Justifications of aggressive behavior in contact and semicontact sports

The present study examines the extent to which athletes in selected contact and semicontact sports report agreement or disagreement with the use of in tentional acts of aggression during competition. Eighty-five male athletes responded to the Bredemeier Athletic Aggression Inventory-Short Form and th e Mintah Huddleston Aggression Justification Inventory. Overall results rev ealed no significant differences between subjects' use of hostile and instr umental aggression in sport and between the hostile and instrumental justif ications provided for such behavior. Results indicated that contact-sport p articipants disagree more with the use of instrumental aggression than semi contact-sport participants.