (n = 123) and male (n = 132) adolescent club basketball players (Mage = 17.44 years, SD = 1.03) completed the Sport Multidimensional Perfectionism Scale-2 (Sport-MPS-2: Gotwals & Dunn, 2009) and the Prosocial and Antisocial Behaviour in Sport Scale (PABSS; Kavussanu & Boardley, 2009). Cluster analysis conducted upon the participants' Sport-MPS-2 subscale scores revealed that the sample could be categorized into three theoretically meaningful groups: Pure Personal Standards Perfectionists, Mixed Perfectionists, and Non-Perfectionists (see Gaudreau & Thompson, 2010). A 2 (gender) × 3 (perfectionism group) factorial MANOVA then tested for main and interaction effects across the four PABSS subscales. Regarding prosocial behaviour towards opponents, mixed perfectionists and pure personal standards perfectionists showed higher levels than non-perfectionists and females showed higher levels than males. Regarding prosocial behaviour towards teammates, the same pattern of differences emerged across the perfectionism subtypes, but only among females. Regarding antisocial behaviour towards opponents and antisocial behavior towards teammates, the mixed perfectionists showed higher levels than the pure personal standards perfectionists and the non-perfectionists, but only among males. In discussion we relate the present cluster solution to perfectionism research and theory; speculate why mixed perfectionists and pure personal standards perfectionists would report different levels of antisocial behaviour, but similar levels of prosocial behaviour; and explore why these differences would be exhibited among one gender, but not another.
