Game Reasoning and Interactional Morality

Abstract

Sport is a world set apart from the world of everyday life. We contend that entering sport involves a moral transformation in which egocentricity is redefined as appropriate. The result is a form of “bracketed morality.” Reflection on this bracketed morality is called game reasoning. In the first section of the paper, Haan's model of interaction morality is employed to structure a theoretical elaboration of game reasoning, the dynamics of which are illustrated by basketball players' reasoning about athletic aggression. Empirical evidence obtained from 100 high school and college basketball players and nonathletes complements the qualitative section. Through paired t tests and repeated-measures Analyses of Variance, we demonstrated that moral reasoning about sport is more egocentric than moral reasoning about everyday life and that males, in particular, diverge in their life-sport reasoning patterns.

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