Objective: This study advances current understanding by systematically investigating how team vs. individual sports differentially influence adolescent psychological resilience through emotion regulation, social support, and self-efficacy pathways, with particular attention to gender moderation effects. Methods: Drawing on multi-wave data from 698 Chinese adolescents (aged 12-18 years), we implemented a mediation model featuring two distinct pathways to elucidate mechanisms unique to each sport type. Hierarchical regression and bootstrapped analyses were utilized to evaluate: (1) the unique mediating contributions of emotion regulation (ER), social support (SS), and self-efficacy (SE) across sport categories, and (2) the moderating influence of gender on these pathways. Results: (1) Team sports significantly enhance adolescents' levels of social support while individual sports notably improve self-efficacy; both types of exercise positively predict psychological resilience. (2) Emotional regulation, social support, and self-efficacy play significant mediating roles between physical activity and psychological resilience. Specifically, team sports primarily influence psychological resilience by enhancing social support and subsequently boosting self-efficacy; conversely, individual sports mainly strengthen psychological resilience through increased self-efficacy. (3) Gender has a significant moderating effect within team sports; specifically, Female exhibit a stronger impact of emotional regulation on psychological resilience compared to male who demonstrate more pronounced benefits from enhanced self-efficacy regarding their psychological resilience. In contrast to team sports, gender significantly moderated the social support-resilience relationship in individual sports, with stronger associations observed for female. Conclusion: Our findings demonstrate that sport types function as gendered ecological niches for resilience cultivation. Specifically, team settings leverage interpersonal dynamics to enhance male self-efficacy and Female emotional competencies, while individual activities offer equitable platforms for social support development. These insights contest uniform exercise recommendations and furnish a blueprint for tailored, gender-sensitive interventions grounded in sport participation.
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