Self-Deception In The Sports Industry

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Professional athletes are modern day gods. We idolize and worship their abilities, powers and grace. However, as heartbreaking as it maybe to sports fans, the sports industry cathedral is drowning in lies and deception. The many forms of dishonesty to be found there are legion. Whether super-athletes, coaches or even referees, the lies and deception that are consuming the sports industry can be attributed to three simple causes: self- justification, self-deception and performance pressure.
One cause that results in these lies and deception is self justification. Leveling out the playing field, the fact the drugs work and the concept that rules and regulation are not being enforced, are just some of the justifications members of this industry use to rationalize their lies. Leveling out the playing field, is a major one, as professional cyclist, Joe Papp say that -he felt like he couldn’t win without using performance-enhancing drugs, because so many others were doping (Ariely 2015). Competing against talented athletes are one thing, but competing against talented and performance-enhanced athletes is an entire new spectrum. This pressured them into believing that they have an immediate disadvantage, resulting in a lost of hope and forcing the other athletes to dope in order to …show more content…

In general, self-deception is a biased and self-serving process where an individual denies any opposing ideas evidence and argument in favor of convincing themselves of the deception—which is an, active misrepresentation of reality to the conscious mind—(Trivers 2000) During the past decades, there has been an increase in cheating in professional sports, as well known athletes such as lance Armstrong [cyclist], Alex Rodriguez [baseball player], Ben Johnson [track and field athlete], Marion Jones [track and field athlete] are just a few athletes who fell victim to doping (Evans 2016). It is said that some

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