BODY-CONTACT SPORTS: CATHARSIS OR REINFORCEMENT?

DAVID KLEIX

Michigan State University East Lansing. Michigan. U.S.A

(Rrcriwd 1 Ocrohu 1973)

As the collection of morbidity and mortality data becomes more sophisticated. the contri- butions of football, ice hockey, and other body-contact sports to death and injury in young males are becoming more widely recognized. It is now clear that these sports produce not only a high rate of minor bruises and sprains but a previously unsuspected (because pre- viously undocumentable) rate of death and long-term disabilities.

The proponents of these sports acknowledge the costs in death and injury but offer two arguments in defense of such contests. The most common one-the “playing fields of Eton” argument+laims that body-contact sports develop and reinforce. both in partici- pants and spectators. attitudes and values (e.g.. fair play. team loyalty. achievement- orientation, the stoical endurance of stress) that are valuable in “real life.” The second defense-based on the concept of catharsis-argues that these contests drain off, under controlled conditions. a “natural” violence and aggression that might otherwise find expression in less “wholesome” ways.

The opponents of body-contact sports argue that neither participants. spectators. nor

society in general receives any value for the price paid in morbidity and mortality. They agree with the proponents that such contests may reinforce certain values and attitudes.

but they argue that these values and attitudes are clearly dysfunctional in a modern, bureaucratic society.

Each side brings to this debate nothing more than speculation. But the mounting evi- dence of morbidity and mortality arising from body-contact sport makes research in this area of more than academic interest. It is the purpose of the present paper to sketch out some research perspectives and directions.

THE SOCIETAL FUNCTIONS OF RECREATION

In every society. a major function of recreation is to promote and enhance the skills, attitudes. and values that are useful in the productive sector of the society. Games and sports. although they ostensibly provide a relaxation from the demands ofeveryday reality, nevertheless constitute a microcosm in which the very kinds of behavior necessary or use- f~11 in daily life are encouraged and rewarded.

In ancient times. the Olympic games in Greece fostered an athleticism useful in a low- technology society, and the gladiatorial contests in Rome rewarded the kind of aggression that was in keeping with Roman imperialism. In more recent times, in less industrialized societies, games and sports were often directly “production-oriented.” Corn-husking con- tests. sheep-dog trials, turkey-shoots, and rodeos encouraged and rewarded skills that had functional value in the economy. So do the log-rolling and tree-felling contests still popular in lumbering areas. If some of these activities involved risks. the risks were those inherent in the “real world” that the activities reflected.

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X6 D. KLEIN

In a modern, industrialized society characterized by a complex technology-. games and sports do not usually teach directly the wide variety of specialized skills required in the productive sector. But they are generally intended to teach the attitudes. values. and re- sponses that the society regards as necessary or useful. Thus. games may teach or encour- age verbal facility, skills in interpersonal interaction. abstract reasoning. long-range plan- ning and strategy, cooperation and teamwork. or the graceful acceptance of either victory or defeat.

To determine the extent to which body-contact sports-especiahy suctl high-injury sports as football and ice hockey--contribute to the teaching of socially useful values. atti- tudes. and responses. we must first examine the values that are current in Western society and, indeed. in modern industrialized societies the world over. And even a superficial exa- mination reveals that these are in a state of rapid transition from what we might call “folk” or “traditional” values to the “bureaucratic” values characteristic of modern. technoiogi- tally advanced societies.*

What are some of the basic differences between these two value systems’.’ The folk value system prized and rewarded individual achievement. independence. self-sufficiency, and autonomy. But modern society offers higher rewards for teamwork and for skill in group interaction. The folk society rewarded competitiveness. even the most rugged variet!.. But today cooperation and negotiation are more functional. and aggressive competitton is camouflaged where it is not actively discouraged. The folk society rewarded the risk-taker, the man who, in the face of uncertainty or adversity, made split-second decisions that turned out right. But one of the major functions of a modern bureaucracy is to minimize risk-taking and to eliminate the need for split-second decisions by means of rational. long- range planning. The folk society prized physical rather than intellectual solutions to pro- blems and regarded the “doer” as superior to the “thinker.” Modern society has little use for the man with “the strong back and the weak mind.” The folk society admired the stoi- cal response to pain and discomfort. Modern society attempts to minimize both in order to maximize efficiency and productivity.

In short, whatever our personal views on the matter. modern technological society is becoming less individual-oriented, less competitive, less openly aggressive. less riskful, and more concerned with long-range planning, cooperation. and the reduction of continuous uncertainty and risk. And in the process of this transition, some of the folk values have become not merely obsolete but positively dysfunctional.

Have competitive sports reflected these changes? To an extent they have. The replace- ment of baseball by football and hockey as favorite spectator sports may reflect. among other things, a shift in popular interest from the individual star to the team as a group. (The prominence of a few “stars” to the contrary notwithstanding. football and hockey seem to produce fewer outstanding individuals and more outstanding teams than base- ball.) Football-at least in the United States-has come to rely far more on sophisticated team strategy and far less on brute strength. And both players and management have become concerned with the reduction of injury. Protective clothing has been developed and improved rapidly within the past two decades. In the United States. management has

* Selecting the terms that most appropriately describe this dichotomy has presented a problem that the reader is invned to share. In the United States, “frontier”and “post-industrial” would convey my meaning. and yet what 1 intend by the former of these terms is equally applicable to European countries which have not had frontier conditions for many centuries. A number of the terms familiar to sociologists (“folk-urban.” “traditional-bureau- cratic.” and “grm~i,2schaft-g~selisfhaft”l convey my meaning to some extent. In choosing. perhaps arbitrarily, to USC “folk-modern.” I do not intend to exclude the other terms.

Body-contact sports: catharsis or reinforcement? s7

promoted Astroturf-a synthetic surface for football fields-in part because it promised to reduce injury, and professional footballers-presumably the quintessence of “tough- ness”-are protesting because that promise has not been fulfilled. In these ways, then. foot- ball is keeping pace with trends in the larger society.

But in general the changes in football and in other contact sports have been fewer and less pronounced than the changes in society as a whole-than the changes in the nature of the work scene, for example. And hence these sports continue to offer both participants and spectators opportunities, direct and vicarious, for violence. competitiveness. physical aggression. risk-taking, and other kinds of “excitement” that are less and less a part of the productive sector of modern society.* Indeed, the long-term consistent growth of the Sun- day football-watching television audience may be in part attributable to the long-term consistent reduction of excitement, competitiveness, and variety in most people’s jobs. Obviously this is not intended as the only tenable hypothesis. A well-planned game may be likened to a well-produced play-with the added fillip that the outcome is unknown. Yet some people prefer football, others theatre-and the differences between these two groups would be interesting to identify.

Two questions, then, remain to be answered: (1) To whom are aggressive body-contact sports most attractive? If, in fact, these sports can offer participants or spectators experiences that hark back to the folk society, are some kinds of people more likely than others to need such experiences? and (2) What are the consequences of participation, active or passive, in these sports?

To my knowledge, neither question has been answered with acceptable empirical data, and consequently speculation still prevails. It is widely proclaimed (though perhaps less widely believed), for example, that football is irresistibly attractive to every red-blooded American boy (or even every red-blooded hyphenated-American boy) and that partici- pation in competitive body-contact sports promotes good health, longevity, sportsman- ship, and numerous other desiderata. It is claimed, too, that the person who spends an afternoon or evening watching two teams in violent confrontation on ice or Astroturf derives a number of psychic benefits and gratifications from the process.

All of these statements are, of course, amenable to scientific testing. Obviously not every boy of an age and body build appropriate for football or hockey feels drawn to these sports. Even of those who are called, relatively few are chosen for regular team play. And, although injuries are numerous, not all players sustain them. Indeed, some coaches believe that a few “accident repeaters” account for most of the injuries. although Brown [1971], in a not altogether satisfactory study, found no relationship between personality character- istics and injuries among high-school players.

It would be useful, therefore, to know something of the social and psychological charac- teristics of those who are motivated to play, those who are selected, and those who sustain injury. Similarly, a study of both participants and spectators might determine, for example, whether the experience serves to discharge aggressive tendencies or to reinforce them.

* It is possible. of course. that some variety of violence is desired by every Western society in all periods of history. Haddon er al. [1964]. in speculating about the reasons why accidents are generally accepted and toler- ated in American society, point to “the psychological roles of accidents and other forms of violence in our culture today. Just as risk-taking provides a psychic reward in our culture. accidents may conceivably provide our society with satisfactions related to those derived from human sacrifice. Roman circuses, public executions. bear-baiting, boxing, football. sadistic motion pictures and television programs. and other socially condoned forms of public violence and bloodletting.” Football and hockey, of course. often combine the violence and the bloodletting in a single spectacle.

xx D. KLEIN

There has been much discussion of sport as an alternative to war and crime. but ver! little of it has been supported by scientifically acceptable evidence.

SOME HYPOTHESES ABOUT THE SELECTION OF

PARTICIPANTS

To the extent that football, hockey. and other body-contact sports provide rewards for the exercise of folk values. one would expect them to attract as participants young males who have been socialized to these values rather than to those that are characteristic of

a modern, bureaucratized society. Such individuals welcome opportunities for aggressive competition, for demonstrating physical prowess. for the stoical endurance of pain. and for a physical rather than intellectual approach to problem-solving. The!, tend to derive more gratification from physical risk-taking than from the more abstract risk-taking in- volved in applying to a highly selective college or enrolling in an especiall), rigorous elec- tive course. or applying for a challenging job. Moreover. they tend to be impatient with activities that involve an initial period of conspicuous ineptness or a life-long period of slowly improving skill-as in tennis. sailing. or golf. for example.

This description is not entirely hypothetical. It derives in large part from observations and research on traffic-law violators and on adults engaged in such high-risk recreations as snowmobiling and sky-diving [Carlson and Klein. 1970: Klein. 1971: Carlson and Klein, 1971: Waller and Klein. 19721. These individuals tend to have low-status. routine occupations, and the relatively low levels of education and income associated with such occupations. They tend to be uncomfortable with abstractions and impatient with long- range planning. A generalized impulsivity not only tends to characterize many areas of

their lives but also may be responsible for many of the recreational injuries they sustain. In interviews, they tend to favor punitive solutions to problems of law and order and to problems of child-rearing. and many of them own several guns (especially hand guns. which have no function in hunting). If these characteristics are related to aggression. this group seems more aggressive than groups not involved in high-risk recreation.

The attraction that high-risk activities hold for people with these characteristics may

be explained in two ways. First, it is possible that their work. because it is routine and dead- end. offers no opportunities for satisfying their needs for excitement. variety. control of the environment, expression of individuality. feelings of autonomy. or the functional use of aggression-and that hence they seek out in their recreational activities satisfaction of these needs, which other individuals can satisfy to an adequate extent in their everyday work situations. Secondly, it appears that for many of these individuals their recreational activities provide prestige and social acceptance that are not attainable through their occu- pational work. Hence one might conclude that they are virtually forced into high-risk ac- tivities in their search for otherwise unattainable social rewards-a motivation that may be especially strong in members of minority groups.

If these findings can be extrapolated to high-school football or hockey players. one might expect them to be impulsive. aggressive. impatient with or antagonistic to academic work. eager to demonstrate physical prowess (including “toughness” and the ability to in- flict and endure pain), and unable to achieve prestige and recognition in other areas of their lives. Some of these characteristics would lead one to anticipate a high injury rate regardless of regulations or environmental safeguards aimed at reducing injuries.

On the other hand. it would be irresponsible to suggest that most or all football players display these characteristics. Research has consistently disproved the still widespread

Body-contact sports: catharsis or reinforcement’? X9

notion that male students can be dichotomized into two groups: (1) the nonathletic. physi- cally unprepossessing intellectual and (2) the muscular athletic star who is barely com- petent intellectually. On the contrary. intellectual. social. and physical skills tend to corre- late rather highly in the individual-and there is no doubt that students who have been socialized to modern rather than to folk values are also attracted to football. Indeed. the bright student who is highly attuned to the responses of others (a bureaucratic rather than a folk type of response) may decide to “go out for the football team” in order to convince his peers (or perhaps a college admissions officer) that he is a “well-rounded individual” and not just a “brain’‘-or because football offers him. in contrast to his long-range intel- lectual goals, direct and immediate pay-off for physical skills. and. in contrast with his soli- tary studies. the opportunity to be an active member of a group.

If. then. football teams are composed. perhaps bimodally. of “folk” and “modern” players, a longitudinal study comparing injury rates between the two types (or between teams consisting preponderantly of one type or the other) might be of value far beyond its immediate utility in providing guidelines for injury-reduction in competitive body-con- tact sports. It might. indeed, make a major contribution to our understanding of risk-seek- ing behavior and injury in general.

SOME HYPOTHESES ABOUT CONSEQUENCES

The consequences claimed for participation in body-contact sports are diffusely positive but almost entirely undocumented. Some eight years ago. in a provocative paper. Haddon (1966) asked for evidence to support the claims that participation in this kind of physical activity promoted good health. longevity. and similar benefits later in life. but little work has been forthcoming.

What research exists is neither voluminous nor. in general. impressive. but the prepon- derance of the findings offer no support whatever to the contention that body-contact sports (especially football) promote longevity. Polednak and Damon [1970] found that a population of major athletes (including football and hockey players) had a shorter life span than minor athletes and non-athletes. Dublin [1932] found that intellectuals. who presumably led more sedentary lives than athletes. outlived them. And the same general findings emerged from the work of Rook [ 19541 and Montoye [1956]. A major deficiency of most of these studies, from the point of view of this paper. is that they disregarded “un- natural” deaths-that is deaths in which risk-taking may have been involved. Rook [I9543 found that the death rate of athletes from war and accidents was somewhat higher than that of non-athletes but the finding is not a strong one.

Research in this area presents no special problems in terms of either methodology or data. A study comparing. for example. injury rates. accident involvements. illnesses. and longevity of males who participated in various types of sport would require relatively little in the way of resources and might produce very valuable findings.

My own conviction. based on psychological. sociological. and anthropological research that has been increasing in both quantity and quality in recent years [see especially Sipes, 19733. is that involvement in body-contact sports. either as participant or spectator, does not reduce the need for what I have termed the folk-society experiences but serves rather to reinforce it. The young man who plays football in order to satisfy his need to discharge physical aggression or to achieve recognition through a display of prowess does not leave the field with these needs satiated. Instead. whatever rewards his behavior has earned for him tend to reinforce such behavior. To document this notion, one need merely observe

90 D. KLLI~.

the very highly aggressive behavior of both participants and spectators in locker rooms and other post-game settings.

But my concern goes beyond the physical risk-taking and the frequency of injury that these reinforced values seem likely to enhance. If participating in football reinforces a physical approach to problems, a feeling that an opposing force is best overcome by super- ior force plus craftiness, a belief that differences or conflicts are most satisfyingly resolved not by negotiations and compromise but in the absolute. zero-sum fashion represented by a final football score, a belief that an external referee is the one to decide what is legal and what is not, one may wonder how well. in a modern. bureaucratic society, such values will serve those individuals in whom they have been reinforced.

Although reliable data are not available. it is my impression. for example, that profes- sional athletes tend to be involved in assault cases more frequently, and that they sustain more off-the-job injuries, than individuals of similar income and status in nonathletic occupations, It may be, moreover. that the competitive ethos regarded as important to the athlete spills over into his driving behavior and that football and hockey players are in- volved in more violations for offensive driving and more crashes than a matched group of non-athletes.

The experience of football players with both the constraints and the ad\,antages of team- work may prepare them well for life in the corporate or governmental bureaucracy. On the other hand, it may be that they are less successful occupationally. maritally, or politi- cally because the style of interpersonal interaction and decision-making learned in football is not functional in the business, political, or other interpersonal relationships character- istic of modern society. In sum, it is conceivable that the kinds of behavior highly prized in football and hockey may lead not only to the orthopedic injuries with which we are immediately concerned but also to a variety of “accidents” later in life. not all of them simply physical.

These speculations must, of course, be sorted out by research. But the careful research investigator will not naively compare participants with non-participants and implicate participation in body-contact sports as the “cause” of any difference he finds. Instead he will recognize that such sports attract different people for different reasons, and he will compare carefully constructed subgroups rather than looking at the population as a whole. He may find, for example, that players who sustain injuries while playing football turn out to be individuals who have sustained a wide variety of mishaps in other areas of their lives [Carlson and Klein, 19701 and that football does not “cause” the injury but merely provides a context in which it can occur.

But if he determines that body-contact sports do not. as many people believe, serve as a harmless channel for the discharge of behavior that might otherwise be discharged in more damaging ways (as, for example. in assault or war) but that they reinforce aggressive behavior by rewarding it, he may raise questions about the rehabilitating effect that such sports are alleged to have on juvenile delinquents and he may conclude that such sports may reinforce in at least some participants a wide variety of behavior that may be far more damaging to themselves and to society than the types of injuries that require immediate medical attention.

REFERENCES

Brown, R. [I9711 Personality characteristics related to injuries in football. Kcscurch Qm-~er/~~ of’thr AAHPER 42(2) 133-138.

Body-contact sports: catharsis or reinforcement? YI

Carlson. W. 1. and Klein. D. [1970] Familial vs. institutional socialization of the young traffic offender. J. Str/crr Rcs. 2 ( I ) 13-25.

Carlson. W. 1. and Klein. D. Cl9713 Behavioral patterns ofsnowmobile operators: a preliminar! report. J. Sq/cr~ Rrs. 3 (4) 1% 156.

Dublin. 1. 1. [I9321 College honor men longer lived. Stat. Bull. Merropolirur~ Lifi Ins. Co. 13 6-7. Haddon. W.. Suchman. E. A. and Klein D. [1964] .-lccitlo~r Rc.scwch. p. IO Harper & Rot\. Haddon. W. [1966] Principles in research on the effects of sports on health. J. .4ru. rued. .-l.\.\. 197, XXC-XXX. Klein. D. [1971] The influence of societal values on rates of death and injur!. J. Strlcr~~ Rc.t 3 (I I 2- 8. Montoye. H. J.. VanHuss. W. D.. Olsen. H.. Hudec. A. and Mahoney. E. [I9561 Stud! of the longc\it! and mo!--

bidiiy of college athletes. J. Am md. .4ss. 162 I 132- 1 134. Rook. A. r19541 An investigation into the loneevitv of Cambridge sportsmen. Br. Mrd. J. 1 773 777 Sipes. R. 6. [ 19733 War. sports, and aggression: an empirical t&t bf two rival theories .Irn. .4~trhro/,o/olisr 75

( 1) 6&86. Waller. J. A. and Klein. D. [ 19723 Society. energy and injury: inevitable triad’? in Rcscwch Diwcrims rorcd

r/w Rrtllrcriorl qfIn/~ry. National Institutes of Health.

Abstract-The increasing recognition of the morbidity and mortality produced b) competitive body-contact sports leads to a reassessment of the benefits alleged to accrue to the participants. Although advocates continue to assert that participation improves both moral character and physical health. there is increasing evidence that for \omc pla!crs it I-emforces aggre\sion. c\acts a severe toll in physical injury, and may produce a general response pattern that is dysfunctional in a modern industrialized society.