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Clarifying the Relationship Between Self-Compassion and Mindfulness: an Ecological Momentary Assessment Study

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Abstract

Objectives

Self-compassion entails relating to one’s negative experiences with awareness, acceptance, and kindness, and it is associated with greater well-being. The Self-Compassion Scale (SCS) includes mindfulness, which is theorized as a necessary precursor to a self-compassionate response. The present study examined associations of the SCS and its subscales with mindfulness and decentering at baseline and in daily life to clarify the measure’s construct validity. We also tested whether self-compassion moderates the association between mindfulness and eudaimonic well-being in daily life during occasions of increased negative affect.

Methods

The sample of 172 community adults completed the SCS at baseline and a 7-day ecological momentary assessment. The SCS’s construct validity was tested with multilevel correlations and regressions. We tested the interaction of momentary mindfulness, momentary negative affect, and dispositional self-compassion in predicting momentary well-being.

Results

Results generally supported the construct validity of the SCS, but SCS mindfulness subscales were most closely associated with decentering scales in daily life. Higher dispositional self-compassion, higher momentary mindful awareness, and lower momentary negative affect predicted higher momentary eudaimonic well-being. However, self-compassion did not interact with momentary mindful awareness and negative affect.

Conclusions

The SCS generally related to measures of mindfulness and decentering as expected, but further work should be done to clarify subscale construct validity. Self-compassion was predictive of higher momentary eudaimonic well-being in people’s daily lives, supportive of ecological validity, but trait levels of self-compassion did not affect the relationship between momentary mindfulness and eudaimonic well-being.

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Data Availability

The data analyzed in the current study are available at: https://osf.io/wnpeb/.

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Funding

This research was supported in part by NCCIH/NIH grant 1R21AT009470 to Kristin Naragon-Gainey & Kenneth DeMarree. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, 214 Park Hall, University at Buffalo, the State University of New York, Buffalo, NY, 14260, USA

    Kaitlyn M. Biehler

  2. School of Psychological Science, University of Western Australia, 35 Stirling Highway, Crawley, WA, 6009, Australia

    Kristin Naragon-Gainey

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  1. Kaitlyn M. Biehler
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  2. Kristin Naragon-Gainey
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Contributions

KB: assisted with the execution of the study and data collection, analyzed the data, and drafted the manuscript. KN-G: designed and executed the study, assisted with the data analyses, and provided critical revisions. All authors approved the final version of the manuscript for submission.

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Correspondence to Kaitlyn M. Biehler.

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Ethics Statement

This study was approved by the University at Buffalo State University of New York Institutional Review Board and all procedures were in accordance with the 1964 Declaration of Helsinki and its subsequent amendments.

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Informed consent was obtained from all participants in the study.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

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Biehler, K.M., Naragon-Gainey, K. Clarifying the Relationship Between Self-Compassion and Mindfulness: an Ecological Momentary Assessment Study. Mindfulness 13, 843–854 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12671-022-01865-z

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