Relationship of sports and aggression
IS sport and aggression inseparable? Trough the turn of the century, sports has been internationally visible and valued by large segments of the world population with its basic purpose universally accepted.
The value of sport as a means of unifying people has long been recognized and observed in communities as they rally behind their home team, where pride and sentiment especially when they are “winners” exceed to what is rationally expected.
In sports, aggression and the violence that it leads to have become an associated part of the game that sometimes as innocent as the names chosen for a team like warriors, titans, jaguars, etc. often convey an impression of aggression. Likewise, sports pages from newspapers come up with words like clobber, stomp, destroy, annihilate, romp etc. that connotes a similar meaning of aggression.
Aggression in sports goes beyond words, because it includes the attitudes and behaviour of athletes, coaches, and spectators. Domi- nance in competitive sports occurs through aggression, in one form or the other depending on the nature of competition that makes sport and aggression inseparable. What must be considered in the relationship of sports and aggression is the distinction on how it is manifested, in an acceptable form or that which is not acceptable.
In contact and combative sports for example, aggressive play is considered an essential for success, because it is linked with the athletes’ attitude and behaviour like competitiveness and persistence, which is valued by coaches and athletes in contact and non- contact sport alike as a necessary characteristic for success.
As in the athlete’s personality characteristic, aggressiveness leads to certain behaviours, and as long as these behavior falls under what is socially acceptable, then aggression is considered to be acceptable, however, when aggression leads to acts of violence that exceeds to what is acceptable, problems always exists, this is the issue of concern in the relation between sport and aggression.
Sports Psychology