Merrill Melnick

• Ph.D.
• Professor Emeritus at SUNY Brockport

To examine sport fandom in Australia, a convenience sample of 163 university students (62% males, 38% females, M = 21.3) attending a large, multi-sector institution located in a western suburb of Melbourne voluntarily completed a 25-item questionnaire survey which included the Sport Fandom Questionnaire (Wann, 2002) and the Sport Spectator Identifi...

Although seatbelts save lives, adolescents may be disproportionately likely to omit their use. Using data from the 1997 Youth Risk Behavior Survey, a national survey of more than 16,000 U.S. public and private high school students, the authors employed a series of logistic regression analyses to examine cross-sectional associations between past yea...

Athough conventional wisdom suggests that organized sport deters delinquency by building character, structuring adolescents' time, and providing incentives for socially approved behavior, the empirical evidence to date has been mixed. Based on a sample of approximately 600 Western New York adolescents, the present study examined how self-reported j...

Previous research has suggested a link between athletic involvement and elevated levels of adolescent violence outside the sport context. The present study expanded on this literature by positing differences in the sport-violence relationship across dimensions of athletic involvement (athletic participation vs. jock identity), type of violence (fam...

Although previous research has established that high school sports participation may be associated with positive academic outcomes, the parameters of the relationship remain unclear. Using a longitudinal sample of nearly 600 Western New York adolescents, this study examined gender- and race-specific differences in the impact of two dimensions of ad...

Despite recent declines in overall sexual activity, sexual risk-taking remains a substantial danger to US youth. Existing research points to athletic participation as a promising venue for reducing these risks. Linear regressions and multiple analyses of covariance were performed on a longitudinal sample of nearly 600 Western New York adolescents i...

Suicide is the third leading cause of death among US adolescents aged 15-24, with males incurring higher rates of completion than females. This study used hierarchical logistic regression analysis to test whether athletic participation was associated with lower rates of suicidal ideation and behavior among a nationally representative sample of over...

To test the comparative value of strain theory and problem behavior theory as explanations of adolescent anabolic steroid use, this study examined gender-specific relationships among steroid use, physical activity, and other problem behaviors. Based on the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's 1997 Youth Risk Behavior Survey, a...

By Don Sabo, Kathleen E. Miller, Merrill J. Melnick, Leslie Heywood.

Alcohol remains the drug of choice for many adolescents; however, the nature of the relationship between athletic involvement and alcohol misuse remains ambiguous. In this article, we used a longitudinal sample of over 600 Western New York adolescents and their families to explore the gender-specific and race-specific relationships between identifi...

Though often conflated, informal physical exercise and organized athletic participation have very different implications for adolescent sexual risk outcomes. The purpose of this research is to disaggregate strenuous exercise from sports, examine how each is associated with sexual risk, and explain the observed differences using the conceptual lens...

Examined the relationships of gender, athletic participation, and health-related problem behaviors among adolescent anabolic-androgenic steroid users. Identified through the 1997 Youth Risk Behavior Survey, subjects were a national sample of more than 16,000 students in grades 9-12, nearly 500 of whom had used steroids. In addition to gender and ot...

While there have been significant refinements in the scholarly development of the sport and Americanization/globalization literature in recent years, the individual, psychosocial consequences resulting from the intersection of global forces and local cultures remain largely unexplored. A sample of 510 New Zealand youth (average age = 14.5 yrs) was...

Based on a national sample of over 16,000 public and private high school students (the 1997 Youth Risk Behavior Survey), we used logistic regression analysis to examine relationships among anabolic-androgenic steroid use and other problem behaviors for female and male athletes and nonathletes. After controlling for age, race/ethnicity, parental edu...

This study tested whether athletic participation was associated with lower rates of health risk behaviors among a nationwide sample of American male adolescents. Results are based on a secondary analysis of the 1997 Youth Risk Behavior Survey, a nationally representative survey of public and private high school students in grades nine through 12 (m...

Using research methodology for analysis of secondary data, statistical data for five National Basketball Association (NBA) seasons (1993-1994 to 1997-1998) were examined to test for a relationship between team assists (a behavioral measure of teamwork) and win-loss record. Rank-difference correlation indicated a significant relationship between the...

In the United States today, the use of tobacco has become an entrenched part of teenage culture. The present study used the 1997 Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS), which collected data from a nationally representative sample of 16,262 students in public and private high schools, to compare the tobacco use patterns of athletes and nonathletes. The i...

This book provides an overview and analysis of sport fans, examining the role played by and the impact of sport in the lives of sport fans and spectators, and the importance of sport for society at large. It also provides an understanding of the theories of fan behavior, as well as analysis of the empirical research on the emotions, thoughts, and b...

To determine whether high school athletic participation among adolescents in Western New York was associated with reduced rates of sexual behavior and pregnancy involvement. A secondary analysis of data from the Family and Adolescent Study, a longitudinal study of a random sample of adolescents (ages 13-16 years) from 699 families living in househo...

PIP This paper explores the relationship among athletic participation and sexual behavior, contraceptive use, and pregnancy in female and male high school students in the US. Using the 1995 Youth Risk Behavior Survey, the sexual behavior of 8979 high school students was analyzed using covariance and multiple covariance. After controlling for factor...

Using multivariate analysis of covariance to test hypotheses about the effects of sports and sexual behavior on a sample of 611 Western New York adolescents, this study concludes that athletic participation and gender interact to influence adolescent sexual outcomes. Female athletes report significantly lower rates of sexual activity than female no...

Teenagers from all 11 high schools in Dunedin, New Zealand, responded to a questionnaire about their villains (i.e., public figures, real or fictional, living or deceased, whom they strongly disliked). A total of 917 villains from all walks of life were selected. The naming of a villain was unrelated to age, gender, or socioeconomic status. Nearly...

In order to test Hallinan's "Anglocentric Hypothesis," New Zealand head coaches of female netball union teams completed no mailed questionnaires. The statistical analysis was based on 177 European (69.1%) and 79 Maori (30.9%) players. An overall chi-square for Race x Playing Position was nonsignificant, χ2(6) = 8.40. Specifically, Europeans were no...

In order to test the Anglocentric Hypothesis, namely, that stacking is likely to be found in anglocized societies with a history of structural inequalities and discrimination against minorities, positional segregation among New Zealand Maori rugby players was investigated. In general, little evidence was found to support a belief that racial ideolo...

This study examines the impact of race and gender differences on the social mobility of high school athletes using the longitudinal, panel data of the High School and Beyond study. Regressions of educational and occupational attainment measures on sports participation were estimated for subgroups differentiated by race/ethnic status, gender, and sc...

Creating a humane sport environment could be a powerful deterrent to the hostile and sexist feelings, attitudes, and actions which the current male sports model exhibits.

This study examined the social, educational, and career mobility effects of interscholastic athletic participation on subsamples of Hispanic girls and boys drawn from the High School and Beyond Study (U.S. Department of Education), a 1980 national, longitudinal survey of 14,366 sophomores enrolled in 1,015 public and private schools across the Unit...

This study examined the educational effects of interscholastic athletic participation on a national, stratified, probability sample of African-American and Hispanic boys and girls drawn from the High School and Beyond Study (U.S. Department of Education, 1987). This two-year longitudinal analysis was based on questionnaire data from 3,686 minority...

Over the last 17 years, research has shown that blacks are significantly underrepresented in spatially central playing positions in major league baseball and professional and college football. The present study extends the research literature by analyzing the racial characteristics of playing positions in English football (soccer). Data were obtain...

This study examined the impact of athletic participation on the academic, social, and social–psychological development of high school girls. A panel design and multistage sampling were used to assess the effect of athletic participation on perceived popularity, sex-role attitudes, psychological well-being, sociability, delinquency, academic achieve...

An analysis of the 434 free communications by the 575 presenters at the first seven annual meetings of NASSS (1980–1986) reveals several important patterns and trends with respect to (a) number of free communications, (b) number of presenters, (c) presenter’s sex, (d) presenter’s institutional affiliation, and (e) dual and multiple authorships. A c...

It is argued in this essay that the nature and severity of the football hooliganism problem in Great Britain has been largely overstated by the popular press and unjustly elevated to the status of a major social problem by the State. Eight myths of football hooliganism are identified, described and challenged on the basis of the available theoretic...

The development of the academic sub-discipline sociology of sport over the past 15 years, while noteworthy in many respects, has been characterized by a noticeable disinterest in an applied perspective. In this essay, arguments which support the initiation of such a research paradigm are juxtaposed with a discussion of selected counterforces which...

Satisfaction of participants in team sports hinges on psychosocial needs of individual athletes. Team affiliation creates a ready-made social structure in which emotional rewards of close friendships, motivation to achieve particular goals, and social reinforcement through personal recognition are granted. Other factors include: (1) team size; (2)...