The blurry spectrums of team identity threat

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

“…In line with this perspective, quantitative research indicates the increasing tendency of identified fans (compared to consumers with minimal team identification) to engage in social creativity to cope with a threat created by their team's loss (Wann et al, 2008). In addition, the findings of recent qualitative studies demonstrated that sport fans use one or more of the three social creativity processes explained earlier in the face of their team's defeat or poor win-loss records to maintain their team identification (Doyle et al, 2017;Mansfield et al, 2020). Examples include inflated evaluations of the team's future success (Doyle et al, 2017) and maintaining the distinctiveness of the team by switching the focus of evaluation to non-performance-related attributes, such as the unwavering commitment of its fan base (Mansfield et al, 2020).…”

“…Drawing from the SIA to health and well-being (S. A. Haslam et al, 2009;Jetten et al, 2017) and the findings of recent studies exploring fans' coping strategies (Doyle et al, 2017;Mansfield et al, 2020), we develop and test a conceptual research model (see Figure 1) that illustrates psychological processes linking team identification and social life satisfaction (i.e., a social well-being measure) for middle-aged and older adults. First, team identification is hypothesised to have a direct association, as well as an indirect association through subjective on-field performance, with social life satisfaction.…”

“…Social creativity is highly relevant to spectator sport, where a team's on-field performance -as indicated by win-loss records -can determine the social status of the team and its fans (Branscombe & Wann, 1991;Doyle et al, 2017;Mansfield et al, 2020). Research into social creativity links closely with work on the identity maintenance strategies used by spectators in response to objective team performance.…”

“…Therefore, while individuals, on average, associate with success and distance from failure, they may use a range of subjective responses to mitigate the effects of winning and losing (Doyle et al, 2017). Moreover, fans of poorly performing teams may possess positive subjective evaluations of their group despite the teams' poor win-loss records (Doyle et al, 2017;Mansfield et al, 2020). For example, Doyle et al (2017) found that fans of a new Australian team maintained positive evaluations of the team because of expectations that although it was unsuccessful in the short-term, it would become successful in the future.…”

“…In addition, the findings of recent qualitative studies demonstrated that sport fans use one or more of the three social creativity processes explained earlier in the face of their team's defeat or poor win-loss records to maintain their team identification (Doyle et al, 2017;Mansfield et al, 2020). Examples include inflated evaluations of the team's future success (Doyle et al, 2017) and maintaining the distinctiveness of the team by switching the focus of evaluation to non-performance-related attributes, such as the unwavering commitment of its fan base (Mansfield et al, 2020). Moreover, in his team identification-social psychological health model, Wann (2006) proposes that such coping strategies enable fans to alleviate psychological distress from poor performance and enhance their social well-being.…”