Self-Compassion Increases Self-Improvement Motivation

Can treating oneself with compassion after making a mistake increase self-improvement motivation? in four experiments,the authors examined the hypothesis that self-compassion motivates people to improve personal weaknesses,moral transgressions,and test performance. participants in a self-compassion condition,compared to a self-esteem control condition and either no intervention or a positive distraction control condition,expressed greater incremental beliefs about a personal weakness (experiment 1); reported greater motivation to make amends and avoid repeating a recent moral transgression (experiment 2); spent more time studying for a difficult test following an initial failure (experiment 3); exhibited a preference for upward social comparison after reflecting on a personal weakness (experiment 4); and reported greater motivation to change the weakness (experiment 4). these findings suggest that,somewhat paradoxically,taking an accepting approach to personal failure may make people more motivated to improve themselves. © 2012 by the society for personality and social psychology,inc.