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.