Psychological processes connecting team identification and social well-being for middle-aged and older adults: moderated mediation of subjective and objective on-field performance

To cultivate the potential of sport spectatorship to enhance social well-being, a greater understanding of underlying psychological processes is essential. Using the social identity approach as a theoretical framework, we investigate how identification with a sport team interacts with subjective and objective measures of on-field team performance to affect social well-being. Data from 790 U.S. middle-aged and older adults were analysed through a path model combining mediation and moderation. The results indicate that the relationship between team identification and social life satisfaction – a measure of social well-being – is fully mediated by subjective perceptions of a favourite team’s on-field performance. In addition, this mediating effect increases as the objective on-field performance decreases. These findings reveal that team identification drives spectators to subjectively judge their favourite team’s performance, which serves as a coping strategy to enhance their social well-being when the team is performing poorly. Our evidence implies that sport organisations with middling to poor performance records may leverage social and community events to promote consumer social well-being.Team identification (TID) has no direct effect on social well-being.Subjective performance mediates the relation between TID and social well-being.Objective performance moderates the mediating effect of subjective performance.Mediation of subjective performance increases as objective performance declines.Social well-being benefits of TID are greater for fans of poorly performing teams.