Study: Self-Compassion May Protect Self-Esteem After Failure

Kindness Toward Oneself Did Not Lift Mood After Failure, but It Was Tied to Steadier Self-Esteem

A bad day often leaves two lingering feelings behind: disappointment in the moment, and sometimes a quieter worry that the day says something about the person who had it. A new experiment suggests self-compassion, the habit of treating oneself with kindness instead of harsh judgment, may help with that second part.

Researchers at the University of Lübeck in Germany had 74 young adults squeeze a hand grip, bet on a hunch about which button would pay off, and rate how happy and proud they felt after round upon round. Happiness and pride sank after losses for everyone, including people high in self-compassion. By the end of the game, though, self-compassion was tied to how much poor results dented people’s opinion of their own abilities.

Published in Royal Society Open Science, the study shows an association, not cause and effect. Self-compassion was measured, not taught, so the results cannot prove that practicing it protects anyone.

Researchers Tracked Self-Compassion While 74 Young Adults Gambled on Buttons

Participants were all students, 81% of them women, with an average age of 22.7, recruited mostly from two schools in Lübeck. Before the game, everyone filled out a questionnaire on self-esteem that separates feelings about performance from feelings about looks and social standing. A second questionnaire, given afterward, scored each person’s self-compassion.

Play lasted 200 rounds. In each one, a player picked a blue or yellow button, then squeezed the grip. A correct pick earned points matching the squeeze, and a wrong pick cost the same amount, so squeezing harder raised both the possible gain and the possible loss. Which button was likelier to win kept shifting, forcing players to keep track of recent results. Everyone faced the same preset order of winning buttons, and points converted to real money, up to 7 euros.

On 70 of the rounds, a slider asked how happy and how proud the player felt about the last result. Researchers averaged the two into one mood score.

Mood Swings Looked Alike Across Self-Compassion Levels, but Self-Esteem Did Not

Players clearly learned the pattern. They picked the winning button 58.5% of the time, beating the 50% expected from guessing, and squeezed harder when choosing the button they expected to win. Mood tracked outcomes closely, with typical happiness and pride ratings roughly twice as high after a correct pick as after a wrong one.

Self-compassion did not measurably change those swings in happiness and pride, the only feelings the study tracked. Whether a result was better or worse than expected, or a loss came after going against the odds (a likely source of regret), mood moved about the same at every level of self-compassion. People higher in self-compassion did report slightly more happiness and pride across the game overall.

Self-esteem told a different story. Self-esteem about performance fell from before the game to after it, even though players beat chance and earned money, while self-esteem about looks and social standing stayed about the same. The authors speculated that players may have expected to do better, since losses landed on 42% of rounds on average. Nobody was told how they ranked against anyone else, so players had only their own results to judge themselves by.

Higher Self-Compassion Went With a Weaker Link Between Poor Results and Low Self-Esteem

A bad run meant different things at different levels of self-compassion. Among people low in self-compassion, self-esteem rose and fell with results: better averages went with higher self-esteem afterward, worse averages with lower. For people with average or high self-compassion, that link was not statistically significant, meaning it was too weak to rule out chance. Among players who did poorly, those high in self-compassion finished with higher self-esteem about their performance than those with average or low scores. Among players who did well, that gap was not significant.

Why remains unclear. The authors proposed that when asked to reflect on their abilities, self-compassionate people may reinterpret a rough stretch instead of concluding they lack skill. Another possibility is that self-compassion shortens upset feelings rather than weakening them, which would fit the unchanged mood swings. Both ideas still need testing.

Self-Compassion Practices May Matter for Depression and Anxiety, Authors Say

Depression and anxiety often involve harsh self-criticism and low self-esteem. Low self-compassion is seen as a risk factor for repeat bouts of depression, and earlier research suggests self-compassion training can ease depression, anxiety, and stress. The authors proposed that the new results could inform treatment, since self-compassion may keep a rough performance from reshaping a person’s self-image. This experiment tested no treatment, though.

Self-compassion looks less like a painkiller for each bad moment and more like a guardrail for what a person concludes about themselves afterward. Whether building it up delivers the same protection is the question that remains.

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Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only and is not medical or psychological advice. It reports findings from a single laboratory experiment. Anyone concerned about their mental health should consult a qualified professional.

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