Abstract:
A study by Wittig, Yohey, Saffle, and Harris (1979) concerning the perceived status of physical educators compared to that of other professions yielded some interesting results. First, average rated values for athletes, coaches, and physical education professors were sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth in prestige among 22 professions. Another aspect of the study involved attribution of various qualities (adjectives) to the 22 occupations. In comparing qualities assigned to the sport-related fields with those in other areas, it was found that subjects selected attributes of an activity-oriented nature when characterizing athletes, coaches, and physical educators, but used adjectives of a more cognitive nature when describing professors, physicians, authors, dentists, etc. Activity-oriented attributes were not selected exclusively, but appeared with the greatest frequency for all sport-related fields.Following the Wittig, et. al. (1979) study, a question arose regarding why activity-oriented attributes were chosen predominantly when considering sport-related fields. Do people respond to a stereotype of sport professions along activity-oriented dimensions so much so that cognitive qualities are overshadowed or ignored? If so, is there a relationship between perceptions of activity traits and low prestige rankings? The current investigation was undertaken in an attempt to clarify the relationship between quality attributions for sport-related professions as compared with others, and the subsequent rating of these professions on a prestige or status scale.Two hypotheses were formulated: (1) Given a list of adjectives, some cognitive, some activity-oriented, and some neutral, subjects' predominant choices for sport professions would be activity-oriented adjectives. (2) Sport professionals would fall in the lower 50% of occupations with regard to status or prestige.