The Associations Among Self-compassion, Self-esteem, Self-criticism, and Concern Over Mistakes in Response to Biomechanical Feedback in Athletes
Date
2020-07-21
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
ORCID
0000-0002-5865-9348
Type
Thesis
Degree Level
Masters
Abstract
This study primarily focuses on the associations among self-compassion, self-esteem, self-criticism, and concern over mistakes in the context of athletes’ responses to biomechanical feedback on their sprint performance. Participants (Female = 20, Mage = 19.8 years; Male = 28, Mage = 23.6 years) performed four sets of 40-meters sprint test and received biomechanical feedback on their sprint time, step length, step frequency, and trunk sway at the end of each trial. Psychological factors self-compassion, self-esteem, self-criticism, and concern over mistakes were measured before the sprint test. Post self-criticism and emotions, thoughts, and reactions were measured after the sprint test through online questionnaires. The results showed that self-compassion and self-esteem had similar relationships to healthy reactions, thoughts, and emotions for athletes after receiving and implementing biomechanical feedback. After controlling for self-esteem, self-compassion predicted unique variance only for personalizing thoughts (R2 = .117, ΔR2 = .056, p<.05) and one of the reactions (i.e., “I kept the feedback in perspective”; R2 = .137, ΔR2 = .134, p<.05). Baseline self-criticism and concern over mistakes were negatively related to self-compassion and self-esteem, and positively related to post self-criticism. A within-between repeated measure ANOVA with time and sex as within and between subject factors showed a significant improvement in sprint time (F [1.67, 76.78]) = 21.61, p < .001), step length (F [2.43, 111.79] = 22.72, p<.001), and front to back sway (F [2.73, 125.64] = 8.10, p<.001) after the first sprint set, while there were no significant differences between second, third, and fourth sprint performances. A moderated regression analysis between the first and fourth sprint time variables revealed that the level of self-compassion was not a moderator for the change in sprint performance (R2 = .642, ΔR2 = .10, p>.05). Future research is needed to explore self-compassion and athletes’ responses to feedback through a variety of emotionally challenging scenarios and different feedback modes.
Description
Keywords
Self-compassion, Self-esteem, Self-criticism, Concern over mistakes, Athletes, Sport, Biomechanical feedback
Citation
Degree
Master of Science (M.Sc.)
Department
Kinesiology
Program
Kinesiology