Role of Resistive Self-Regulatory Efficacy and Moral Disengagement in the Relationship between Values and Aggressiveness in Athletes

This study examined whether athletes’ values are related to aggressiveness through self-regulatory mechanisms. Athletes (N=225) completed four questionnaires to assess their values, resistive self-regulatory efficacy, moral disengagement and aggressiveness. The results of structural equation modeling showed a good fit to the data and illustrated that: (a) The status and moral values were indirectly associated with aggressiveness through the mediating roles of resistive self-regulatory efficacy and moral disengagement, (b) Status values was negatively associated with resistive self-regulatory efficacy and positively with moral disengagement, whereas moral values was positively associated with resistive self-regulatory efficacy and negatively with moral disengagement, and (c) Resistive self-regulatory efficacy was negatively linked with moral disengagement, which in turn was positively associated with aggressiveness. The finding that resistive self-regulatory efficacy and moral disengagement mediate the values-aggressiveness relationship offers new insight into the psychological mechanisms underlying aggressiveness. This study also provides empirical support for Bandura’s social cognitive theory of moral thought and action whereby resistive self-regulatory efficacy inhibits transgressive behavior through the mediating influence of moral disengagement. This suggests that athletes’ values like status and moral may be significant predictors of these self-regulatory mechanisms.