Using social cognition models to understand why people, such as perfectionists, struggle to respond with self‐compassion

Abstract

Responding with self-compassion to lapses in goal pursuit helps people to achieve their goals, yet evidence suggests that some people struggle to respond with self-compassion.The current research proposes that social cognition models such the Theory of Planned Behaviour and the Prototype

Does Psychoeducation Help People to Respond to Goal Lapses With Self-Compassion?

“…Consistent with this theory, research has indicated that attitudes, norms and self-efficacy with respect to self-compassionate responding can determine whether people will respond with self-compassion to difficulties (e.g. Biskas et al, 2022;Campion & Glover, 2017). Therefore, interventions may need to strengthen motivation and behavioural skills to respond with self-compassion alongside knowledge about self-compassion as provided by psychoeducation.…”

“…Even if people do have positive beliefs about self-compassion and are willing to be self-compassionate, they may still struggle to be self-compassionate at the critical moment because they experience a problem with enactment (Biskas et al, 2022). On this basis, an alternative – or additional – approach to help people respond with self-compassion might be to tackle the difficulties that people encounter translating their willingness to be self-compassionate into action.…”

“…Finally, the present research did not consider variables that may influence the effect of psychoeducation on self-compassionate responding. For example, previous research has shown that people with higher levels of perfectionistic concerns, a dimension of perfectionism which is characterized by very high expectations, harsh self-criticism and excessive preoccupation with the expectations that others have of them (Sirois & Molnar, 2016), tend to hold more negative beliefs about self-compassion and, because of this, struggle to respond with self-compassion to lapses (Biskas et al, 2022). Given this, people high in perfectionistic concerns, or other personality traits that are characterized by intense self-criticism (e.g.…”

“…Based on the work described above, Biskas et al (2022) conducted a large-scale prospective study to provide a direct test of whether negative beliefs about self-compassion explain why people may struggle to respond with self-compassion to goal lapses. Biskas et al assessed participants’ affective and cognitive evaluations of being self-compassionate as well as how participants evaluate people who respond to difficulties with self-compassion or self-criticism.…”

“…Despite the benefits of self-compassion, however, people often struggle to respond with self-compassion; for example, because they are unfamiliar with the concept of self-compassion or hold negative beliefs about self-compassion (e.g. Biskas et al, 2022). On this basis, we investigated whether educating people about self-compassion and its benefits could help them to respond with self-compassion to lapses in goal pursuit.…”