Trash talking! Its detrimental.

 

Trash-talking is a well-known yet vague behaviour which has been embedded within the sporting culture, with no clear understanding as to when this added psychological pressure transforms to unacceptable, verbal abuse within the sporting society, detrimental to the psychological states of an athlete (Jhonson and Taylor, 2018). With no clear segmentation of trash-talking, the acceptability of this behaviour within sport is based primarily on each individuals’ perception of the term (Omine, 2017; Kershnar, 2015).

An athlete’s psychological state is a crucial to their performance. Jhonson and Taylor (2020) highlighted sporting excellence is conducted through a combination of an individual’s psychological, cognitive and physical abilities during performance. This emphasises the vitality of the sports psychology profession, ensuring athletes maintain steady composure, and stability during performance. Sports psychologists have a thorough understanding that shaking an athlete’s mental state is a weapon, detrimental to performance, statistics and status (Guerrero, 2012).

 The Civil Rights Law Act (1964) was published to ensure anyone conducting any behaviours considered detrimental to the psychological state of another individual in a workplace would be filed with a lawsuit, yet this Law does not propel into the sporting workplace to the same standard (Civil Rights Movement, 2021). Instead, this trash-talking behaviour identifies in sport as banter and a traditionally made insult, therefore is often disregarded or sanctioned (McDowell and Schaffner,2011).

In rugby this traditional banter behaviour falls under the terms Masculinity, Laddism and Culture, embedded deeply within the history of the sport to obtain behavioural acceptance (Duncan 2019; Ingrassia 2014; Kavanagah, 2020). These dismissed laddish acts have led rugby-athletes to believe trash-talking to be acceptable, socially compromising individuals, through displaying and provoking psychological warfare using childish, un-emotional, tough charactistics to prove their masculinity and status within their sport (Nichols, 2018; Ingrassia; 2014).

The author see’s this view of Banter and Culture as a slandering way to create an unfair advantage; a form of harassment to prompt their opponents to failure and influence an event to boost in the favour and high profile of the individual. A way for players to gain cultural capital to hold, retain or gain their status (Bourdieu, 1986).

Trash-talking embedded in the rugby history and culture has allowed it to become a societal norm; players throughout the sport had no choice but to become mentally-strong and psychologically prepared for this mockery, training themselves to instead thrive of the normative slander, using it to motivate and encourage positive performance (Rainy and Granito, 2010; Guerrero, 2012). Omire (2017) agreed in football conducting and ignoring trash-talk is a skill, an asset to the game, not by principle but a skill athletes should endure.

Being based on individual perception, what may be considered normative behaviour in one environment can in fact be a hindrance to athlete’s psychological state and their ability to perform in another (Rainey and Granito 2010). In a professional competitive environment this underperformance can therefore lead to players being degraded and potentially impact their contract or pay meaning not only does this relay in a cultural-context but also an economical-context.

The Rugby National Governing Body (NGB) have implications and sanctions put in place for any verbal abuse which may arise during play yet is rarely implemented due to this abuse being identified as a rugby societal norm and part of culture (World Rugby Laws - World Rugby's Law Education Web Site: Law 9: Foul play, 2021). Similarly, Basketball England have a Technical foul, also known as a non-contact foul which is awarded when a player or coach are disrespectful with their actions, tone or language towards the opposing team, opposing coaches or referees (Fiba Basketball, 2021). In regard to this behaviour within the same team, this rule does not specify if these punishments should be put in place. Due to this referees have disregarded the behaviour within the same team and individuals have begun to accept it and highlight it as “holding team-mates accountable”. Is this acceptable?

 

References

Bourdieu, P. and Richardson, J.G., 1986. The forms of capital.

Civil Rights Movement. 2021. The Basic Civil Rights Law. [online] Available at: <http://www.civilrightsmovement.co.uk/basic-civil-rights-law.html> [Accessed 26 February 2021].

Duncan, S. 2019, "Sledging in Sport-Playful Banter, or Mean-spirited Insults? A Study of Sledging's Place in Play", Sport, ethics and philosophy, vol. 13, no. 2, pp. 183-197.

Fiba.basketball. 2021. [online] Available at: <http://www.fiba.basketball/documents/official-basketball-rules/2020.pdf> [Accessed 26 February 2021].

Guerrero, A. 2012, The Verbal Slugfest: Trash Talk Is the Opening Act as Congressional Women Prepare to Play Ball Against the Press, CQ Roll Call, Washington, D.C.

Ingrassia, B.M. 2014, "Manhood or Masculinity" in , ed. S.A. Riess, John Wiley & Sons, Inc, Oxford, pp. 479-499.

Johnson, C. and Taylor, J., 2020. More than Bullshit: Trash Talk and Other Psychological Tests of Sporting Excellence. Sport, Ethics and Philosophy, 14(1), pp.47-61.

Kavanagh, T. 2020, "“It’d Just Be Banter”: Sectarianism in a Northern Irish Rugby Club", Cultural studies, critical methodologies, vol. 20, no. 5, pp. 485-495.

Kershnar, S. 2015, "The Moral Rules of Trash Talking: Morality and Ownership", Sport, ethics and philosophy, vol. 9, no. 3, pp. 303-323.

Laws.worldrugby.org. 2021. World Rugby Laws - World Rugby's Law Education Web Site: Law 9: Foul play. [online] Available at: <https://laws.worldrugby.org/?law=9&language=EN> [Accessed 26 February 2021].

McDowell, J., & Schaffner, S. (2011). Football, it’s a man’s game: Insult and gendered discourse in the gender bowl. Discourse and Society, 22, 547–564. 10.1177/095792651140557 

Nichols, K., 2018. Moving beyond ideas of laddism: Conceptualising ‘mischievous masculinities’ as a new way of understanding everyday sexism and gender relations. Journal of Gender Studies, 27(1), pp.73-85.

Omine, M. 2017, "Ethics of Trash Talking in Soccer", International journal of sport and health science, vol. 15, pp. 120-125.

Rainey, D.W. and Granito, V., 2010. Normative rules for trash talk among college athletes: An exploratory study. Journal of Sport Behavior, 33(3), p.276.

Rainey, D.W. and Granito, V., 2010. Normative rules for trash talk among college athletes: An exploratory study. Journal of Sport Behavior, 33(3), p.276