The relationship between perceived social loafing and team performance in youth sports: A moderated mediation model

This study aimed to investigate the relationship between perceived social loafing and subjective team performance in youth sports and to propose a hypothetical model at the athlete level in which the mediator and the boundary condition of this relationship were determined. The proposed model tested the mediating effect of team effort in this relationship, and the boundary condition of this mediating effect through intra-team coaching and backing up behaviors. Data were obtained from youth athletes aged 13-18 years competing in team sports. The sample for this study comprises 24 teams and 468 athletes. Multilevel Structural Equation Model and Multilevel Path Analysis techniques which accommodate for the hierarchical structure of the data were applied. Goodness-of-fit indices indicated that the hypothetical model displayed an adequate fit to the data at the athlete level. The findings of the structural model supported the hypothesized relationships at the athlete level. Multilevel mediation analysis showed that perceived social loafing had a negative indirect effect on subjective team performance through team effort. Moreover, this negative indirect effect was tested at the low and high levels of intra-team coaching and backing up behaviors to determine the conditional indirect effect. Multilevel moderated mediation analysis revealed that this effect was conditional on the intra-team coaching and backing up behaviors which significantly moderated the indirect relationship between perceived social loafing and subjective team performance. Consequently, the negative effect of perceived social loafing on the team effort decreases with increases in intra-team coaching and backing up behaviors from teammates, which weakens the negative indirect effect on the youth athletes' subjective evaluations of team performance. Taken together, motivation and effort losses within the team may have a negative effect on the youth athletes' subjective evaluations of team performance while coaching and backing up behaviors enacted by their teammates might weaken this negative effect.