How Self-Compassion Moderates the Relation Between Body Surveillance and Body Shame Among Men and Women
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ORIGINAL PAPER
How Self-Compassion Moderates the Relation Between Body Surveillance and Body Shame Among Men and Women Robin Wollast 1
&
Abigail R. Riemer 2 & Elisa Sarda 3 & Brenton M. Wiernik 4 & Olivier Klein 1
# Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2020
Abstract Objectives According to objectification theory, being treated as an object leads people, especially women, to perceive themselves as objects. This self-objectification increases body surveillance and feelings of body shame. While this relation is well-established in the literature, little is known about factors that can buffer against detrimental consequences of self-objectification. The current work used a multi-method approach to investigate the role of self-compassion on men and women’s perceptions of their bodies. Methods Study 1 investigated relations between self-compassion, body surveillance, and body shame (N = 60 men, 104 women) using cross-sectional, self-report data. Study 2 (N = 64 men, 94 women) experimentally manipulated self-objectification and selfcompassion, assessing resulting body surveillance and shame, whereas study 3 (N = 69 men, 189 women) manipulated selfobjectification among participants high and low in self-compassion. Results In study 1, self-compassion was inversely related to body shame and body surveillance, with self-compassion moderating the link between surveillance and shame among men. In study 2, self-compassion protected women in the high selfobjectification condition from engaging in greater body surveillance. Yet, in study 3, self-compassion failed to buffer the consequences of body surveillance on body shame. An integrative analysis (N = 193 men, 387 women) demonstrated that self-compassion was strongly negatively associated with body shame and body surveillance among men and women, protecting against detrimental consequences of body surveillance among men. Conclusions The current work contributes to a better understanding of links between constructs related to objectification theory and compassion for oneself in the light of gender differences. Keywords Self-compassion . Body surveillance . Body shame . Self-objectification . Gender
Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (https://doi.org/10.1007/s12671-020-01448-w) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users at https://osf.io/s56h8/. * Robin Wollast [email protected] 1
Center for Social and Cultural Psychology, Université libre de Bruxelles, Brussels, Belgium
2
Department of Life Sciences, Carroll University, Waukesha, USA
3
Laboratoire de Psychologie et NeuroCognition, Université Grenoble-Alpes, Grenoble, France
4
Department of Psychology, University of South Florida, Tampa, USA
Our self-talk has the potential to fundamentally change our self-perceptions (Neff 2003b; Raes 2010). Negative self-talk about one’s appearance is particularly common, with many men and women reporting poor body image (Daniel and Bridges 2010; McKinley and Hyde 1996). Moreover, selfperce
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