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This study examined associations between level of sport participation, goal and sportspersonship orientations, and moral reasoning in sport and nonsport situations and orientation by sport participation interactions. Participants were individuals with elite (n = 176), high school (n = 183), and youth sport (n = 78) participation. When judging sport situations, individuals who participated in elite sports demonstrated poorer moral reasoning than those who participated in high school and youth sports. At low levels of sportspersonship, individuals who participated in youth sports demonstrated higher moral reasoning than those who participated in high school and elite sports. When judging nonsport situations, moral reasoning was positively related to positive sportspersonship and negatively related to ego orientation but did not differ by sport participation. Within sport, sport participation and goal and sportspersonship orientations play a critical role in moral reasoning. However, these orientations may be more important than sport participation in moral reasoning beyond the sport context. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The tendency for people to rate attitude-confirming information more positively than attitude-disconfirming information (biased assimilation) was studied in a naturalistic context. Participants watched and evaluated the first 1996 Presidential Debate between Bill Clinton and Bob Dole. Regression analyses revealed that predebate attitudes but not expectations predicted postdebate argument evaluations and perceived attitude change. Participants evaluated the arguments that confirmed their predebate attitudes as being stronger than the arguments that disconfirmed their predebate attitudes, and they perceived their postdebate attitudes to have become more extreme than their predebate attitudes. Self-reported affective responses mediated the association between predebate attitudes and postdebate argument evaluations. The role of affect in information-processing theories and the significance of the findings for sociopolitical debates are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]