(PS9-B44) Coping with Social Judgment: The Moderating Role of Fear of Self-compassion on Reappraising Stress

Self-compassion involves being kind and non-judgmental towards oneself during times of hardship and can help individuals cope in adaptive ways (Gilbert, 2014). Self-compassion interventions have been shown to help individuals with high levels of social anxiety (Harwood & Kocovski, 2017). However, some may fear self-compassion as they do not feel worthy or deserving of receiving self-kindness (Gilbert, 2010). For those who fear self-compassion, engaging in self-compassion practices may not be beneficial and may result in negative outcomes (Gilbert, 2010; Stevenson et al., 2019).Most research on the benefits of self-compassion for social anxiety has not examined the impact of fear of self-compassion, which was the primary aim of the present work.

Participants were randomly assigned to a self-compassion (n = 53), cognitive reappraisal (n = 53), or a control condition (n = 52), prior to delivering a 3-minute speech over Zoom. The pandemic has led many individuals to present virtually in work and educational contexts; therefore, a virtual format was used in the present study. It was hypothesized that those high in fear of self-compassion, compared to those low in fear of self-compassion, would fare better in the reappraisal condition compared to both other conditions.

Fear of self-compassion significantly interacted with condition in predicting state reappraisal, F (2, 152) = 3.96, p = .021, R² = .048. Those with low levels of baseline fear of self-compassion did not differ significantly on their state reappraisal across conditions. Those with high baseline fear of self-compassion reported significantly higher levels of state reappraisal in the cognitive reappraisal condition compared to the control condition, b = .765, t = 2.01, p = .046. Contrary to hypotheses, fear of self-compassion did not interact with condition predicting other outcomes (e.g., state self-compassion, distress, anxiety). Overall, there was only partial support for the benefits of reappraisal for those high in fear of self-compassion. Future research can continue to examine the impact of fear of self-compassion on coping with social stress and, in particular, strategies that may be of benefit to those who struggle treating themselves with kindness.