College Sport Ethics: Moral versus Consequentialist Drivers of Student Ethics in Sport Activities EXTENDED ABSTRACT

This study aims at explaining why college students cheat in sport activities. Knowing what induces students to cheat from their own rationale for cheating is the first objective and uncovers the first gap. Understanding how students solve ethical dilemmas in general and how such routine is applied to sport activities is the second objective and leads to visualize the second gap. Based on empirical research, this study evaluates the competing roles of morality or deontological norms and the consequences or teleological norms in the formation of ethical judgment and ethical intentions (Hunt and Vitell, 1986). Previous research shows that the deontological norms prevail over the teleological norms; notwithstanding their debatable effects in situations involving ethical dilemmas versus those that do not (Hunt and Vasquez-Parraga, 1993). This ethics theory and methodology were applied to a 2 x 2 randomized experimental design and a scenario reflecting a student conduct in a sport routine that included a moral or immoral act with positive or negative consequences to the actor.