Abstract
Introduction: Moral behavior is always a big issue in sports. Bandura's moral disengagement theory is the primary framework to understand athletes’ moral behaviors in sports in recent years. Though studies showed that moral disengagement is negatively related to prosocial behaviors and positively related to antisocial behaviors, there are research gaps to explore the variables between moral disengagement and moral behaviors. Therefore, the purpose of the present study was to examine the relationship between moral disengagement and antisocial behaviors, and the moderation role of social identity. Methods: Participants were 265 open-level university basketball, football and handball male athletes. Data were collected in season and moral disengagement, anti-social behaviors, and social identify were measured. The hierarchical regression was used to analyze the data. Results: Results showed that athletes’ moral disengagement was positively related to their antisocial behavior toward opponents and toward teammates, respectively. Results also indicated that social identity negatively moderated the relationship between moral disengagement and antisocial behavior toward opponents and toward teammates, respectively. For those who were low social identity athletes, the positive relationships between moral disengagement and antisocial behavior (both toward opponents and toward teammates) were strong. In contrast, the relationships between moral disengagement and antisocial behavior (both toward opponents and toward teammates) were weak for those who were high team identity athletes. Conclusion: The results support the effect of moral disengagement on antisocial behavior, and also provide the evidence for the decreasing effect of social identity. Implications for physical educator and future study are discussed.