Trash talking,respect for opponents and good competition

Trash talking, which is the North American term for verbal barbs directed at opponents during a sporting event in order to gain a competitive edge, is widely accepted by athletes and the athletic community as a legitimate part of sport. It is, however, morally indefensible. A simple Kantian injunction against treating opponents merely as objects to be overcome is sufficient to condemn this verbal abuse. Attempts to justify trash talking as a strategic ploy that implies no disrespect are disingenuous in view of the fact that its effectiveness depends on opponents' being offended by it. Nor can we defend trash talking as enhancing the goal of athletic competition, since the ability to verbally abuse opponents and remain impervious to their abuse are extraneous to the athletic excellence that contests are designed to measure. Attempts to deflect criticisms by partially immunizing sport from moral scrutiny are implausible. With few exceptions, we judge actions in sport by the same moral standards that we use in any other context. Moreover, the view that neither trash talking nor other actions in sport are fit subjects for strict moral scrutiny is inconsistent with the often-heard claim that sport promotes moral development.     

Nietzsche,competition and athletic ability

The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between Friedrich Nietzsche's notion of the agon (Greek for contest) and the construction of athletic ability. In ‘Homer's contest’, Nietzsche claims that the ancient Greek agon was a contest that included only the most qualified competitors battling each other for honour and victory. Nietzsche seeks to restore the agon in contemporary society. Nietzsche believes that contests have lost this agonistic meaning since they are no more than contrived competitions between underqualified opponents. I am extending the discussion to the domain of sport. If we stage an agon reminiscent of Greek antiquity, we could have a genuine competition between the most qualified athletes.     

Matters Olympic and Paralympic

Over the past several years, I have been arguing that nature sports such as surfing, backcountry skiing, and mountaineering are best described as sports in which athletes interact dynamically with natural features rather than compete with other humans. This article is part of a larger attempt to trace the implications of that view. Specifically, I consider the relationship between nature sports and competition. To this purpose, I address three separate, but related topics: First, I reply to Leslie Howe’s article, ‘On Competing Against Oneself, Or, I Need to Get a Different Voice in My Head’, in which she argues that there is a version of self-competition that is central to nature sports. Second, I argue that adapting nature sports to fit into formal competitive frameworks is problematic because, when we do so, the focus shifts from athletes interacting with natural features to athletes using natural features to outdo other athletes. And third, I argue that nature sports may seem competitive because the interaction between humans and natural features produces a type of intensity that is very similar to the intensity produced in competition. I argue further that because nature sports can produce this intensity in an environment that is not based on competition, they present an important alternative to traditional sports.     

Revisiting Competitive Categories: A Reply to Royce

In this article, I respond to the criticisms that Richard Royce has made of my theory of competition in Sport, Ethics and Philosophy. While I find some of his attacks misplaced, a number of his criticisms address key difficulties to which I offer clarification and defense.     

The great transition: A process view of history and its implications

The collapse of confidence since the nineteenth century, and the turbulence which has followed, are incorporated in an historical model describing the development of western civilization. It suggests that they are threshold symptoms of a forthcoming transition of profound importance and without earlier parallel. Three different, and not mutually exclusive perceptions of the transition are provided. There is no suggestion that we can anticipate what will happen, but recent rapid advances in communications and information technologies are likely to play a critical formative part in a development which will involve both a growth in collective self‐consciousness and the conceptual expansion of our minds.     

Lesions of the ventral hippocampus, but not the dorsal hippocampus, impair conditioned fear expression and inhibitory avoidance on the elevated T-maze

The hippocampus has been suggested to be involved in spatial (or configural) memory and also in the inhibition of certain response or goal alternatives. An increasing number of anatomical, physiological, and behavioral studies indicate that the hippocampus is functionally heterogeneous along the dorsal-ventral axis. Identification of distinct behavioral roles for the dorsal (DH) and ventral (VH) hippocampus may resolve differences between the various theoretical accounts of hippocampal function. The present study examined the effects of electrolytic lesions restricted to the DH or VH on fear-conditioned freezing, passive avoidance on the elevated T-maze (ETM) test of anxiety, and general activity in male Sprague-Dawley (Charles-River derived) albino rats. We found that rats with lesions of the VH, but not DH showed reduced freezing to both context and tone conditioned stimuli (CS). Rats with VH lesions also showed a reduced latency to emerge from the enclosed arm on trials 2 and 3 of the ETM (indicating reduced anxious behavior), while having no effect on the latency to escape from the open arms on trial 4. There were no differences in activity between the groups. These results indicate that the VH and DH are differentially involved in passive avoidance on the ETM and conditioned freezing to context and tone CS. We suggest that the VH may be specifically involved in modulating goal-oriented, defensive behavior expression through hypothalamic and amygdaloid connections.     

Importance of considering testosterone-cortisol interactions in predicting human aggression and dominance

A novel "field" study recently published in Aggressive Behavior found that individual differences in baseline testosterone concentrations were positively correlated with endorsement of political aggression and that baseline cortisol concentrations were negatively correlated with self-reported aggression among Palestinian boys living in Gaza. Here, we discuss recent evidence indicating that testosterone and cortisol interact to predict competitive, aggressive, and dominant behaviors and urge researchers collecting both hormones to perform and report analyses that formally test for such interaction effects.     

Extending the Theory of Realistic Conflict to Competition in Institutional Settings: Intergroup Status and Outcome

Abstract

The authors analyzed the extent to which the Theory of Realistic Conflict can be extended to institutional settings in which groups are not actively involved in decisions but are passive targets of decisions taken by an institutional authority (the rector). A negative interdependence between the in-group (psychology) and a high- or low-status out-group (engineering versus nursing) was established by an institutional authority (the rector). The competition (induced by the rector) was beneficial (an increase in the budget previously invested in the faculty) or detrimental (a decrease in the budget) for the in-group. The results confirmed that competition affects mutual attitudes, images, and behaviors of groups even if the groups are passive targets of decisions that the institutional authority makes. Moreover, competition—regardless of whether beneficial or detrimental—deteriorated images of and attitudes toward high-status out-groups. In contrast, competition improved images and opinions about low-status out-groups, but only in the loss condition.     

Developing work–family balance through conflict management*

An often‐neglected perspective is that work–family incompatibilities are not only intrapersonal role conflicts but also typically involve interpersonal conflicts. This study adopts an episodes approach and uses the theory of cooperation and competition to understand the interaction that promotes resolving work–family conflict incidents. Two‐hundred and four Chinese dual‐career parents each described a specific work–family conflict incident and responded to specific questions to code the interaction. Structural equation analyses indicated that cooperative goals facilitated constructive controversy that in turn promoted high quality resolutions, strong relationships, and confidence in the future of their work and family lives.