The Social Learning Process of Illegal Performance-Enhancing Drugs (Doping) UseAmongProfessional Athletes

The use of performance-enhancing drugs (PED) is common among Iranian professional athletes. As this phenomenon is a social problem, the main purpose of this research is to explain why athletes engage in “doping” activity by using social learning theory. For this purpose, a sample of 784 professional athletes from Rasht and Bandar Anzali (Iran), was used to test hypotheses related to social learning theory. the findings of this study indicated that the components of social learning theory - differential association, differential reinforcement, imitation, and definitions - can accurately predict 0.43, 0.29, and 0.44 percent of the variance of athletes’ PED in totall, male and female athletes, respectively