A Comparative Study of Aggression between Male and Female Boxers of Amroha District

Boxing is an Olympic sport that is often regarded as dangerous and elitist. It is a combat sport involving two players who fight with gloves in their hand as per set rules. Aggression is a special kind of behaviour, which is different from emotions. Some experts have defined the concept of aggression as an intentional response made by an individual to inflict pain or harm on another person physically or verbally. An aggressive behaviour is contrary to concept of assertion. Assertion is a forceful behaviour, however, acceptable. When a person performs some defensive action with aim of injuring other person or his opponent, this act will take an aggressive form (Gill, 2000). Performance is the outcome of an athlete's biological, psychological, sociological and physical construct. In the games and sports, psychological and physiological factors play vital roles in determining the performance level. However, in recent time's great importance has been laid to psychological parameters in competitive sports (Kulchar, 2011; Grange & Kerr, 2010; Rani & Mathana, 2010; Maxwell & Visek, 2009).

MATERIALS AND METHODS

Subjects: For the purpose of this study forty (40) boxers (male = twenty (20), female = twenty (20) who represented Amroha district in the state championships as well as other boxing competitions organized by the associated but recognised bodies, were considered as subjects. Tools: For measuring the aggression of the subjects a questionnaire developed by Kumar and Shukla (1984) was used. It is consisted of 25 items of which 13 items are positively and the remaining 12 items are negatively evaluated. For each correct answer 1 point is assigned as per the suggested manual of the questionnaire.

Different locations of the boxing camps in the Amroha region were located before considering the administration of questionnaire to ensure the number of participants in each of the camps for the purpose of getting data for maximum subjects at one particular camp. The data were collected with the help of teachers and friends who were well versed in the technique and coaches were also requested to help in the operational conduct of questionnaire to the boxers. All the questionnaire were administered at same time to the particular boxer, however, due to the coaching camps were held during different times of the year, thus, the administration of questionnaire to all participated boxers could not be possible together hence; may be treated as delimitation of the present study.

The obtained data thus collected were statistically manipulated by computing Mean, S.D. and t-ratio to find out significant difference between two groups on the psychological parameter i.e. aggression. The results, indicating the mean difference on aggression between national level male and female boxers of Amroha district are presented in the table no . 1

Tabulated value of ‗t' at 0.05 level of significance with 38 df (2) = 2.02 It has been depicted in the above mentioned table that there was no significant difference between male and female boxers on their level of aggression as the calculated T (0.12) value is much lower than the tabulated ‗t‘ value (2.02) at 0.05 level of confidence with 38 degree of freedom.

DISCUSSION

From the results of the study it has been evident that insignificant difference existed between male and female boxers of Amroha district in regard to their level of sports aggression. The results of the study may be corroborated with the findings of Ali, Hussain & Rahaman(2010) who compared the aggression and sports achievement motivation of junior and senior hockey players of Amroha district and advocated that, no significant differences were observed between junior and senior national hockey players of Amroha district in regard to sports aggression and sports achievement motivation. The findings of the present study have also been endorsed by Prakash &Singh (2011) who compared sports aggression between football and volleyball players of Banaras Hindu University and reported that insignificant difference was found between football and volleyball players in relation to sports aggression. On the basis of the results obtained from the present investigation it may be concluded that national level male and female boxers of Amroha district did not significantly differ on their level of aggression. The findings also suggest that the level of aggression of these boxers (male and female) was moderate which is essentially required to be assertive in combative sports in general and boxing in particular. :

REFERENCES

AHJ., Hussain, I. &Rahaman A. (2010). A Comparative Study of Aggression and Sports Achievement Motivation of Hockey Players of Uttarakhand. AMASS: Multilateral Research Journal, 2(2): pp. 23-26. Gill, D. (2000). Psychological Dynamics of Sport and Exercise. Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics. Grange, P. & Kerr, J.H. (2010). Physical Aggression in Australian Football: A Qualitative Study of Elite Athletes. Psychology of Sport &Exercise, 11: pp. 36-43. Kulchar, K.G. (2011). "Deviance in the Sport of Soccer: The Relationship Between Wearing Brightly Colored Cleats and Aggression". Honors Program Projects, Paper 11. Maxwell, J.P. & Visek, A.J. (2009). Unsanctioned Aggression in Rugby Union: Relationships among Aggressiveness, Anger, Athletic Identity, and Professionalization. Aggressive Behaviour, 35(3): pp. 237-243. Prakash, V. & Singh, S.N. (2011). A Comparison of Sports Aggression between Football and Volleyball Players of Banaras Hindu University. Human Kinetics: A Journal of Physical Education & Fitness, 2(2): pp. 101-103. Rani, U. & Mathana, S.K. (2010). Difference in Aggression of School and College Level Volley ball Players. Journal of Physical Education &Yoga, 1(2): pp. 129-131.

Assistant Professor, Department of Physical Education, CCS University, Meerut