The frequency of doping in elite sport: Results of a replication study

Abstract

The difficulty of measuring the prevalence of doping in elite sport is a recurring topic in the scientific literature on doping. The Randomized Response Technique is a method for asking such embarrassing or even threatening questions while allowing the respondents to answer honestly. It was used to measure the prevalence of doping among German squad athletes by Pitsch et al. (2005, 2007). In a replication study with better sampling control, it was possible to replicate the general trend of the data from the 2005 study. Nevertheless, there are differences in the details between the two sets of findings. An additional explorative analysis reveals that gender has an important impact on doping decisions. Most theories of doping, especially those derived from systems theory or economic game theory address neither the central findings nor the influence of gender. Based on these findings, we will discuss questions of theory development in relation to empirical evidence.