Self-Compassion and Reactions to a Recalled Exercise Lapse: The Moderating Role of Gender-Role Schemas

Exercise is good for health and well-being, yet people experience lapses when trying to adhere to exercise. Self-compassion may help people cope with exercise lapses. Most research on self-compassion and exercise has been conducted with women; men may also benefit from self-compassion. No research has examined whether gender-role schema influences responses to exercise lapses. The authors examined both male and female adult exercisers (N = 220) who reported their self-compassion, recalled an exercise lapse, their reactions to the lapse, and their self-identification of masculinity and femininity. After controlling for self-esteem, age, and lapse importance, self-compassion negatively related to emotional responses (p<.001), rumination (p<.001), extrinsic motivation (p = .004), and positively related to intrinsic motivation (p < .001). Masculinity moderated the relationships between self-compassion and amotivation (p = .006), and identified regulation (p = .01). Self-compassion may be an effective resource for exercisers, especially those who identify as highly masculine.