https://doi.org/10.1080/15298868.2018.1477829

Self-compassion and verbal performance: Evidence for threat-buffering and implicit self-related thoughts

Shane S. DeLury and Michael J. Poulin§

department of Psychology, University at Buffalo, Buffalo, ny, USa

ABSTRACTThreats to self-esteem can impair well-being directly, e.g., via negative affect, but also indirectly, by impacting performance in valued domains. The present study examined whether self-compassion buffered individuals’ academic task performance from the effects of a self-esteem threat. In addition, this study tested possible effects of self-compassion on implicitly measured self-related thoughts. Participants (N = 333) were randomly assigned to self-esteem threat or neutral conditions, and then either a self-compassion manipulation or an expressive writing (control) condition before completing a set of GRE analogy items. Threat impaired GRE performance in the expressive writing control condition, but not in the self-compassion condition. Moreover, self-compassion appeared to marginally impact implicit non-evaluative self-thoughts, but did not affect evaluative thoughts or implicit self-esteem. The results of this study suggest that self-compassion has benefits for performance and thereby well-being. Future research should further explore the effects of self-compassion on performance and refine understanding of implicit thoughts as possible mechanisms.

Threats to self-esteem can impair well-being directly, e.g., via negative affect, but also indi-rectly, by impacting performance in valued domains (Crocker, Sommers, & Luhtanen, 2002). Threats such as failure and negative feedback can also diminish intrinsic motivation, under-mine learning, and impede self-regulation (Crocker & Park, 2004). Part of the reason for these motivational effects of self-esteem threats appears to be that, while self-esteem and subjective well-being are closely linked (Baumeister, Campbell, Krueger, & Vohs, 2003), the motivation to bolster or defend one’s self-esteem is linked to multiple maladaptive pro-cesses. For instance, individuals may protect their self-esteem in evaluative situations by self-handicapping, withholding effort, preparing insufficiently, or avoiding evaluation alto-gether (Crocker, Brook, Niiya, & Villacorta, 2006; Lupien, Seery, & Almonte, 2010; Tice & Baumeister, 1990). In short, prior research indicates that self-esteem threats (whether antic-ipated or directly experienced) may undermine motivation and impair self-regulation and performance. Interventions and mechanisms capable of buffering people from self-esteem threats could therefore improve performance on evaluative tasks.

© 2018 Informa UK limited, trading as taylor & francis Group

KEYWORDSSelf-compassion; self-esteem; academic performance; threat

ARTICLE HISTORYReceived 31 august 2017 accepted 13 May 2018 Published online 22 May 2018

CONTACT Michael J. Poulin mjpoulin@buffalo.edu§department of Psychology, University at Buffalo, Buffalo, ny, USa

SELF AND IDENTITY 2018, VOL. 17, NO. 6, 710 722–

Inducing self-compassion may be one such intervention. Self-compassion, a positive, caring orientation towards the self, may be able to circumvent the negative consequences of self-esteem pursuit (Neff, 2003, 2011). The present study investigated a direct behavioral consequence of this possibility, i.e., whether self-compassion buffers performance from a self-esteem threat.

Self-compassion

Neff’s foundational work on self-compassion (e.g., Neff, 2003, 2011) has provided robust support for a model in which self-compassion consists of three primary components. These components are:

(a) self-kindness – extending kindness and understanding to oneself rather than harsh judgment and self-criticism, (b) common humanity – seeing one’s experiences as part of the larger human experience rather than seeing them as separating and isolating, and (c) mindfulness – holding one’s painful thoughts and feelings in balanced awareness rather than over-identifying with them. (Neff, 2003, p. 89)

Together, these defining components constitute self-compassion, a form of positive self-re-gard theorized to be capable of avoiding many drawbacks of self-esteem pursuit (Neff, 2003, 2011).

Much research on self-compassion has examined the construct as a trait-level individual difference, using the self-compassion scale (SCS; Neff, 2003). Trait self-compassion is posi-tively correlated with social connectedness, emotional intelligence, and satisfaction with life, in addition to being negatively correlated with self-criticism, depression, trait anxiety, and maladaptive perfectionism (Neff, 2003; Neff, Pisitsungkagarn, & Hseih, 2008). Self-compassion is also correlated with personality traits that are associated with psychological well-being, including higher levels of agreeableness, extroversion, and conscientiousness, and lower levels of neuroticism; self-compassion also predicts psychological health above and beyond these traits (Neff, Rude, & Kirkpatrick, 2007).

Neff (2003) defines self-compassion as a distinct construct from self-esteem. Self-esteem is an overall assessment of one’s value, whereas self-compassion is not an evaluation but rather an orientation – a gentle and caring way of relating to one’s self. Consistent with this definition, Neff and Vonk (2009) found that, when controlling for self-esteem, self-compas-sion was a unique negative predictor of maladaptive ego-relevant variables, including public self-consciousness, self-rumination, self-esteem instability, and global self-esteem contin-gency. Neff and Vonk (2009) also found that self-compassion predicts unique variance in positive emotion states, including positive affect, subjective happiness, and optimism, even when controlling for self-esteem.

In addition, prior research indicates that self-compassion may allow individuals to cir-cumvent the negative consequences of self-esteem pursuit, including maladaptive responses to self-esteem threats. While striving to boost or protect one’s self-esteem is associated with reduced intrinsic motivation and increased anxiety (Crocker & Park, 2004; Park, Crocker, & Kiefer, 2007), self-compassion predicts greater intrinsic academic motivation and reduced anxiety (Neff, Hseih, & Dejitthirat, 2005). Similarly, Neff, Kirkpatrick, and Rude (2007) found that self-compassion predicted less anxiety following a self-esteem threat. Specifically, after study participants were asked to write about their greatest weakness for a mock job inter-view, greater levels of self-compassion predicted lower levels of anxiety. In addition, Leary,

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Tate, Adams, Allen, and Hancock (2007) found that self-compassion predicted less emotional reactivity to negative events, including academic failure. Conversely, tying one’s self-esteem to academic performance predicts greater emotional reactivity in response to academic failure (Crocker et al., 2002). Taken together, prior research indicates that not only is self-com-passion distinct from self-esteem, but self-compassion may also be capable of protecting individuals from multiple motivational and emotional consequences of self-esteem threats.

Prior research also suggests, but has not directly demonstrated, that self-compassion may improve task performance. Breines and Chen (2012) found that self-compassion increased motivation and effort, but the authors did not detect any difference in laboratory performance on a GRE antonym task. Mosewich, Crocker, Kowalski, and DeLongis (2013) found that a self-compassion intervention reduced self-criticism and concern with mistakes among female varsity athletes, but the authors did not measure the athletes’ performance outcomes. Thus, while no prior research has demonstrated that self-compassion leads to improved task performance, there is also not conclusive evidence to rule out this possibility. In light of the effects of self-compassion on multiple performance-related mechanisms, it remains highly plausible that self-compassion is capable of having beneficial effects on actual performance.

Prior research has also theorized and tested potential mechanisms for the effects of self-compassion, including reduced rumination (Raes, 2010) and improved emotion regu-lation (Diedrich, Grant, Hofmann, Hiller, & Berking, 2014). Another possible mechanism for self-compassion’s effects, which remains under-studied, is a shift away from self-evaluation: Neff has suggested that self-compassion “circumvents the entire evaluation process” (Neff, 2011, p. 226). One potential reason this mechanism has not been explored may be that it is very difficult to assess self-evaluation (or its absence) without inducing it – a difficulty com-mon in measuring self-focused cognitions (Eichstaedt & Silvia, 2003). For this reason, it may be advantageous to assess implicit, rather than explicit, self-evaluations. Doing so was a secondary focus of the current study.

Study overview and hypotheses

The primary aim of the current research was to test the hypothesis that self-compassion would buffer individuals against the negative effects of a self-esteem threat on performance. We specifically chose to assess performance on an academic task, given the likelihood that this would be a domain of self-esteem contingency in the population of individuals we studied – college students.

A secondary aim of this study was to explore whether self-compassion could affect the presence or absence of implicitly measured self-evaluation. To do so, we examined both implicit associations between the self and words indicating the presence of evaluation (e.g., “judged,” “assessed,” “rated,”) and words indicating the absence of evaluation (e.g., “noticed,” “viewed,” “detected”). In addition, given that the effects of self-compassion should in principle be separate from those of self-esteem, we wanted to try to rule out the possibility that any effects of self-compassion on performance were actually due to effects on self-esteem. To do so, we also assessed implicit self-esteem. To measure these constructs implicitly, the current study used novel sequential priming procedures modeled after standard sequential priming measures (Fazio, Sanbonmatsu, Powell, & Kardes, 1986).

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Method

Participants

Participants were 3331 introductory psychology students (49.5% female; 55% white, 27% Asian or Asian-American, 10% African American, 6% Latinx, 2% other ethnicity; age M = 19.28, SD = 1.52) recruited from the research participant pool of a large university in the Northeastern United States. Participants were given credit towards a course requirement as compensation.

Procedure

Participants entered the lab in groups of 1 to 4 and were greeted by the experimenter and told they would be participating in a study of cognitive response styles and personality. Next, they were seated at carrels separated by privacy partitions as they completed the experiment on individual computers.

This study employed a 2 (self-compassion manipulation vs. an expressive writing control group) × 2 (academic self-esteem threat vs. neutral control) between-subjects design. After giving informed consent, participants were administered the self-esteem threat manipula-tion via random assignment to one of two writing prompts. This study utilized writing instruc-tions based on those developed by Leary et al. (2007). The self-esteem threat writing prompt was worded as follows:

Think about a negative academic event that you experienced in high school or college that made you feel badly about yourself – something that involved failure, humiliation, or rejection, such as failing an important exam or assignment or being denied admission to a college. Please describe the event and then provide details regarding what led up to the event, who was present, precisely what happened, and how you felt and behaved at the time.

Participants in the neutral event control group, by contrast, were instructed to write about their commute to campus, an autobiographical event that is unlikely to elicit strong emotions:

In this task, we would like you to think about your walk or drive to campus today. In the space provided below, try to relive the experience as best as you can by describing the situation you were in and what you were thinking and feeling at the time.

All participants were reassured that their responses would remain anonymous, and that they would have the opportunity to have their essays and other responses deleted if they wished. This was done to ensure that participants’ performance on the writing task was not influenced by normative or self-presentational concerns.

Following this, participants were administered the self-compassion manipulation, also via random assignment to one of two sets of writing prompts. Those in the self-compassion condition were instructed to respond to three further writing prompts designed to elicit self-compassion. The first prompt instructed them to write about the fact that others expe-rience similarly negative events, for the purpose of eliciting a sense of common humanity: “Next, please list and describe situations in which other people also have similar emotional experiences.” The second writing prompt instructed participants to express kindness towards themselves: “Next, please write a paragraph expressing understanding, kindness, and con-cern to yourself in the same way that you might express concern to a friend who had under-gone the same experience.” The third prompt instructed participants to describe their

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emotions relating to the event in a mindful, accepting fashion: “Next, please describe the emotions you felt during the event from a detached, objective perspective, as if you were an outside observer. In doing so, remain non-judgmental and accepting towards yourself and your emotions.” These prompts were based on the self-compassion manipulation devel-oped by Leary et al. (2007), with the exception that we added the last sentence of the third prompt to better explain the idea of mindfulness to participants.2

Participants in the expressive writing control group were instructed to respond to a dif-ferent follow-up prompt: “Next, please write more about the thoughts and feelings that this event made you feel. Really let go and dig down to your very deepest emotions and thoughts and explore them in your writing.” This prompt, adapted from the work of Pennebaker and colleagues (e.g., Pennebaker, Colder, & Sharp, 1990), was designed to control for the act of thinking further about the emotions experienced during and following the negative event, without specifically instructing participants to engage in self-compassion. This control con-dition allowed us to isolate the unique effects of the self-compassion induction while con-trolling for the act of thinking more deeply about the event and the emotions involved.

Next, participants completed reaction-time-based measures of implicit self-evaluative thoughts and implicit self-esteem, in that order. Following these reaction-time-based meas-ures, participants were instructed to complete the 20 GRE verbal analogy items, which they were informed were taken from the GRE, and told that this was a test of intelligence and predictive of academic success. Participants were then administered manipulation check items concerning the self-esteem threat. Following this, participants provided their demo-graphic information. Last, participants were fully debriefed and thanked for their participation.

Measures

Self-esteem threat manipulation checkAs a check of the self-esteem threat manipulation, participants responded to four items from Park and Maner (2009): “How positive was the recalled event?” (1 = “not at all positive,” 7 = “very positive”), “How negative was the recalled event?” (1 = “not at all negative,” 7 = “very negative”), “How did the event make you feel about yourself?” (1 = “very bad about myself,” 7 = “very good about myself”), and “When thinking about the recalled event, what was your mood?” (1 = “very negative mood” 7 = “very positive mood”).

GRE analogy itemsParticipants responded to 20 verbal analogy items taken from a GRE practice book. Each item consisted of a related pair of words (e.g., “TOOTH : GUM”) followed by five pairs of words (e.g., “EYE : SOCKET”), and participants were instructed to select the pair from these five that expressed a relationship most similar to that expressed in the original word pair. Participants were also informed that there would be no penalty for guessing. The total number of items correct was used as an index of verbal performance (α = .69).

Implicit self-evaluative thoughtsThis study employed a sequential priming measure designed to assess the strength of par-ticipants’ associations between self-related words (“I,” “me,” “mine,” “myself”) and attributes reflecting non-evaluation (“sensed,” “seen,” “perceived,” “noticed,” “viewed,” “detected”) vs.

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evaluation (“judged,” “assessed,” “rated,” “graded,” “appraised,” “evaluated”). Participants were not given a cover story for this task, other than it being a “categorization task” within this study of “cognitive response styles and personality.” Both evaluation and non-evaluation words were presented twice in the critical block: once preceded by a self-relevant prime and once preceded by a non-self prime (“they,” “them,” “their,” “theirs”). The presentation order of target words and primes was randomized across participants by the experimental software, DirectRT (Jarvis, 2008). Each trial consisted of a blank screen for 1000 ms, a forward mask presented for 53 ms, a subliminal prime presented for 27 ms, a backward mask presented for 53 ms, a target word (i.e., evaluation or non-evaluation word) which remained on-screen until participants made a categorization response, followed by an inter-trial interval that varied from 1000 to 2500 ms. The task consisted of a 12-trial practice block in which “BLANK” was the subliminal prime for all trials, all target words (evaluation or non-evaluation) were presented once, and participants were given correct/incorrect feedback after each trial. Following this, participants completed the 24-trial critical block. Participants’ mean reaction times, averaged across all trials in which evaluation and non-evaluation words were preceded by self-relevant primes, served as measures of implicit self-evaluative thoughts (α = .84) and non-evaluative thoughts, respectively (α = .87).

Implicit self-esteemThis study also employed a second sequential priming measure designed to assess partici-pants’ implicit self-esteem, as a contrast to implicit self-evaluation. Specifically, this task measured the strength of participants’ associations between self-related primes (“I,” “ME,” “MINE,” “MYSELF”) and positive words (“beautiful,” “excellent,” “magnificent,” “marvelous,” “out-standing,” “delightful,” “wonderful,” “positive”) vs. negative words (“miserable,” “revolting,” “dreadful,” “painful,” “awful,” “terrible,” “disgusting,” “negative”). Both positive and negative words were presented twice in the critical block: once preceded by a self-relevant prime and once preceded by a non-self primes (“THEY,” “THEM,” “THEIR,” “THEIRS”). Each trial consisted of a blank screen for 1000 ms, a forward mask presented for 53 ms, a subliminal prime pre-sented for 27 ms, a backward mask presented for 53 ms, a target word (i.e., positive or neg-ative word) which remained on-screen until participants made a categorization response, followed by an inter-trial interval that varied from 1000 ms to 2500 ms. The task consisted of a 16-trial practice block in which “BLANK” was the subliminal prime for all trials, all target words (positive or negative) were presented once, and participants were given correct/incorrect feedback after each trial. Following this, participants completed the 32-trial critical block. Participants’ mean reaction times for positive words and (reverse-scored) negative words, in trials preceded by self-relevant primes, served as a measure of implicit self-esteem (α = .83).

Results

The data for four participants were discarded because the participants requested that their data be deleted after debriefing. Data were lost for an additional four participants due to computer malfunctions, leaving a final sample of 325 students.

Manipulation check items indicated that the threat manipulation was successful: com-pared to control participants, participants in the threat condition rated the event they recalled as significantly less positive (Mthreat = 2.64, Mcontrol = 4.20, t(323) = 8.07, p < .001), and

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significantly more negative (Mthreat = 5.12, Mcontrol = 3.56, t(323) = 8.27, p < .001). Compared to control participants, threat participants also reported that the event made them feel less positively about themselves (Mthreat = 2.64, Mcontrol = 4.28, t(323) = 11.45, p < .001), and reported feeling less positive mood while thinking about the event (Mthreat = 2.85, Mcontrol = 4.23, t(323) = 7.84, p < .001).

GRE analogy performance

In order to increase the sensitivity of the GRE measure, weighted scores were calculated by multiplying participants’ scores for each item (i.e., 0 or 1) by the proportion of total partici-pants who answered that item incorrectly. This procedure results in more difficult items being weighted more heavily. Weighting items by difficulty can increase the validity of aca-demic tests (Feldt, 2004). In addition, the effects of threat are typically stronger on more difficult tests (Nguyen & Ryan, 2008) and more difficult test items (Keller, 2007). Raw scores on the GRE analogy items ranged from 1 to 19 (M = 12.39, SD = 3.47), and weighted scores ranged from 0.39 to 7.21 (M = 4.12, SD = 1.28). In order to test the hypothesis that self-com-passion would buffer individuals against the effects of the self-esteem threat, we conducted a 2x2 ANCOVA in which weighted GRE scores were predicted by self-compassion condition and threat condition, with years of English language fluency as a covariate.3 The two-way interaction between self-compassion and threat was significant, F(1, 320) = 3.95, p = .048, η2 = .01. In the expressive writing control condition, threat predicted significantly lower weighted GRE scores (M = 3.87, SD = 1.29) compared to no threat (M = 4.39, SD = 1.11, t[160] = 2.73, p = .007, d = 0.43). By contrast, in the self-compassion condition, weighted GRE scores did not significantly differ between threat (M = 4.13, SD = 1.30) and no threat (M = 4.09, SD = 1.36, t[161] = −0.17, p = .87, d = -−0.03). This is consistent with the hypothesis that self-compassion would buffer individuals’ performance from the effects of threat (see Figure 1). By contrast, the interaction did not appear to indicate that threat augmented effects of self-compassion on performance, as self-compassion was not a significant predictor of weighted GRE scores either in the absence of threat (t[159] = 1.50, p = .13, d = 0.24) or in the presence of threat (t[162] = −1.23, p = .20, d = -−0.20).

Figure 1. Mean weighted GRe analogy scores as a function of self-compassion condition and self-esteem threat condition.

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In order to test the robustness of this effect, especially given its relatively large p value, we also repeated these analyses with raw scores instead of weighted scores. As an alternate way to represent the role of item difficulty, we examined the raw scores separately among the ten most difficult versus the ten least difficult items. We expected that the effects of threat and self-compassion would be greatest among the most difficult items, which should pose the greatest threat. The data were consistent with this expected pattern: the interaction between self-compassion and threat was significant when predicting raw scores on the ten most difficult items F(1, 320) = 4.61, p = .03, η2=.01. In the expressive writing control condi-tion, threat predicted significantly lower scores for difficult GRE items (M = 4.50, SD = 1.86) compared to no threat (M = 5.27, SD = 1.75, t[160] = 2.71, p = .007, d = 0.47). By contrast, in the self-compassion condition, weighted GRE scores did not significantly differ between threat (M = 4.89, SD = 1.95) and no threat (M = 4.76, SD = 2.10, t[161] = −0.42, p = .67, d = -−0.07). The interaction between self-compassion and threat was not significant when predicting raw scores on the ten least difficult items F(1, 320) = 0.28, p = .59, η2 < .001. These results indicate that self-compassion significantly buffered individuals from the effects of the self-esteem threat, but only for the most difficult test items.

Implicit self-thoughts

Reaction-time data for the implicit self-evaluative and implicit self-esteem tasks were cleaned following the recommendations of Bargh and Chartrand (2000) as well as the procedures employed by Cesario, Plaks, and Higgins (2006). A natural log transformation was applied to all response latencies in order to reduce positive skew. Trials with incorrect responses were excluded from all analyses. Trials with extreme latencies were trimmed such that laten-cies were recoded as the most extreme acceptable latency. Extreme latencies were defined as any response times less than 300 ms or greater than three standard deviations above the mean (Bargh & Chartrand, 2000).

Following Cesario et al. (2006), mean response latencies for each subset of trials were calculated for each participant within the sequential priming tasks. Specifically, each partic-ipant’s mean latency was calculated separately for self/evaluation, self/non-evaluation, other/evaluation, and other/non-evaluation trials in the self-evaluative task, and mean latencies were calculated separately for self/negative, self/positive, other/negative, and other/positive trials in the implicit self-esteem task. These means served as indices of the strength of the associations between each prime word category and each target word category for every participant. These mean latencies were calculated from the cleaned, log-transformed response latency data.

In order to assess the effects of self-compassion and threat on self-evaluative thoughts, a 2x2 ANCOVA examined the effect of these two variables and their interaction on self-eval-uative thoughts (raw data: M = 992.19, SD = 337.56) and on non-evaluative thoughts (raw data: M = 1049.28, SD = 356.91), controlling for participants’ English language fluency and mean latencies for other types of trials as covariates, in order to partial out shared method variance (for similar analyses, see Cesario et al., 2006). These analyses indicated that the self-compassion X threat interaction did not significantly affect self-evaluative thoughts F(1, 308) = 0.10, p = .75, η2 < .001, but was a significant predictor of non-evaluative thoughts F(1, 302) = 4.71, p = .03, η2 = .02.4 Specifically, in the absence of self-compassion, participants had similar (log-transformed) non-evaluative latencies under threat (M = 6.85, SD = 0.36)

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versus no threat (M = 6.87, SD = 0.33; F[1, 145] = 1.49, p = .22, η2 = .01), but in the presence of self-compassion, participants had marginally faster responses to non-evaluative latencies under threat (M = 6.82, SD = 0.27) versus no threat (M = 6.87, SD = 0.23; F[1, 152] = 3.14, p = .08, η2 = .02), indicating marginally increased accessibility of non-evaluative thoughts (see Figure 2 for graphed raw latencies). In order to test the possibility that the effects of self-compassion were due to its effects on self-esteem, we also examined the effects of the self-compassion X threat interaction on the measure of implicit self-esteem (raw data: M = 802.20, SD = 232.57). Given that the measure of implicit self-esteem was calculated as a difference score (i.e., response time to positive words minus response time to negative words), negative difference scores indicate smaller (i.e., faster) latencies for positive self-words relative to negative self-words, and therefore a bias towards positive self-words, suggesting more positive implicit self-esteem. Results indicated that the interaction between self com-passion and threat did not significantly predict implicit self-esteem F[1, 302] = 0.61, p = .43, η2 = .002. Specifically, in the absence of self-compassion, participants had similar (log-trans-formed) differences between positive and negative self-word latencies under threat (M = 0.82, SD = 12.01) versus no threat (M = −0.01, SD = 6.19; F[1, 160] = 0.30, p = .59, η2 < .01), and in the presence of self-compassion, there was marginally more of a bias towards positive (versus negative) self words when under threat (M = −0.75, SD = 6.74) than when under no threat (M = 1.37, SD = 7.78; F[1, 161] = 3.47, p = .06, η2 = .02).

Discussion

Consistent with predictions, the results of this study suggest that self-compassion buffers individuals against the impact of a self-esteem threat on performance on a difficult, self-es-teem-relevant task: completing difficult GRE verbal items. Among participants who received a self-compassion induction, a self-esteem threat did not significantly impact their perfor-mance. Without this self-compassion induction, however, participants performed signifi-cantly worse following the threat. Furthermore, this study found preliminary, marginal evidence for a novel effect of self-compassion on an aspect of implicit self-related cognition: non-evaluative thoughts about the self.

Figure 2.  Raw response latencies for non-evaluative self trials (self/non-evaluation) as a function of self-compassion condition and self-esteem threat condition. Higher values on the y-axis indicate slower latencies and thus a weaker association between “self” and “non-evaluation” words.

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Self-compassion as a buffer against threat effects on performance

The present study is, to our knowledge, the first experiment to find direct support for self-compassion influencing task performance. Prior research has indicated that self-esteem pursuit impairs self-regulation and increases reactivity to threatening feedback (Crocker et al., 2002, 2006), whereas self-compassion may be capable of buffering individuals from the motivational and emotional consequences of self-esteem threats (e.g., Neff et al., 2005). One prior study (Breines & Chen, 2012; study 3) did not find support for self-compassion impacting participants’ performance on GRE antonym items. However, all participants in their study received a self-esteem threat manipulation. In contrast, the present study was designed to compare those experiencing a threat to those not experiencing a threat, which allowed for a more complete investigation of the threat-buffering effects of self-compassion. Another difference between this study and prior research manipulating self-compassion is that we expanded the mindfulness writing prompt in an attempt to provide more clarity than the prompt described by Leary et al. (2007), which may have increased the impact of this manipulation.

The present study’s results have a number of theoretical and practical implications. These findings suggest that self-compassion interventions may directly improve academic perfor-mance. In particular, self-compassion may help to buffer individuals from the negative impact of self-esteem threats on performance. The results of this study are consistent with prior research indicating that self-compassion has benefits for well-being (e.g., Neff & Vonk, 2009) and is capable of buffering individuals from the motivational and emotional consequences of self-esteem threats (e.g., Breines & Chen, 2012; Leary et al., 2007; Neff et al., 2005). The current study’s findings may also have implications for related outcomes, including satisfac-tion of the fundamental psychological need to feel competent (Ryan & Deci, 2000), as well as more concrete outcomes, such as professional achievement.

Self-compassion and implicit self-thoughts

The present study also represents an initial investigation of the links between self-compas-sion and implicit non-evaluative thoughts about the self. This construct, while preliminary, is of interest because it may help explain some of self-compassion’s effects, given that Neff (2011) has argued that an advantage of self-compassion is that it promotes a shift away from self-evaluation. Measuring non-evaluative thoughts about the self implicitly, as we did, may be an appropriate means of assessing this construct, given the difficulty of assessing the presence of self-evaluation without inducing it (cf. Eichstaedt & Silvia, 2003).

The significant self-compassion X threat interaction and marginal simple effect of threat on implicit non-evaluative self-thoughts may suggest that this construct warrants further research. It is unclear, however, why the self/non-evaluation trials of this study’s implicit measure appeared to be sensitive to the self-compassion and threat manipulations, whereas the self/evaluation trials did not. This may reflect the nature of the cognitive shift away from evaluation, e.g., the activation of objective, non-evaluative thoughts may be more central than the de-activation of evaluative thoughts. Or, the pattern of results for this measure may have more mundane explanations, e.g., they may be an artifact of the specific word stimuli used in each component of the implicit task. In either event, further research is needed to

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clarify the interpretation and importance of this study’s results for implicit evaluative and non-evaluative thoughts.

Limitations and future directions

The present study found support for self-compassion buffering academic performance against a self-esteem threat, as well as marginal support for implicit non-evaluative thoughts as an additional effect of self-compassion. However, this study was also limited in some respects. First, it did not comprehensively rule out alternative mechanisms, such as self-af-firmation (McQueen & Klein, 2006; Steele, 1988), which can have similar threat-inoculating effects (e.g., Martens, Johns, Greenberg, & Schimel, 2006). However, the effects of self-affir-mation are typically understood as protecting self-esteem (Sherman & Cohen, 2006), and in this study, self-compassion’s effects did not appear to be explained by implicit self-esteem. That is, this study used, to our knowledge for the first time, a measure of implicit self-esteem as a possible mechanism for self-compassion’s threat-buffering effects, we did not find any evidence that self-compassion buffered self-esteem itself from threat.

Additionally, while the current study included a manipulation check for its self-esteem threat, it did not include a manipulation check of self-compassion because such a measure is not available at present. Future research could develop and validate state-level measures of self-compassion’s components (self-kindness, common humanity, and mindfulness), e.g., by adapting the trait-level Self-Compassion Scale (SCS; Neff, 2003) into a state-level measure.

In addition to addressing these limitations, future research could also extend this study’s findings to performance in other domains. Any such studies could also provide much-needed replications of the present study’s findings. Additionally, future research could examine threats other than those in the academic domain. In this way, researchers could avoid threats that may elicit concern with one’s public image or social evaluation, which is arguably a limitation of the threat utilized in the present study. Future research using different threat manipulations could also investigate whether self-compassion functions similarly across domains, such as athletic performance, job-related task performance, or performance during interpersonal interactions such as romantic relationship disagreements or business nego-tiations. Any challenging domain in which performance would impact self-evaluation may demonstrate similar responsiveness to self-esteem threats and self-compassion. In short, self-compassion may help people not only feel well, but also perform well.

Notes

1. The original target N for data collection was 200, in order to achieve n = 50 per cell. However, the cancellation of another study set to run in the same lab freed up extra time to run additional participants, which we deemed appropriate for an effect previously not demonstrated. No preliminary data analyses were conducted before the study reached its N of 333.

2. The authors did not provide specific wording of the three self-compassion writing prompts they used. As such, an initial wording was generated based on the descriptions provided by Leary et al. (2007), then refined through pilot testing (N = 19) by inspecting pilot participants’ responses and addressing their feedback concerning clarity.

3. English language fluency was included as a control variable to improve the precision of the model, given the diversity of our sample and the fact that English language fluency accounted for 18% of the variance in weighted GRE scores. Omitting this variable led to largely consistent

720 S. S. DELURY AND M. J. POULIN

results for the two-way interaction between self-compassion and self-esteem threat, β = .19, p = .050.

4. When not adjusting for language fluency, results were essentially identical: F(1, 303) =  4.72, p = .03, η2 = .02.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

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