The Role of Self-compassion in Women's Self-determined Motives to Exercise and Exercise-related Outcomes

Self-compassion is emerging in the literature as a healthy conceptualization of the self (Neff, 2003a). This study explored how self-compassion is related to, and explains unique variance beyond self-esteem on, women's motives to exercise and exercise-related outcomes. Participants were 252 women exercisers. Self-compassion was positively related to intrinsic motivation and negatively related to external and introjected motivation, ego goal orientation, social physique anxiety, and obligatory exercise behavior. Hierarchical regression analysis showed that self-compassion contributed unique variance beyond self-esteem on introjected motivation, ego goal orientation, social physique anxiety, and obligatory exercise. This study provides evidence that self-compassion is related to well-being in the exercise context, raising the possibility that the development of self-compassion may be important for women who exercise.