Testing Boundary Conditions in the Communication-Cohesion Relationship in Team Sport: The Case for Psychological Safety

Objective: While emerging evidence points to a reliable link between sport team member communication and perceived cohesion, less is known about potential boundary conditions. This study examined the moderating effect of psychological safety, which captures how members perceive and value their team environment, as one construct that may qualify the communication-cohesion relationship. Method: Team sport athletes (N = 135; M-age = 22.49 years, SD = 5.8) completed measures of cooperative communication, psychological safety, and task cohesion (individual attractions to the group [ATG-Task] and group integration [GI-Task]) using a concurrent online questionnaire. Result: Cooperative communication was positively related to both ATG- and GI-Task (all ps < .001). Dimensions of psychological safety also were found to be significant moderators of the cooperative communication/task cohesion relationship. As hypothesized, when psychological safety was higher, there was no relationship between cooperative communication perceptions and perceptions of task cohesion. However, when psychological safety levels were lower, cooperative communication perceptions were positively related to perceptions of task cohesion. This pattern emerged both for ATG- and GI-Task. Conclusion: In addition to replicating and extending past research, the results also provide preliminary evidence suggesting that perceptions of psychological safety may serve to qualify the cooperative communication-task cohesion relationship in team sport.