title: Nutritional supplement and doping use in sport: Possible underlying social cognitive processes.
abstract: There is growing evidence suggesting that nutritional supplement (NS) use is strongly associated to doping use in elite and amateur sports. However, there is a paucity of research on the psychological processes that underlie this association. The present study investigated the cognitive and behavioral components of the association between NS use and doping among adolescent sub-elite athletes. Six hundred and fifty adolescent athletes completed a questionnaire including measures of doping intentions, attitudes, norms, and beliefs about NS use. The results showed that NS users who did not report doping use had significantly stronger doping intentions and more positive attitudes and favorable beliefs toward doping use, as compared with athletes who did not use NS. In support of the "shared mental representations" hypothesis, the present findings show that NS use is associated with biased reasoning patterns in favor of doping use. This mechanism may explain why some NS users decide to engage in doping.
authors.affiliation: Department of Physical Education & Sport Science, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki, Greece.
authors.forename: V
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Barkoukis
authors.affiliation: Department of Physical Education & Sport Science, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki, Greece.|Department of Social and Developmental Psychology, "Sapienza" University of Rome, Rome, Italy.
authors.forename: L
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Lazuras
authors.affiliation: Department of Social and Developmental Psychology, "Sapienza" University of Rome, Rome, Italy.
authors.forename: F
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Lucidi
authors.affiliation: Department of Physical Education & Sport Science, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki, Greece.
authors.forename: H
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Tsorbatzoudis
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D019587:Dietary Supplements / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D004300:Doping in Sports; D007722:Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice; D006801:Humans; D033182:Intention; D012919:Social Behavior; D012945:Social Values; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D013850:Thinking; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Gateway hypothesis; adolescent athletes; legal substances; performance enhancement; prohibited substances; safe alternative