Social representations and doping in sports. A qualitative study among elite French and Canadian athletes
Doping in sports is a phenomenon which is widely publicized in the media, which shocks the public and brings about negative public opinion. Not only that, it casts doubt on all sports performance. Doping, however, has an ancient history (Laure, 2004) which goes beyond the sports framework and which brings about questioning of the relationship between the body, pharmaceuticals, and performance. The aim of this study is thus to examine the various stances and the social representations in regards to doping. Participants were 70 high level athletes (males and females), members of French and Canadian national sports teams (competing in various individual and group sports), who took part in semi-structured interviews on the subject of doping. Social representations (Moscovici, 1961, Jodelet, 1989, Doise, 1992) served as a theoretical and methodological framework for this study. This framework was chosen as it allows for descriptive as well as structural analyses of the participants’ stances. Results from the descriptive analyses indicated the presence of five categories of discourse. That is, that the definitions of doping are based on the notions of danger (natural and artificial), of the dispossession of the self and of performance, the effects on the body and transgressions of the law. The explanations regarding the causes of doping appear both at the societal and individual levels. The reasons attributable to refusing to engage in doping are biological, moral, medical and technical. The consequences of doping are both paradoxical as well as ambivalent. In the end, an ensemble of nuances, in terms of degree, nature and form of doping emerge. This phenomenon appears to be relatively complex and a differentiated amongst athletes. A structural analysis indicates two levels of representations in sports doping: (1) a subject / outside subject opposition, and (2) an ethical traditional / moral immanent opposition both of which characterize the universe of high level sports. Finally, it seems that despite negative trends like doping, the core ideals still have their place in modern-day elite sports.