A.S. Gonashvili
St. Petersburg State University
 

Keywords: professional sport, values, pilot sociological study, public values, personal values.

Introduction. This article results from pilot sociological study of professional sport values. First, it should be noted that value is a summarized and stable concept of what is desired, which is acquired and gained from experience; it is a tendency of choice and criterion for setting goals and results of an action [1]. According to the definition, in our study the value will be declared in situations, where behavior or action taken to achieve a certain result or goal will demonstrate the very essence of the value and serve as an evaluation criterion for such goal and result. Based on the works of L.I. Lubysheva [2] and fundamental works of N.S. Niyasova [3,4] related to the definition of values in sport and their classifications, we distinguish two categories of values in sport practice: public values and personal values. Public values mean publicly legitimized vision of the image of good and evil, justice, trust, honesty, etc. Personal values are the intrinsic subjective vision of the legitimization, which is expressed in invariant form of the general human experience. Based on this, we distinguish their specific forms in these value categories. Values such as valeological value, entertaining value, international business networking value, and indicator of nation’s potential may be referred to the specific forms of public values in sports. These specific forms are components of public values, because they affect all social institutes in general. Specific categories of personal values include: educational value, value of gaining fame, achievement of the best of his/her physical capabilities, gaining income. This group of values is related to personal, intersubjective qualities of sport practices, which are, undoubtedly, of social importance.

Methods and organization of research. In 2014, from April through June, we conducted the study based on the Resource Center for Sociological and Internet-Studies of St. Petersburg State University. This study included the online-poll of residents of St. Petersburg and Leningrad Region on their attitude to the values in professional sport. We wanted to determine the value-related orientations with respect to sports among people, directly engaged in professional sport, and those, who are not related to professional sport. In our study, the group of respondents related to professional sport included the people, engaged in professional sport (professional athletes), and those, who stopped doing sports at the moment of study, but are still related to professional sport not as athletes, but, for instance, as trainers. Our sample was random and included one hundred persons, with 22 respondents being professional athletes, 27 respondents who used to do professional sports, but stopped at the moment of study due to some reasons; 47 persons not engaged in professional sports at all, and 4 respondents being uncertain about their relation with professional sports. The respondents defined their statuses of professional athlete or non-athlete on their own, but we verified their choice of particular group of respondents (professional athletes, former athletes and non-athletes) by asking probing questions in the questionnaire, which showed us the subject of earnings (wages) from engagement in sports.

We believe, professional sport is associated with the concept of earnings, if the athlete earns income from engagement in sport, then we will distinguish him/her as professional athletes. The respondent groups stipulated above were distinguished by this principle. Further, with the view of optimizing the data perception, we consolidated the above-mentioned groups into two larger groups: the first group of respondents related to professional sport (professional athletes and former athletes, trainers/ instructors, etc.), and the second group of respondents who have nothing to do with professional sport (non-athletes, and four respondents, who could not define themselves). According to gender analysis, the first group was mostly made of male respondents, while the second group - of female ones. Hence, we can assume, that men in the region under study are more integrated in the sports practice, compared to women.

Our poll included eleven questions, where first six questions were on the declared subject of the study, of which the first three questions were main ones, and other ones referred to so called “head records”, including the information about sex, age, etc. In the first question the respondents were to rate the functions of sport and give them from one through five points. 1 referred to the least important functions, and 5 - to priority ones. In results presentation we treated as positive the respondents’ answers within the range of 4 to 5, and as negative the answers within the range of 1 through 3; and presented the positive answers of the respondents in percentage.

Results and discussion. Having analyzed the respondents’ answers, we may conclude that professional sport in the examined region is treated as a favourable practical activity, where, healthy lifestyle (78%), educative specifics (71%) and achievement of the best of one's capabilities (76%) are of special importance. It may be also noted that the respondents' attitude to sports practice from pragmatic viewpoint as a way to gain fame (47%) and as a source of income (28%) is evidently ambiguous: according to respondents' answers, professional sport is of positive nature, however, the pragmatics of gaining fame and earning money in professional sport are also important. We consider this fact as a potential ability to change the people’s attitude to professional sport to negative, because giving priority to profit and fame in sport may ultimately make sport just an instrument for personal gain. This contradicts the philosophy of sport and harmony in sport, which is described in the Olympic Charter and promoted by the IOC. While analyzing the respondents' answers, we discovered the following: respondents’ answers both in the first (athletes and former athletes) and in the second (non-athletes) groups indicate that professional sport performs a variety of functions, and almost all of its functions and values are equally important. However, functional pluralism of professional sport leads to different perception of professional sport. For instance, the first group of athletes and former athletes give from 3 to 5 points to the function of professional sport as a way of international cooperation, demonstrating the difference of opinions about this function among the athletes. The situation is different in the second group (non-athletes), who mostly give 4 points to the same function of sport. Hence, political engagement of professional sport is assessed mostly by people, not engaged in sports, rather than those with sports experience. In addition, based on the respondents’ answers, it can be noted that those being engaged or those who used to be engaged in professional sport see the function of sport as a source of income in a more positive light than those not engaged in professional sport.

The second question of our questionnaire was: "Do you think it is acceptable for an athlete to achieve result/win in one of the following ways?" Four answers were offered: training, use of pharmaceuticals (including banned performance-enhancing drugs/doping), collusion with organizer or competitor (bribery), violation of game/contest rules. Athletes, former athletes and non-athletes mostly answered that training is a necessary condition for achieving a good sports result or winning - 90%. As for pharmaceuticals (including doping), athletes and former athletes were more tolerant regarding using them to achieve good results in sport or win, compared to non-athletes, who think that doping is absolutely unacceptable. However, athletes and former athletes mostly think that an athlete may resort to doping in rare instances. As for bribery option, all the respondents agreed in the opinion that it is unacceptable in sports competitions. 88% of respondents stuck to this viewpoint. Respondents were almost completely unanimous on the issue of permitting the violation of rules too. 72% respondents think that it is unacceptable to violate the rules in professional sport. Summing up the answers to these questions, we may state that not every method is acceptable to achieve good results or win in professional sport. Namely, doping, violation of game rules or any collusion or bribe are treated mostly negatively, which is a good sign of still existing morals in professional sport, which have been declared by Pierre de Coubertin, and which is typical for sport in general. According to the answers in both of the groups of respondents, one may note that professional sport is characterized by the chosen methods for achieving good results or winning.

The third question referred to the main concepts of professional sport in the respondents' opinion. They were to choose three most important concepts they associated with professional sport out of eight concepts such as: “honesty”, “victory”, “result”, “participation”, “benefit (money, profit)”, “fame”, “health”, “discipline”. In both of the groups the respondents prioritized the concept of “result”, followed by “health”, “victory”, “honesty”, “discipline”, “participation”, “benefit (money, profit)”, “fame”. Hence, in the region under study the respondents consider professional sport as a positive phenomenon associated with self-development of human bodily and spiritual qualities, which, in the author’s opinion, is a positive sign, which is opposed to consumerism and hedonism and leads to spiritual and bodily development of high moral standards.

Conclusions. The study revealed that male people are more integrated in professional sport practices rather than females from the region under study. While assessing the socially important functions of professional sport in their answers all respondents emphasize that professional sport is a favourable public activity, where both social and personal values are important. As seen from the answers, all respondents give similar rating to the proposed functions of professional sport, which points to the community of perception of professional sport. However, athletes see the function of sport as a source of income in a more positive light than those not engaged in professional sport. In addition, an interesting tendency has been discovered: professional athletes and former athletes give a more negative rating of the function of professional sport as an indicator of the nation’s potential, compared to people, who have never been doing sports, and who rate this function positively rather than negatively. We think that this is due to the fact that athletes and former athletes, who negatively rate the function of professional sport as an indicator of nation's potential, mean that they cannot be responsible for the potential of their country or nation, since one cannot judge about the nation’s potential by the achievements of a single athlete or a sports team, and because these achievements may serve only as an impulse for development of such a potential of the nation, rather than reflect the nation’s potential in general. As seen from the respondents’ answers to the second question, training is the most legitimate and correct way to achieve good results in professional sport, and all other ways, namely: collusion, bribery, doping or violation of game rules are unacceptable in professional sport at most. Answers to the third question of our questionnaire showed that both groups of respondents give priority to the concept of result, followed by health, victory, honesty, discipline, participation, benefit (money, profit), fame.

The study resulted in the following practical recommendations. It is necessary to promote the idea of professional sport as a way for personality development, rather than as a form of winning and public demonstration of athlete's personal qualities, his/her strength and superiority over others. To facilitate personality development in professional sport and sport in general, it is necessary to promote honesty, discipline and participation in the first place, and put result and victory on the second place. Sport activity aimed solely at acquiring a certain level of physical development and willingness of self-assertion results in deterioration of not only sports results, but also the nation’s potential. Sport is an integral part of the society’s social system, where it is necessary not only to push the responsibility for some actions down to the athlete, but also to take into account social conditionality of the institute of sport itself, its transformation and determination of one or other phenomena in sport. Problems in the sports such as aspiration to win at all costs, considering sport as a politicized phenomenon and politicization of sport itself may be resolved only by mutual efforts of individuals and social institutions in general. Development of the nation’s potential and other important social functions of sport and professional sport in opposition to inner egoistic functions, which athletes and society in general see in professional sport, may be achieved only through promotion of the philosophy of personality development through sport and professional sport in particular.

References

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Corresponding author: gon.01.07.94@yandex.ru