Abstract

The aim of this study was to determine whether mental toughness levels of athletes engaged in the elite-level team and individual sports in Ankara and Erzurum were predictors of moral disengagement in sports. The sample of the study consisted of randomly-selected 515 athletes who were actively engaged in sports in their clubs in 2017. The “Moral Disengagement in Sport Scale-Short” (MDSS) developed by Boardley and Kavussanu (2008) and adapted to Turkish by Gülpınar (2015), and the “Sports Mental Toughness Questionnaire” (SMTQ) developed by Sheard et al. (2009) and adapted to Turkish by Pehlivan (2014) were used as data collection tools. In the analysis of the data, frequency, percentage, Pearson Product-Moment Correlation Coefficient and linear regression analysis were utilized.

As a result of the analyzes, no significant difference was found between confidence, one of the sub-scales of the SMTQ, and moral disengagement, but there was a weak positive significant relationship between the constancy and control sub-scales. As a result of the linear regression analysis, it was found that moral disengagement predicted the constancy and control sub-scales significantly and explained 4% and 3% of the variance, respectively, but it was found that the confidence sub-scale was not predicted significantly.

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