Work

Perceived Team Ethical Climate and Athletes’ Prosocial Behavior: Roles of Sport Friendship Quality and Moral Disengagement

Year: 2026

Type: article

Abstract: Purpose: Helping teammates and helping opponents involve different interpersonal demands, but how perceived team ethical climates relate to these behaviors through relational and moral-cognitive processes remains unclear. Guided by Ethical Climate Theory and Social Cognitive Theory, we examined associations of caring, rules-based, and self-interested climates with both behavioral targets through sport friendship quality and moral disengagement. Methods: A cross-sectional survey included 583 Chinese athletes aged 16-24 years from 66 training teams. Self-report data were analyzed using latent-variable structural equation modeling, jointly examining three correlated climate dimensions, a second-order sport friendship quality factor, moral disengagement, and separate teammate- and opponent-directed outcomes. Analyses accounted for team clustering and adjusted for age, sex, training experience, competitive level, region, and sport discipline. Indirect associations and between-climate contrasts were evaluated using 5000 whole-team bootstrap resamples. Results: Caring and rules-based climates showed positive total associations with both outcomes, whereas self-interested climate showed negative associations. Caring climate showed positive indirect associations through friendship quality alone and through the specified friendship quality-moral disengagement pathway; the pathway through moral disengagement alone was not supported. Self-interested climate showed negative indirect associations through friendship quality, moral disengagement, and their specified sequence. For rules-based climate, only the indirect pathway through moral disengagement was supported. Friendship quality was positively associated with both outcomes and negatively associated with moral disengagement. Between-climate contrasts supported differences in friendship-related and serial indirect associations for both teammates and opponents. Supported direct associations were positive for caring climate toward teammates and rules-based climate toward opponents, and negative for self-interested climate toward opponents. Conclusion: Perceived team ethical climates showed distinguishable patterns of association with prosocial behavior involving friendship experiences and moral self-regulation. The findings identify candidate processes for prospective research on prosocial conduct within and beyond athletes' teams. The cross-sectional design precludes conclusions about temporal ordering or causal mediation.

Source: Psychology Research and Behavior Management

DOI: 10.2147/prbm.s650985