times officials misinterpret rules to give one team an unfair advantage or put extra time on the clock to give one team another chance to win. Thus, the theory suggests the need for tighter social controls, including more investigative scrutiny and harsher penalties on athletes and sports organizations which violate the rules of contest fairness. They punish rule violators and emphasize the importance of following the rules through a ‘law and order orientation’. This approach gives the idea that people who violate rules lack moral character, intelligence and that good, normal, healthy people wouldn’t be ignorant as to violate the rules. This is the traditional structural-functionalist approach to deviance and it has usually been ineffective
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According to this approach, no behaviour and no person is inherently deviant. Instead, deviance is defined as through a labeling process in which some behaviours are identified as bad, undesirable or unacceptable on the bases of the rules made by the people in positions of power (Coakley 1994). Labeling affects the person labeled. Labels tend to intensify and exacerbate the behaviours that essentially prompted the label. Labeling theorists believe that no one wants to acquire a label that they themselves consider to be an inaccurate assessment of their character (e.g. that one ‘chokes’ at critical points of a game or competition). Numerous persons attempt to negotiate their role- identity. However, the distribution of labels is often determined by others such as media personnel, fans and coaches so players cannot control what’s bestowed upon them. Labeling theory also states that when an individual continually receives negative feedback from significant others and then begins to accept the negative label, a self-fulfilling prophecy has been created. This self-fulfilling prophecy occurs when people take to heart the labels bestowed upon them and perceive themselves the way others labeled them. Thus, labeling is an important factor in the creation of a deviant identity. By treating the individual as a deviant, the individual comes to see oneself as a deviant. For instance, athletes who are constantly referred to as ‘chokers’ or ‘losers’ might internalize such a label, lose self- confidence and thereby perform poorly or look to doping as a mechanism to better cope with the pressure situations. The relativist emphasize that in order to control deviance in sport, the distribution of power in sport has to change so that athletes are no longer victims of the labeling process used by those exerting power in
According to this approach, no behaviour and no person is inherently deviant. Instead, deviance is defined as through a labeling process in which some behaviours are identified as bad, undesirable or unacceptable on the bases of the rules made by the people in positions of power (Coakley 1994). Labeling affects the person labeled. Labels tend to intensify and exacerbate the behaviours that essentially prompted the label. Labeling theorists believe that no one wants to acquire a label that they themselves consider to be an inaccurate assessment of their character (e.g. that one ‘chokes’ at critical points of a game or competition). Numerous persons attempt to negotiate their role- identity. However, the distribution of labels is often determined by others such as media personnel, fans and coaches so players cannot control what’s bestowed upon them. Labeling theory also states that when an individual continually receives negative feedback from significant others and then begins to accept the negative label, a self-fulfilling prophecy has been created. This self-fulfilling prophecy occurs when people take to heart the labels bestowed upon them and perceive themselves the way others labeled them. Thus, labeling is an important factor in the creation of a deviant identity. By treating the individual as a deviant, the individual comes to see oneself as a deviant. For instance, athletes who are constantly referred to as ‘chokers’ or ‘losers’ might internalize such a label, lose self- confidence and thereby perform poorly or look to doping as a mechanism to better cope with the pressure situations. The relativist emphasize that in order to control deviance in sport, the distribution of power in sport has to change so that athletes are no longer victims of the labeling process used by those exerting power in