Steroids and Social Learning: Modeling Bad Medicine
Steroid use in professional athletes have a negative causal effect on children and families involved in sports. Through social learning, children model these “role models” and parents feel obligated to help their children succeed in sports and in some instances through negative and/or dangerous avenues. Male gender roles are becoming more complex and confusing while professional athletes are becoming more aggressive. Studies and news releases will support this factor of analysis. “Sports Parents” are becoming more intense and competitive in their interactions with other parents/officials/coaches, etc… Many books have been written on the subject and evidence of this is found by looking at the sociology of sport literature available.
The medication Humatrope is now being used to make children taller, even if they do not have a disorder…this drug can be viewed as a “performance enhancer” just like steroids! All these factors relate as causative, should be presented as such and added to the literature already available, so that parents can understand this issue.
I think that finding definitive proof (from a socially scientific standpoint) that these are all causative will be difficult. There could be units of analysis that are impossible to qualify (such as reasons for increased aggression in professional athletes and “sports parents”). Steroids have this type of side effect, but are not the only cause of increased aggression. Surveys and quantitative data analysis may be necessary to understand this. Also, this is a relatively new phenomenon and finding scholarly research may be more difficult than using examples of aggression by athletes and “sports parents” in the news.
Steroids can “increase leanness and muscle bulk beyond what can be achieved by even the most hardworking athletes who do not use drugs” [2]. Although there are legitimate reasons for persons to use steroids, just as there are good reasons for children to take humatrope, the aggression that can stem from steroid abuse just as the aggressive parent, who desires a taller child is troublesome. People, who study effects of steroids say that “we thought that athletes had increased muscle because they trained harder because of the effects of testosterone on aggression” [1]. Although, studies are still being done on steroids just as they are on Humatrope.
A child could be prescribed such a medication (the controversy is that it can be administered in children with what is deemed “idiopathic short stature”).
This article outlays the controversy of Humatrope and makes reference to sport.
In a society where most kids view towering NBA stars as heroes, the craving to be bigger and taller is only natural. Now, their dreams of gaining a few extra inches may soon come true.A recent controversial FDA decision will allow doctors to prescribe a supplemental growth hormone to short patients with completely normal hormone level
The medication in question is Eli Lilly’s (LLY) Humatrope (search), an injected protein that stimulates growth, specifically in children. Once used only by boys and girls with serious hormone deficiencies, the drug has been approved for use in extremely short but otherwise healthy children.
The FDA’s decision to allow the sale of the drug to patients with short stature of unknown origin is of “enormous significance,” according to Dr. Arthur Caplan, Chair of the Department of Medical Ethics and Director of the Center for Bioethics (search) at the University of Pennsylvania.
“The reason this is big news is that this is one of the first times the [FDA] has allowed a drug to go on the market to treat something that is completely normal,” he said
[4].
This and the issue of aggressive athletes on steroids need to be further studied.
Humatrope has three indications; for children with Growth Hormone Deficiency (GHD), Turner Syndrome, and the aforementioned ISS. Humatrope’s website says this about their drug
Idiopathic short stature (ISS)
Humatrope is indicated for the long-term treatment of idiopathic short stature, also called non-growth-hormone-deficient short stature, defined by height SDS less than or equal to -2.25, and associated with growth rates unlikely to permit attainment of adult height in the normal range, in pediatric patients whose epiphyses are not closed and for whom diagnostic evaluation excludes other causes associated with short stature that should be observed or treated by other means.
Between 1988 and 2001, Lilly conducted two studies of Humatrope treatment in approximately 300 children with ISS. One study showed that children who received Humatrope injections were on average 1.5 inches taller at final adult height than children who did not receive therapy. The other study showed that children grew significantly faster while receiving Humatrope than before they started taking the medication. For the patients in this study whose final adult height could be measured, Humatrope patients were on average 2 to 3 inches taller than they were predicted to be without Humatrope [5].
Some “sport parents” use their willingness to “win at all costs” and some athletes will use dangerous steroids to be more competitive at all costs. It would be interesting to conduct a study to see what social influences influence the family and causes the individual to be more aggressive and competitive. Is it the “American Dream”? Is it the “American Way?”
All parents feel frustration when their child is performing. Parents have no control over their child’s actions during a game; they have no control over the coach’s behavior; and they have no control over how the game will turn out. Lack of control is the basis for frustration and anxiety. The problems and the pressures parents feel are often brought to the courts and playing fields [3].
Is it that we live in a world that is out of control and individuals will seek to do whatever is in their power to bring the internal locus of control from the external locus of control? It seems that this stems from social psychology, the psychology of sport, politics, and many other disciplines that deal with individuals motivations within organizations, such as athletics.
Social psychology is the scientific study of how people’s thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are influenced by the actual, imagined, or implied presence of others (Allport, 1985). By this definition, scientific refers to the empirical method of investigation. The terms thoughts, feelings, and behaviors include all of the psychological variables that are measurable in a human being. The statement that others may be imagined or implied suggests that we are prone to social influence even when no other people are present, such as when watching television, or following internalized cultural norms.
Social psychologists typically explain human behavior as a result of the interaction of mental states and immediate, social situations. In Kurt Lewin’s (1951), famous heuristic, behavior can be viewed as a function of the person and the environment, B=f(P,E). In general, social psychologists have a preference for laboratory based, empirical findings. Their theories tend to be specific and focused, rather than global and general.
Social psychology is an interdisciplinary domain that bridges the gap between psychology and sociology. During the years immediately following World War II, there was frequent collaboration between psychologists and sociologists (Sewell, 1989). However, the two disciplines have become increasingly specialized and isolated from each other in recent years, with sociologists focusing on “macro variables” (e.g. social structure) to a much greater extent. Nevertheless, sociological approaches to social psychology remain an important counterpart to psychological research in this area [6].
Social Psychology, then, should open the door to understand personal motivations while Sociology can shed light on societal need for power and control, such as with conflict theory expressed by Marx and Durkheim. Game Theory is a component of conflict theory and is used in economics, management, and sociology. All of these theories may be projected unto the current problem that we, as a society are becoming more unclear in gender roles, more violent, more easy to use aggression through games.
Thomas Schelling’s idea. Writing about 1960, Schelling proposed that any bit of information that all participants in a coordination game would have, that would enable them all to focus on the same equilibrium, might solve the problem. In determining a national boundary, for example, the highest mountain between the two countries would be an obvious enough landmark that both might focus on setting the boundary there — even if the mountain were not very high at all.
Another source of a hint that could solve a coordination game is social convention. Here is a game in which social convention could be quite important. That game has a long name: “Which Side of the Road to Drive On?” In Britain, we know, people drive on the left side of the road; in the US they drive on the right. In abstract, how do we choose which side to drive on? There are two strategies: drive on the left side and drive on the right side. There are two possible outcomes: the two cars pass one another without incident or they crash. We arbitrarily assign a value of one each to passing without problems and of -10 each to a crash [2].
Game theory can be highly mathematical, but it should be examined further and to show the umbrella theory (conflict), one must review this theory in depth.
[1]Bonetta, L. (August 2004). “The Steroid Story” in The American School Board Journal.
[2]Davis, Morton. Registration of copyright pending 1999. Strategy and Conflict: An Introductory Sketch of Game Theory: Games with Multiple Nash Equilibria. Accessible online: http://william-king.www.drexel.edu/top/eco/game/game.html. Last accessed 2 March 2007).
[3] Du Bois, W. & Wright, R. D. (2001). Applying Sociology; Making a Better World. Needham Heights, MA: Allyn & Bacon.
[4]Kahn, S. D. (October 07, 2003). “Pediatric Growth Hormone Sparks
Controversy” Available online:
http://www.foxnews.com/printer_friendly_story/0,3566,99277,00.html. (Last accessed 2
March 2007).
[5] Eli Lilly. (2006) “Humatrope: Humatrope indications”. Available online:
http://www.humatrope.com/pediatric_patients/hcp_indications.jsp?reqNavId=3.1. (Last
accessed 2 March 2007).
[6] Wikepedia. (2007). “Social psychology (psychology)”. Available online:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_psychology_%28psychology%29. Last
accessed 2 March 2007).