Sport has existed in society in various forms as a significant promoter of moral character (Spivey, 2004). Despite a firm belief on the character building properties of sports, it is only in the recent years that there have been empirical investigations on the moral issues in sports. The main purpose of this critical review was to identify the predictors of prosocial and antisocial behaviours in adolescents. The review will mainly explore the social interactions and sport type as factors that influence prosocial and antisocial behaviours in adolescent athletes. Findings from this critical review will discuss how coach-athlete and inter-team relationships and different sport type influences an athlete’s development of moral behaviours.

INTRODUCTION

Many researchers have noted that early adolescence is a period of time when multiple transitions occur (Simmons, Burgeson, & Reef, 1988; Wigfield Eccles, & Pintrich, 1996). No other developmental period is characterised by so many changes at so many different levels as in adolescence. With so many rapid and multiple changes comes a heightened possibility for both positive and negative outcomes.
Sports represents one of the most important organised leisure activities for school-aged children and adolescents and provides specific experiences and new opportunities. These opportunities allow for specific skill and knowledge acquisition required to perform their sport and be exposed to the moral values that are the foundation of sports-related rules and norms (Simon, 2000).

The social nature of sport provides ample opportunities to exhibit both the prosocial and anti-social behaviours (Kavussanu, 2008). Prosocial behaviour is widely accepted as the behaviours intended to help or benefit another individual (e.g. helping an opponent off the floor, kicking the ball out of play if an opponent is injured, being respectable towards referee and opponents) (Eisenberg & Fabes, 1998). These behaviours are intended to have positive consequences for others (Eisenberg & Mussen, 1989) however, it has received limited attention in sport research (Kleiber & Roberts, 1981). There has been more inclination to investigate the negative or antisocial behaviours such as aggression, abusing opponents, faking injury. Antisocial behaviour has been defined as voluntary behaviour intended to harm or disadvantage other individual (Kavussanu et.al, 2006). Kavussanu and Boardly (2009) emphasized that both prosocial and antisocial behaviours should be examined in order to understand social behaviour in sport since the young athlet