Ceccarelli Laura A, Giuliano Ryan J, Glazebrook Cheryl M, Strachan Shaelyn M
Department of Psychology, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, MB, Canada.
Faculty of Kinesiology and Recreation Management, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, MB, Canada.
Front Psychol. 2019 Jul 5;10:1564. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2019.01564. eCollection 2019.
Failure inherent to high-performance sport can precipitate emotional distress that can impair athletes' performance and physical and mental health. Identifying factors that allow athletes to manage failure to sustain their health is critical. Self-compassion, treating oneself kindly in response to failure, may help athletes manage failure; it buffers against negative affective psychological responses, yet athletes often fear self-compassion. It is unknown whether the benefits of self-compassion extend to athletes' physiological responses to failure and whether fear of self-compassion has an influence on psychological and physiological responses to failure, beyond self-compassion. The purpose of this study was to examine the influence of self-compassion on athletes' psychological and physiological responses when recalling a sport failure and determine if fear of self-compassion exerted unique effects, beyond self-compassion. Participants ( = 91; age = 21) were university or national-level athletes. In this laboratory-based, observational study, athletes were connected to a multi-modal biofeedback system to measure physiological responding at baseline, during a stress induction (imagining a past performance failure), and during a recovery period. Physiological responding was assessed according to athletes' high-frequency heart rate variability (HRV), indexing parasympathetic nervous system activity, during the stress induction and recovery phase. Next, to assess psychological reactivity, athletes completed a series of scales (behavioral reactions, thoughts, and emotions). Regression analyses revealed that self-compassion predicted athletes' HRV reactivity to the stress induction (β = 0.30, < 0.05). There was no relationship between self-compassion and HRV recovery. Further, self-compassion predicted adaptive behavioral reactions (β = 0.46, < 0.01), and negatively predicted maladaptive thoughts (β = -0.34, < 0.01) and negative affect (β = -0.39, < 0.01). Fear of self-compassion explained additional variance in some maladaptive thoughts and behavioral reactions. Results suggest that self-compassion promotes adaptive physiological and psychological responses in athletes relative to a recalled sport failure and may have implications for performance enhancement, recovery and health outcomes. Further, addressing athletes' fears of self-compassion may also be important in promoting optimal psychological recovery.
高性能运动中固有的失败可能会引发情绪困扰，进而损害运动员的表现以及身心健康。识别那些能让运动员应对失败以维持自身健康的因素至关重要。自我同情，即在面对失败时善待自己，可能有助于运动员应对失败；它能缓冲负面的情感心理反应，然而运动员常常惧怕自我同情。目前尚不清楚自我同情的益处是否能延伸至运动员对失败的生理反应，以及对自我同情的恐惧是否会对除自我同情之外的失败心理和生理反应产生影响。本研究的目的是检验自我同情在运动员回忆运动失败时对其心理和生理反应的影响，并确定对自我同情的恐惧是否会产生超出自我同情的独特影响。参与者（n = 91；平均年龄 = 21岁）为大学或国家级运动员。在这项基于实验室的观察性研究中，运动员连接到一个多模态生物反馈系统，以测量基线、压力诱导（想象过去的表现失败）和恢复期的生理反应。在压力诱导和恢复阶段，根据运动员的高频心率变异性（HRV）来评估生理反应，HRV可反映副交感神经系统活动。接下来，为了评估心理反应性，运动员完成了一系列量表（行为反应、想法和情绪）。回归分析显示，自我同情可预测运动员对压力诱导的HRV反应性（β = 0.30，p < 0.05）。自我同情与HRV恢复之间没有关系。此外，自我同情可预测适应性行为反应（β = 0.46，p < 0.01），并对适应不良的想法（β = -0.34，p < 0.01）和负面影响（β = -0.39，p < 0.01）有负向预测作用。对自我同情的恐惧在一些适应不良的想法和行为反应中解释了额外的方差。结果表明，相对于回忆起的运动失败，自我同情能促进运动员适应性的生理和心理反应，可能对提高成绩、恢复和健康结果有影响。此外，解决运动员对自我同情的恐惧在促进最佳心理恢复方面可能也很重要。
