Aggression in Sports

Carra Johnson was born and raised in Chula Vista and graduated from Eastlake High School in 2009.  She attended the University of Southern California (the real USC), where she earned a bachelor’s degree in Human Performance and competed on the women's rowing, rugby, and lacrosse teams.  She then earned an M.A. in Physical Education from Prairie View A&M University (TX), where she also worked as a strength and conditioning graduate assistant.  In May, Carra earned an M.S. in Sport and Exercise Psychology from California State University, Long Beach while also working as a substitute teacher in Los Angeles and Long Beach.  She will be moving across the country at the end of the month to pursue a Ph.D. in Sport and Exercise Psychology at West Virginia University, where she will also be teaching two classes in the sport psychology department and working as a performance psychology consultant with ROTC.  Her current career goals include any combination of becoming a university professor, conducting research on anger and aggression amongst athletes, and working with athletes, teams, and other individuals as a performance psychology consultant.  In her free time, she enjoys running, yoga, reading, walks with family and friends, the occasional meditation session, and eating dessert. 

Carra will be presenting research she conducted as part of her recent master’s thesis, which focuses on the attitudes of high school coaches regarding athletes’ immoral behaviors.  Hostile aggression, or aggression that is not a legal part of the sport being played, is prevalent at every level of athletics today.  This type of aggression in sport has immediate implications for the athletes, teams, and coaches involved as well as far-reaching consequences that influence young spectators and society as a whole.  In attempting to reduce the frequency of hostile aggression in sport, it is important to consider coaches’ attitudes, behaviors, and interactions with their athletes as they have a strong influence on athletes’ behaviors and decisions.  The goals of the current study are (1) to develop an understanding of the characteristics and experiences of coaches that are associated with moral disengagement tendencies, (2) to determine which sports are associated with higher levels of moral disengagement among high school coaches, and (3) to assess whether coaching education programs have an effect on moral disengagement levels.