Self-Compassion Increases Self-Improvement Motivation
Breines and Chen tested the objection most often raised against self-compassion, that being kind to yourself after failing removes the motivation to improve. Four experiments found the opposite. Compared with a self-esteem condition and with control conditions, people induced to take a self-compassionate view of a personal weakness were more likely to believe the weakness could change, reported more motivation to make amends after a moral lapse and to avoid repeating it, spent longer studying for a difficult test after an initial failure, preferred comparing themselves with people doing better rather than worse, and reported more motivation to change. The proposed explanation is that self-criticism makes failure threatening enough to require avoiding, while self-compassion makes it safe enough to look at, and looking at it is the precondition for changing anything. These are small laboratory experiments with short-term measures, and the pattern across four of them is consistent.
Breines and Chen tested the objection most often raised against self-compassion, that being kind to yourself after failing removes the motivation to improve. Four experiments found the opposite. Compared with a self-esteem condition and with control conditions, people induced to take a self-compassionate view of a personal weakness were more likely to believe the weakness could change, reported more motivation to make amends after a moral lapse and to avoid repeating it, spent longer studying for a difficult test after an initial failure, preferred comparing themselves with people doing better rather than worse, and reported more motivation to change. The proposed explanation is that self-criticism makes failure threatening enough to require avoiding, while self-compassion makes it safe enough to look at, and looking at it is the precondition for changing anything. These are small laboratory experiments with short-term measures, and the pattern across four of them is consistent.
Written from the abstract, OpenAlex.
What our sources record
Reproduced as it was written when this source was checked, figures and all.
Four experiments against self-esteem and positive-distraction control conditions. Experiment 3 is the study-time result; experiment 4 is the upward-comparison preference.
Where we use it
- Why You Are Kinder to Your Friends Than to Yourself, Why We Care
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The source
https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167212445599
DOI: 10.1177/0146167212445599