Doping: Cultural pressure vs. individual decision

With athletes from at least eight countries expelled -- for doping -- from the 2012 Olympic Games, we take a quick look at two cross-cultural variables: societal cynicism and corruption.

The eight countries: Albania, Bulgaria, Greece, Morocco, Russia, Turkey, Ukraine and Uzbekistan.

If a cultural basis underlies this sort of activity, we would expect to see correlations on these measures -- and we do.

Societal cynicism (SC)
This construct comes from noted cross-cultural researcher Michael Harris Bond and colleaugues. It refers to the collective societal belief that "the world produces malignant outcomes" and that "being manipulative is an effective general strategy for getting ahead of others."

Note that SC refers to the society -- not to specific individuals.

The graph below shows that among the 45 countries Bond et al., studied, Greece and Russia rank 7th and 15th in SC, respectively. On the low end, we have Olympics-host country Great Britain, followed by the U.S.

Corruption
A look below at corruption shows something similar. Measures of this variable come from Transparency International (2010), and they reveal clearly apparent differences in corruption between U.K./U.S. corruption perceptions vs. those of expelled athletes' home countries. A score of 10 equal no corruption.

But what does it mean?
Quite simply, it means that it's not suprising to expect the use of illegal, performance-enhancing substances to come from countries where SC and corruption are high. Going a bit further, my suspicion is that these practices may be more a reflection of societal pressures and norms than personal choice.

Contrast this with the U.S. So far, no U.S. athletes have tested positive for doping during the current Games, but we need look no further than our national passtime -- professional baseball -- to be reminded that it happens.

But why?
Again, supposition.. but since we can't invoke extremes of societal cynicism or corruption, I'm inclined to turn to personal factors, such as individual choice or possibly the hidden aspects of sub-cultures associated with the sport.

So if the inclination as a spectator is to judge the expelled athletes as individuals more so than victims of their cuture-of-origin, I'm not so sure that's an easy call.