Influence of Doping on Behavioural Dispositions of Athletes in Tertiary Institutions in Southwest, Nigeria

The utilization of banned substances by the athletes is a cheating approach and criminal act to sports practice. It increases unhealthy and anti-social behaviours in sports. It is against this background that this paper examined the behavioural dispositions of athletes within sport setting. A descriptive research design was used for the study. A sample of 510 elite athletes drawn from nine tertiary institutions in three states in Nigeria- Lagos, Ogun and Osun was selected using purposive, sample and stratified random sampling techniques. The researchers constructed A 21 – item questionnaire to gather relevant information for the study. The instrument was validated and had a reliability coefficient of 0.79. Frequency counts, percentages, means scores, standard deviation and t-test were used to analyze the data collected. Findings of the study revealed that most athletes who were involved in doping felt uncomfortable when defeated in sports contest, afraid to approach their coaches and exhibited various anti-social behaviours after sports competitions. However, there was no significant difference between the athletes who used doping substances and those who did not use in their behavioural dispositions. The behaviours exhibited were recognized by the coaches and rebuked accordingly. It was therefore recommended that sports handlers should educate their athletes on the psychological problems of doping to achieve competitive advantage. Keywords:performance – enhancing substances, behavioural dispositions, elite athletes, doping, coaches