The influence of coaches' violence on youth female athletes from the viewpoint of social influence process

Abstract

Many junior high and high school students participate in school sport clubs. Despite the fact that educational corporal punishment is prohibited, some sports club coaches use violence during training. The purpose of this study was to clarify the use of violence by coaches in school sports clubs and discuss these findings from the viewpoint of aggression and its social influence. A Corporal Punishment Questionnaire was given to female college students (N=596) aged 19-21, who majored in physical education, asking them about their past experiences in junior high and high school. The results were as follows : 1. About one third of the subjects reported that coaches had used violence in school sports clubs. Most of these coaches were male (85%) high school teachers running volleyball or basketball clubs. It was pointed out that their aggressive behavior was aimed at achieving more team practices and wins. 2. The reasons for the violence were temas losing games, poor play, or poor understanding of the game. Because some students wanted to achieve greater sports success, they allowed themselves to be corporally punished (40%). Ultimately, however, they were glad to graduate from school and retire from the sports clubs. 3. Subjectes who had experienced sports-related violence anticipated that they would use corporal punishment themselves in their future coaching. They believed that corporal punishment would improve students' performance. Violent coaching seems to be linked with sports success. If we wish to prohibit violence and corporal punishment in sports practice, it is necessary to think more deeply about the true prpose of sport.