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From the Crowd to the Competition: White Collegiate Athletes’ Response to Racism Directed at a Teammate of Color

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Abstract

News sources consistently report stories about issues of racism in athletics. Despite the prominence of these reports, few empirical studies have investigated how observers of racism respond to perpetrators in sport settings. In the present study, perpetrator of racism, type of sport played, and interracial contact on a team were analyzed to understand how White collegiate athletes respond to racism directed at a teammate of color. White collegiate athletes reacted to two vignettes and rated possible responses when witnessing a teammate of color experiencing racism during competition. Results showed that cooperative sport collegiate athletes endorsed more direct action against racism from an opposing player than individualistic sport collegiate athletes. Also, greater interracial contact on an athlete’s team related to decreased endorsement of redirection against racism from opposing fans. Further, athletes expressed significantly greater willingness to report racism from opposing fans than from an opposing player. Implications for how White collegiate athletes respond to racism during competition are discussed.

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Notes

  1. The pre-test used the two vignettes in the current study as well as a third which described noticing an opposing White player avoid shaking hands with a teammate of color after competition. Pre-test participants reported that this vignette was unrealistic, so it was not used in the study. Beyond vignettes, we also asked pre-test participants to evaluate possible responses. If a response received a mean score above 3.00 on a five-point scale from 1 (I can’t see this happening) to 5 (I can definitely see this happening) for both the vignettes involving an opposing player and opposing fans, we included the response for the subsequent study. This criteria resulted in losing one low immediacy/low involvement, two high immediacy/low involvement, one high immediacy/low involvement, and one high immediacy/high involvement responses based on pre-test participants’ evaluation.

  2. While the alpha for report responses was satisfactory for the opposing player, (α = .70), the alpha did not reach an acceptable level for the opposing fan responses (α = .65). Because responses across both conditions were within subjects, all report responses for the opposing player and opposing fans were analyzed separately.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, USA

    Colin A. Zestcott

  2. Psychology Department, Macalester College, St. Paul, MN, USA

    Kendrick T. Brown

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  1. Colin A. Zestcott
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  2. Kendrick T. Brown
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Correspondence to Colin A. Zestcott.

Additional information

This research was supported by a grant from the McKnight Haan Ludwig Summer Research Fund at Macalester College.

Appendix A

Appendix A

Racism Vignettes

Vignette involving opposing player:

“During a game/meet/match, you see an opposing White player address one of your teammates of color by using a racial slur.”

Vignette involving opposing fans:

“During a game/meet/match, you and a teammate of color notice White fans from the opposing team in the crowd promoting stereotypes about your teammate of color in the form of signs and cheers, as well as addressing your teammate of color with racial slurs.”

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Zestcott, C.A., Brown, K.T. From the Crowd to the Competition: White Collegiate Athletes’ Response to Racism Directed at a Teammate of Color. Curr Psychol 34, 634–643 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-014-9276-8

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