Extending compassion towards the self versus fearing self compassion: Which is advantageous for young women athletes' psychological flourishing in sport?
Emerging findings suggest that relating to oneself compassionately (i.e. self compassion; Neff, 2003) is associated with young women athletes' psychological flourishing (Ferguson et al. 2011) However, athletes have expressed reservations about fully embracing self compassion and are hesitant to give up self criticism (Ferguson et al. 2013; Mosewich et al. 2013) We explored relations among self compassion, fear of self compassion, self criticism, and psychological flourishing in sport among young women athletes (N 137; Mage 19.04 years) Self compassion was negatively related (all p .05) to self critical reactions in challenging sport situations (r .53) and positively related to indices of psychological flourishing in sport, such as autonomy, body appreciation, and vitality (rs .20 .48) In contrast, fear of self compassion was positively associated with self critical reactions in sport (r .42) and negatively associated with flourishing in sport (rs .20 .41) Data were consistent with models of mediation whereby (1) self compassion linked to greater flourishing through decreased self criticism (Rs .06 .07) and (2) fear of self compassion negatively linked with flourishing through greater self criticism (Rs .07 .09) Findings support claims that self critical people have a fear of being kind and affiliative to themselves (Gilbert et al. 2011) which is important given that extending compassion toward the self may facilitate psychological flourishing in sport. Future research is needed to explore how athletes can overcome fears of self compassion, and identify mechanisms that explain how self compassion might contribute to flourishing in sport.Acknowledgments: Supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC)