Self and Identity, 4 263 – 287, 2005
Copyright # 2005 Psychology Press
ISSN: 1529-8868 print/1529-8876 online
DOI: 10.1080/13576500444000317

Self-compassion, Achievement Goals, and Coping with
Academic Failure
KRISTIN D. NEFF
YA-PING HSIEHKULLAYA DEJITTERATUniversity of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas, USA
Two studies examined the relationship between self-compassion, academic achievement goals, and coping with perceived academic failure among undergraduates. Selfcompassion entails being kind to oneself in instances of failure, perceiving one’s
experiences as part of the larger human experience, and holding painful feelings in
mindful awareness. Study 1 (N = 222) found that self-compassion was positively
associated with mastery goals and negatively associated with performance goals, a
relationship that was mediated by the lesser fear of failure and greater perceived
competence of self-compassionate individuals. Study 2 conﬁrmed these ﬁndings
among students who perceived their recent midterm grade as a failure (N = 110),with results also indicating that self-compassion was positively associated withemotion-focused coping strategies and negatively associated with avoidance-oriented
strategies.

Many have criticized self-esteem programs in the schools as a primary way of
encouraging positive self-attitudes among students, arguing that an over-emphasis
on evaluating and liking the self may unwittingly lead youths to develop narcissistic
attitudes or distorted self-concepts (Damon, 1995; Finn, 1990; Hewitt, 1998;
McMillan, Singh, & Simonetta, 1994; Seligman, 1995). ‘‘Self-compassion,’’ aconstruct derived from Buddhist psychology, has recently been proposed as analternative way to conceptualize healthy self-attitudes (Neﬀ, 2003b). Research
indicates that self-compassion oﬀers similar psychological health beneﬁts to selfesteem, but that it has fewer of its drawbacks (Neﬀ, 2003a). Although these ﬁndings
are promising, research on self-compassion is still in its early stages and the relation
between self-compassion and other important psychological processes needs to beinvestigated further. There are several theoretical reasons to believe that feelings ofcompassion towards the self (or the lack thereof) may impact the learning process,and this article presents two studies that attempt to explore this relationship—
speciﬁcally, the link between self-compassion, academic achievement goals, andcoping with academic failure. First, however, the construct of self-compassion will be
discussed in greater detail.

Received 11 June 2004; accepted 26 September 2004
Address correspondence to Kristin Neﬀ, Department of Educational Psychology, University ofTexas at Austin, 1 University Station, D5800, Austin, TX 78712, USA. E-mail:kristin.neﬀ@mail.utexas.edu

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The deﬁnition of self-compassion is related to the more general deﬁnition ofcompassion itself. When individuals feel compassion for others, they allow themselves
to be touched by another’s experience of suﬀering. When this occurs, feelings ofkindness and caring for the person’s welfare spontaneously arise. When compassion isfelt for someone who has made a mistake or performed a misdeed, it means that an
open-minded, non-judgmental attitude is taken towards the person as opposed to an
attitude of harsh criticism or severe judgment. Another unique feature of compassionis that you recognize your shared humanity with another person. When you see
someone who has failed or who is suﬀering, instead of saying, ‘‘That’s terrible but
thank goodness it’s not my problem,’’ you say ‘‘There but for fortune go I.’’
In the same way, self-compassion involves being open to and aware of one’s own
suﬀering, oﬀering kindness and understanding towards oneself, desiring the self’swell-being, taking a nonjudgmental attitude towards one’s inadequacies and failures,and framing one’s own experience in light of the common human experience (Neﬀ,
2003b). Because this self-reﬂective process requires taking the stance of an ‘‘other’’towards oneself, self-compassion avoids many of the problematic aspects of self-pity.
Self-pity is a solipsistic process in which individuals become absorbed in their own
problems and forget that others are experiencing similar problems. Self-pitying
individuals also get carried away by their subjective reactions—a process that can betermed ‘‘over-identiﬁcation’’ (Neﬀ, 2003b). Over-identiﬁcation leads individuals to
exaggerate the extent of their personal suﬀering and prevents them from adopting amore objective perspective on their situation. The common humanity component ofself-compassion, in contrast, allows for the recognition of the related experiences ofself and other, thus breaking the cycle of self-absorption. Moreover, rememberingthat others are suﬀering in similar, or perhaps worse, ways tends to put one’s own
experiences into greater perspective.
For this reason, self-compassion can be said to entail ‘‘mindfulness’’ (Brown &Ryan, 2003; Hayes, Strosahl, & Wilson, 1999; Kabat-Zinn, 1994). Mindfulness is abalanced state of awareness in which thoughts and feelings are nonjudgmentallyobserved as they are—without avoiding or changing them, but also without
exaggerating or running away with them. When individuals acknowledge their painand extend compassion to themselves, they avoid repressing their thoughts andfeelings, and when they recognize the broader human context of their experience,
they also avoid the trap of over-identiﬁcation. Self-compassion, therefore, operates
as an eﬀective emotional regulation strategy, by neutralizing negative emotional
patterns and engendering more positive feelings of kindness and connectedness.
Recently, Neﬀ (2003a) developed a scale to measure the main components of selfcompassion: extending kindness and understanding to oneself rather than harsh selfcriticism and judgment; seeing one’s experiences as part of the larger humanexperience rather than as separating and isolating; and holding one’s painful
thoughts and feelings in mindful awareness rather than over-identifying with them.
This research (Neﬀ, 2003a) also found that self-compassion was related to positive
psychological functioning and emotional health. Self-compassion was found to havea signiﬁcant negative association with self-criticism, depression, anxiety, ruminationand thought suppression, as well as a signiﬁcant positive association withconnectedness, emotional intelligence, self-determination, and subjective well-being.
Self-compassion was also signiﬁcantly correlated with self-esteem, but unlike selfesteem, it was not signiﬁcantly correlated with narcissism. Thus, it appears that selfcompassion is link to the ability to experience positive emotions toward oneself
without having to protect or bolster one’s self-concept.

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In fact, one of the advantages of self-compassion over self-esteem is that selfcompassion is not based on the performance evaluations of self and others, or oncongruence with ideal standards. Rather, self-compassion circumvents the entire selfevaluation process altogether (positive or negative), focusing instead on feelings ofkindness and understanding toward oneself and the recognition of one’s common
humanity. To better understand this point, it is helpful to consider the contrast that
Buddhists draw between judgment and discriminating wisdom (Goldstein &Kornﬁeld, 1987). According to this perspective, judgment entails a narrow, rigid
categorization process that reiﬁes persons as ‘‘good’’ or ‘‘bad’’ based upon theiractions or performances. Discriminating wisdom, in contrast, clearly evaluates the
positive or negative quality of actions, but does so with a compassionate
understanding of the complex, dynamic, situational factors that impact theseactions, so that particular performances are not taken as indicators of self-worth. A
lack of ‘‘self-evaluation’’ on the part of self-compassionate individuals does notmean that they cannot discern the quality of their own performances, but insteadmeans that performance evaluations are not personalized, and that the self is notvalued according to the outcome of evaluations. Thus, while self-compassion entails
being kind to the self in instances of failure, it does not entail complacency or lax
standards for the self. In support of this proposition, research has found that selfcompassion is negatively related to neurotic perfectionism (Neﬀ, 2003a), in which
individuals are driven by the need to continually escape feelings of inferiority, butthat it has no association with the level of performance standards adopted for theself. In other words, self-compassionate individuals are motivated to achieve, but
this goal is not driven by the desire to bolster one’s self-image. Rather, it is driven by
the compassionate desire to maximize one’s potential and well-being.
The construct of self-compassion shares similarities with other constructs thathave recently been oﬀered as alternatives to self-esteem, such as ‘‘true self-esteem’’(Deci & Ryan, 1995) or ‘‘non-contingent self-esteem’’ (Kernis, 2003) Deci and Ryan
(1995) deﬁne true self-esteem as a sense of self-worth that is not dependent on set
standards but which is assumed to be an inherent aspect of being, and whichdevelops when an individual’s actions reﬂect his or her authentic core self rather
being performed in response to external threats or rewards. Similarly, Kernis (2003)
proposes the notion of non-contingent self-esteem, in which a positive sense of selfworth is not dependent upon the attainment of speciﬁc outcomes or validation fromothers. While these constructs certainly oﬀer useful ways to distinguish healthy fromunhealthy forms of high self-esteem, they still retain an inherent focus on feelings ofvalue and self-worth.
The novel contribution made by the self-compassion construct is that it focuses on
the emotional stance that individuals take towards themselves with when faced withan experience of failure or suﬀering, rather than feelings of self-worth per se. Selfcompassion entails feelings of loving-kindness towards oneself stemming from an
open heart which has not been closed by harsh judgment, a process which isconceptually distinct from that of positively valuing one’s worth. Also, by focusing
on feelings of shared humanity rather than isolation when taking this emotional
stance, the self-compassion construct highlights the importance of social connectedness as an essential aspect of well-being in ways that the concepts of true or noncontingent self-esteem do not. In fact, one might argue that the emphasis on
autonomy and self-determination found in conceptualizations such as true selfesteem leave them vulnerable to criticisms (fairly or unfairly) of being overly
individualistic (Richardson, Fowers, & Guignon, 1999). Finally, self-compassion is266

K. D. Neﬀ et al

unique in its focus on emotional-regulation as one of its core components. Because
self-compassion necessarily entails mindfulness rather than over-identiﬁcation withnegative emotions, it can be linked to the large body of work already existing on
mindfulness (Shapiro, Schwartz, Santerre, 2002) and emotional intelligence (Salovey& Mayer, 1990). Thus, the seeds of understanding how to increase self-compassion
are sown into its very deﬁnition, with potential developmental pathways alreadyexisting in well-established interventions such as Kabat-Zinn’s (1990) mindfulnessbased stress reduction programs, or the school-based emotional intelligenceprograms discussed by Goleman (1995).
Because research on self-compassion is so new, however, more basic work needs
to be done to establish that this self-attitude construct is linked to positive outcomesin various life spheres. One promising avenue of research concerns the relationshipbetween self-compassion and academic achievement goals. It would seem thatvariation in self-compassion levels should be reﬂected in the types of learning goals
that students adopt in the classroom, since emotions and cognitions about the self
play an important role in achievement goal formation and pursuit (Linnenbrink &Pintrich, 2002; Turner, Husman & Schallert, 2002). Self-compassion should be also
be linked to adaptive coping with academic failure, because it may enable them to see
failure situations clearly without the loss of perspective that stems from excessive
self-criticism, feelings of isolation and over-identiﬁcation with one’s experience.
Therefore, the ﬁrst study presented in this article was designed to examine the link
between self-compassion and academic achievement goals, while the second study
was designed to examine the link between self-compassion, achievement goals andcoping after a perceived academic failure.

Study One
Educational psychologists often make a distinction between mastery-based andperformance-based academic achievement goals (e.g., Ames & Archer, 1988; Dweck,
1986; Nicholls, 1984). Students with a mastery orientation towards learning are
motivated by curiosity and the desire to develop skills, master tasks and understandnew material. They tend to set their own standards for achievement, make eﬀort
attributions for success and failure, and view the making of mistakes as a part of thelearning process. Students with a performance orientation, on the other hand, aremotivated to defend or enhance their sense of self-worth. They tend to make ability
attributions for success and failure, and to evaluate their ability through social
comparisons with others. There are two diﬀerent types of performance goals,
moreover, oriented either towards achieving success or to avoiding failure (Elliot &Church, 1997; Middleton & Midgley, 1997). Students with performance-approachgoals try to outperform others in order to demonstrate their competence, while thosewith performance-avoidance goals attempt to avoid situations in which they might
fail because they fear being labeled stupid or incompetent. Interestingly, Elliot (1999)
argues that the adoption of both types of performance goals are motivated by fear of
failure. However, those with performance-approach goals tend to have highperceptions of competence, so that they believe it is possible to achieve success,while those with performance-avoidance goals tend to have low perceptions ofcompetence, rendering the possibility of failure more salient.
Research suggests that mastery goals are more academically adaptive thanperformance goals, being linked to higher levels of intrinsic motivation, greater eﬀort
and persistence at tasks, and willingness to seek help with school-work (Ames, 1992;

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Dweck & Leggett, 1988; Harackiewicz, Barron, & Elliot, 1998; Pintrich & Schunk,
1996; Ryan & Pintrich, 1998). In contrast, performance-avoidance goals have been
linked to lower levels of intrinsic motivation, learned helplessness, disorganized
studying, an unwillingness to seek help, and anxiety (Elliot & Church, 1997; Elliot &Harackiewicz, 1996; Elliot & McGregor, 1999; Elliot, McGregor, & Gable, 1999;
Middleton & Midgley, 1997; Ryan, Pintrich, & Midgley, 2001; Skaalvik, 1997). The
ﬁndings for performance-approach goals have been more mixed. These goals havebeen associated with increased intrinsic motivation, greater eﬀort and more
persistence at tasks, but also with unwillingness to seek help, anxiety, and disruptiveclassroom behavior (Butler, 1992; Harackiewicz et al., 1998; Smiley & Dweck, 1994;
Urdan, 1997; Wolters, Yu, & Pintrich, 1996).
Because self-compassionate individuals have an emotionally positive self-attitude
that is not contingent on performance evaluations, they should be freer to engage inactivities out of interest rather than out of a desire to protect or enhance their selfesteem. High levels of self-compassion should also be associated with less fear of
failure because failure situations are met with kindness and understanding rather
than harsh self-condemnation, enabling failure to be seen as a learning opportunity
rather than an indictment of self-worth. In addition, self-compassion should be
related to higher levels of perceived competence. This is not so much because selfcompassion itself enhances perceptions of competence, but because a lack of selfcompassion tends to lower perceptions of competence. Previous research has linked
the tendency to react with negative self-conscious emotions, such as shame, to low
perceptions of self-eﬃcacy (Turner, Husman, & Schallert, 2002), suggesting thathighly self-compassionate individuals, who take a balanced perspective on theirshortcomings rather than amplifying them through harsh self-judgment, feelings ofisolation, or over-identiﬁcation with their emotional reactions, should have relatively
more positive perceptions of their abilities than those with low levels of selfcompassion. Thus, we hypothesized that self-compassion would be positively
associated with mastery goals and negatively associated with performance goals—
especially performance-avoidance goals. Moreover, the link between self-compassion
and academic goals was anticipated to primarily stem from the greater perceived
competence and lesser fear of failure experienced by self-compassionate individuals.
It should be noted that we expected self-compassion to be related to students’subjective reactions to their academic performances, rather than to theirperformances themselves (e.g., grades), although the question of whether or not
self-compassion would be related to actual achievement was an open one.
We also investigated two outcome variables commonly associated withachievement goals—intrinsic motivation and anxiety—because these are key
indicators of the emotional state of well-being experienced by students as they
pursue their education. Past research has indicated that mastery goals tend to be
associated with high levels of intrinsic motivation (Elliot & Harackiewicz, 1996), andthat performance goals (especially performance-avoidance goals) tend to be
associated with high levels of anxiety (Linnenbrink & Pintrich, 2002). In turn, selfcompassion has been found to have a negative association with anxiety, and apositive association with self-determination (Neﬀ, 2003a), a construct closely alignedwith that of intrinsic motivation (Deci, Vallerand, Pelletier, & Ryan, 1991). For thesereasons, we were curious to examine the extent to which the relationship between
self-compassion, anxiety, and intrinsic motivation might be mediated by the diﬀerent
achievement goals that self-compassionate individuals tend to adopt. It was expectedthat self-compassion would be negatively associated with anxiety and positively

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K. D. Neﬀ et alassociated with intrinsic motivation, and that achievement goals would play a
mediating role in this relationship. However, we also expected that self-compassion
would have a direct association with intrinsic motivation and anxiety levels (inaddition to mediating pathway of achievement goals), given the generally positive
state of mental health engendered by self-compassion (Neﬀ, 2003a).

MethodParticipants
The study included a total of 222 undergraduates (84 male and 138 female, age
M = 20.94, SD = 2.03), who were randomly selected from an educationalpsychology subject pool at a large southwestern university. Students who
participated in the study ﬁlled out an anonymous survey questionnaire, while
meeting in groups of no more than thirty. The ethnic breakdown of the sample was
57% White, 22% Asian, 14% Hispanic, 3% Black, and 4% other.
Measures
Self-compassion. Participants were given the 26-item self-compassion scale (SCS;
Neﬀ, 2003a), which includes the 5-item self-kindness subscale (e.g., ‘‘I try to beunderstanding and patient towards those aspects of my personality I don’t like’’), the5-item self-judgment subscale (e.g., ‘‘I’m disapproving and judgmental about myown ﬂaws and inadequacies’’), the 4-item common humanity subscale (e.g., ‘‘I try to
see my failings as part of the human condition’’), the 4-item isolation subscale (e.g.,‘‘When I think about my inadequacies it tends to make me feel more separate andcut oﬀ from the rest of the world’’), the 4-item mindfulness subscale (e.g., ‘‘When
something painful happens I try to take a balanced view of the situation’’), and the 4item over-identiﬁcation subscale (e.g., ‘‘When I’m feeling down I tend to obsess andﬁxate on everything that’s wrong.’’). Responses are given on a 5-point scale from
1 = ‘‘almost never’’ to 5 = ‘‘almost always.’’ Mean scores on the six subscales arethen summed (after the negative items have been reverse-coded) to create an overall
self-compassion score. In past research (Neﬀ, 2003a) conﬁrmatory factor analyses
determined that a single higher-order factor of self-compassion explained the intercorrelations between the six subscales (Rindskopt & Rose, 1988). It should be notedthat self-compassion is conceptualized as an overarching factor that is constituted by
the combination of subscale components (so that it is necessary to have selfkindness, a sense of common humanity, and so on, in order for self-compassion to
emerge), rather than as a pre-existing factor that underlies the various components.
The SCS has demonstrated good internal and test – retest reliability in past
research, and has been shown to diﬀerentiate between groups in a theoreticallyconsistent manner (Neﬀ, 2003b). The internal consistency reliability obtained for thismeasure in the current study was a = .94.
Achievement goals. To assess achievement goals, participants were given the revised
goal orientation scales (Midgley et al., 1998) that are included in the patterns ofadaptive learning survey (PALS; Midgley et al., 1997). The ‘‘task goal orientation’’subscale assesses mastery goals, the ‘‘ability-approach goal orientation’’ subscaleassesses performance-approach goals, and the ‘‘ability-avoid goal orientation’’Self-compassion, Achievement Goals, and Academic Failure

269

subscale assesses performance-avoidance goals. The task goal orientation subscale
contains six items representing concern with understanding and learning classmaterial (e.g., ‘‘I like school work that I’ll learn from, even if I make a lot of
mistakes’’), the ability-approach goal orientation subscale contains six items
reﬂecting concern with trying to outperform others in order to demonstrate one’s
own ability (e.g., ‘‘I would feel really good if I were the only one who could answer
the teacher’s question in class’’), while the ability-avoid goal orientation subscale
includes six items representing concern with not looking incompetent or inferior toothers (e.g., ‘‘It’s very important to me that I don’t look stupid in my classes’’).
Responses were given on a 5-point scale ranging from 1 = ‘‘almost never’’ to
5 = ‘‘almost always.’’ In past research, this scale has demonstrated good internalreliability, test – retest reliability and construct validity (Midgley et al., 1998). In thecurrent study internal reliability was a = .81 for mastery, a = .81 for performanceapproach, a = .86 for performance-avoidance.
Fear of failure. The measure of fear of failure used in this study was developed byHerman (1990). It assesses the various components of fear of failure that wereidentiﬁed by Atkinson and Feather (1966), including risk taking, goal setting, taskcompletion or persistence, eﬀort, self-image, and attribution. The 15-item scale
contains statements such as, ‘‘When I start doing poorly on a task, I feel like giving
up,’’ and ‘‘If given a choice, I have a tendency to select a relative easy task rather
than risk failure.’’ Responses were given on a 5-point scale ranging from 1 = ‘‘almost
never’’ to 5 = ‘‘almost always.’’ In past research the scale has demonstrated good
reliability and construct validity (Elliot & Church, 1997), and in the current study
reliability was a = .81.
Perceived competence. To assess perceived competence, participants were given theperceived competence for learning scale (Williams & Deci, 1996). The scale includes
four items that are used to assess students’ feelings of competence about taking aparticular college course, although the scale was adapted for the current study toassess participants’ feelings about their college courses in general. A sample itemfrom the scale is: ‘‘I feel conﬁdent in my ability to learn the material in my courses.’’
Respondents were asked to rate items on 5-point scale: 1 = ‘‘not at all true of me’’ to
5 = ‘‘very true of me.’’ Internal reliability for the scale was a = 88.
Intrinsic motivation. Intrinsic motivation was assessed with the 7-item autonomous
regulation subscale of the learning self-regulation questionnaire (Williams & Deci,
1996). Although the original scale was used to assess motivation in a medical
interviewing course, it has been successfully adapted for other types of courses(Black & Deci, 2000), and for the current study the measure was adapted to assess
students’ motivation in their courses in general. Sample items are: ‘‘The reason
that I will work to expand my knowledge in my courses is because it’s interesting
to learn more about the nature of the course topics,’’ and ‘‘I will participate
actively in my courses because I feel like it’s a good way to improve myunderstanding of the material.’’ Respondents were asked to rate items on a 5-point
scale: 1 = ‘‘not at all true of me’’ to 5 = ‘‘very true of me.’’ Internal reliability forthe scale was a = .72.
Anxiety. This study employed a commonly used measure to assess anxiety levels: theSpielberger state – trait anxiety inventory – trait form (Spielberger, Gorsuch, &270

K. D. Neﬀ et al

Lushene, 1970). The 20-item scale assesses anxiety levels with items such as: ‘‘I feel
nervous and restless,’’ and ‘‘I have disturbing thoughts.’’ Internal reliability for the
scale was a = .92.
Self-reported grade point average (GPA). In order to obtain self-reported GPA,
participants were asked, ‘‘What is your overall GPA at [name of university] so far(please estimate if you do not know for certain)?’’ on a standard 4-point scale.

Results
As the ﬁrst step in conducting analyses, all study variables were intercorrelated todetermine if associations would be obtained in the expected direction. Table 1
presents these zero-order correlations. As expected, a positive correlation was foundbetween self-compassion and mastery goals, a negative correlation was foundbetween self-compassion and performance-approach goals, and an even stronger
negative correlation was found between self-compassion and performance-avoidance
goals. Also, as anticipated, self-compassion was negatively correlated with fear of
failure but positively correlated with perceived competence. Moreover, selfcompassion was positively correlated with intrinsic motivation but negatively
correlated with anxiety. (All correlations were signiﬁcant.) Finally, it was found that
self-compassion was not signiﬁcantly correlated with self-reported GPA, but that it
was signiﬁcantly correlated with gender. The gender association replicates ﬁndings ofprevious research (Neﬀ, 2003a), in which women were found to have slightly lower
levels of self-compassion than men.
It had been hypothesized that the association between self-compassion andacademic achievement goals would be mediated by the greater degree of perceived
competence and lesser fear of failure experienced by self-compassionate individuals.
According to Baron and Kenny (1986), in order to conclude that a mediating
relationship exists three conditions must be met: (1) There must be signiﬁcantrelationships between the predictors and the outcome variables; (2) there must be
signiﬁcant relationships between the predictors and the mediating variables; and (3)there must be signiﬁcant relationships between the mediators and the outcome
variables when all of these variables are entered into the same equation, and these
relations must reduce the direct eﬀects of the predictors on the outcomes. Therefore,
sequential regression analyses were conducted to test each of these three conditions(Judd & Kenny, 1981). The ﬁrst set of analyses regressed the proposed mediating
variables of fear of failure and perceived competence on self-compassion, the second
set directly regressed achievement goals on self-compassion, while the third set ofanalyses simultaneously regressed achievement goals on self-compassion, fear of
failure and perceived competence. In all regression analyses, GPA and gender were
included as controls, given that these variables were correlated with other variablesof interest in this study.
The ﬁrst set of analyses indicated that when fear of failure and perceived
competence were regressed on self-compassion, self-compassion negatively predicted
fear of failure (b = 7.54, p 5 .001) and positively predicted perceived competence(b = .33, p 5 .001). This conﬁrmed the link between the predictor and mediating
variables. The second set of regressions, which examined the direct association
between self-compassion and academic goals, can be found under the columns ofTable 2 labeled ‘‘Model 1.’’ As with the correlational analyses, results indicated that
self-compassion was positively associated with mastery goals, and negatively

—
1.00
.24**
.04
7.32**.45**.71**
7.22**
.20**
.00

Mast

Note: N = 222. Gender is coded: 0 = Males; 1 = Females.
*p 5 .05; ** p 5 .01.

1.00
.28**
7.13*
7.29**
7.51**.35**.30**
7.66**
7.03
7.14*

SCS
—
—
1.00
.61**
.26**
.12
.24**
.15*
.17*
.06

P-App

Zero-Order Correlations between Study Variables

Self-compassion (SCS)
Mastery Goals (Mast)
Performance-Approach (P-App)
Performance-Avoidance (P-Avd)
Fear of Failure (FF)
Perceived Competence (PC)Intrinsic Motivation (IM)
Anxiety (Anx)
GPA
GenderMeasureTABLE 1

—
—
—
1.00
.43**
7.16*
.04
.28**
7.07
.15*

P-Avd
—
—
—
—
1.00
7.36**
7.24**
.58**
7.07
.07

FF
—
—
—
—
—
1.00
.45**
7.44**
.24**
7.05

PC
—
—
—
—
—
—
1.00
7.34**
.22**
.09

IM

—
—
—
—
—
—
—
1.00
7.07
.07

Anx

—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
1.00
.11

GPA

—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
1.00

Gender

Self-compassion, Achievement Goals, and Academic Failure
271

272

K. D. Neﬀ et alassociated with performance-approach and performance-avoidance goals. These
results conﬁrmed the link between the predictor and outcome variables. The third setof analyses simultaneously regressed academic goals on self-compassion, fear of
failure and perceived competence. Results are presented in Table 2 under thecolumns labeled ‘‘Model 2.’’ As expected, the association between self-compassion
and achievement goals reduced (to the point of non-signiﬁcance), indicating that therelationship between self-compassion and achievement goals was mediated by theincrease in perceived competence and decrease in fear of failure that are associatedwith self-compassion. Note, however, that fear of failure was the only signiﬁcantmediator for the academic goal of performance-avoidance.
In addition, it had been hypothesized that the association between selfcompassion, intrinsic motivation and anxiety would be mediated by the diﬀerent
types of achievement goals associated with self-compassion, but that self-compassion
would also make a direct contribution to intrinsic motivation and anxiety. Sequential
regression analyses were again conducted to test the mediational model, following
Baron and Kenny (1986). We decided also to include fear of failure and perceived
competence as potential mediators in the model, given that these variables appear to
be explaining the link between self-compassion and achievement goals in the ﬁrst
place. The step in the mediation model that required establishing a direct relationshipbetween the predictor of self-compassion and the proposed mediating variables ofachievement goals, fear of failure and perceived competence was already accomplished (see previous paragraph). Thus, the ﬁrst set of regressions examined the direct
association between the predictor of self-compassion and outcomes of intrinsic
motivation and anxiety (with GPA and gender included as control variables).
Results (found under the ‘‘Model 1’’ columns of Table 3) indicated that, as
expected, self-compassion had a positive association with intrinsic motivation and anegative association with anxiety. The next analyses involved simultaneously
regressing outcomes of intrinsic motivation and anxiety on predictors of selfcompassion, achievement goals, fear of failure and perceived competence (controlling for gender and GPA). Results are presented under the ‘‘Model 2’’ columns ofTable 3. It was found that the positive relationship between self-compassion andintrinsic motivation was mediated by the greater perceived competence and mastery
goals associated with self-compassion, but that self-compassion also made a directcontribution to increased intrinsic motivation. In addition, it was found that thenegative relationship between self-compassion and anxiety was mediated by thelesser fear of failure and greater perceived competence associated with selfcompassion, but that self-compassion also made a direct contribution to anxiety
levels. In fact, after all other variables were taken into account, self-compassion was
still the strongest predictor of anxiety levels by far (b = 7.47).
The links between study variables established in the preceding regression analyses
are presented in Figure 1 to help illustrate how self-compassion, fear of failure,
perceived competence, achievement goals, intrinsic motivation and anxiety areinterrelated. While the model may appear to portray causal associations, it should beunderstood that no causality can be inferred by regression equations and the ﬁgureshould be interpreted as a means visually to portray study ﬁndings only.

Discussion
Results of this study suggest that self-compassion is associated with adaptive
academic motivational patterns. Self-compassion was positively related to the–
8.43**
.10

.19**
.01

7.13*
–
–
.17**
.04
–
3.75**
.04

.07
7.16*
.35**
.10
.02
.14
9.23**
.23

.27**

–
–

Model 1Model 2Model 1
7.03
.31**
.21**
.14*
.05
.08
9.61**.11

Model 2

Performance-Approach

7.30**
–
–
.07
.10
–
8.80**.10

Model 1

7.10
.36**
7.03
.10
.10
.10
12.44**.19

Model 2

Performance-AvoidanceNote: N = 222. Model 1 included self-compassion and control variables of gender and GPA only; Model 2 included self-compassion, control variables, andhypothesized mediators of fear of failure and perceived competence. Gender is coded: 0 = Males; 1 = Females.
*p 4 .05; ** p 4 .01.

Self-compassion
Fear of Failure
Perceived Competence
GPA
GenderD R2
DF
Total adjusted R2

Predictor

Mastery

TABLE 2 Standardized Regression Coeﬃcients for Self-compassion, Mediating Variables (Fear of Failure and Perceived Competence), andControl Variables (GPA and Gender) Predicting Academic Goals

Self-compassion, Achievement Goals, and Academic Failure
273

274

K. D. Neﬀ et al

TABLE 3 Standardized Regression Coeﬃcients for Self-compassion, Mediating
Variables (Fear of Failure, Perceived Competence, Academic Goals) and Control
Variables (GPA and Gender) Predicting Intrinsic Motivation and Anxiety
Intrinsic Motivation

Anxiety

Predictor

Model 1Model 2Model 1Model 2

Self-compassion
Fear of Failure
Perceived Competence
Mastery Goals
Performance Approach Goals
Performance Avoidance Goals
GPA
GenderD R2
DF
Total adjusted R2

.32**
–
–
–
–
–
.20**
.10
–
11.97**
.14

.15**
.07
.14*
.59**
.11
7.05
.05
.10
.41
36.72**.53

7.66**
–
–
–
–
–
7.06
7.02
–
54.79**.43

7.47**.28**
7.23**
.09
.06
7.03
7.02
7.03
.11
9.80**.53

Note: N = 222. Model 1 included self>7compassion and control variables of gender and
GPA only; Model 2 included self>7compassion, control variables, and hypothesized
mediators of academic goals. Gender is coded: 0 = Males; 1 = Females.
*p 4 .05; ** p 4 .01.

–
–

–

–
FIGURE 1

Summary of regression analyses.

adoption of mastery goals in learning contexts, suggesting that self-compassionate
individuals may be better able to see failure as a learning opportunity and to focus
on accomplishing tasks at hand. Moreover, self-compassion was found to be
negatively associated with the tendency to adopt performance goals—especiallyperformance-avoidance goals. This suggests that individuals who lack self-

Self-compassion, Achievement Goals, and Academic Failure

275

compassion may try to enhance their self-image through demonstrating theirsuperiority to others (in the case of performance-approach goals) or else to defend
against the label of ‘‘failure’’ by avoiding situations in which they may be perceived
as incompetent (in the case of performance-avoidance goals).
Moreover, results indicate that the primary way in which self-compassion islinked to mastery goals is through the greater perceived competence and lesser fearof failure associated with self-compassion. By not harshly judging the self or blowing
one’s failures out of proportion, self-compassion is associated with greater selfconﬁdence in one’s ability to learn and less trepidation concerning possible failure,
which in turn is linked to greater mastery goal adoption. Note that self-compassion
was not related to actual competence in terms of grade-point average, however.
Rather, it appears that self-compassion is more relevant to the motivational patterns
underlying academic achievement. Results indicate that the negative association
between self-compassion and performance-avoidance goals was primarily explainedby the lesser fear of failure experienced by self-compassionate individuals. Perceived
competence did not appear to play a role in this relationship, perhaps because
perceived competence is a weaker predictor of performance-avoidance goals thanfear of failure (Elliot & Church, 1997).
The mediating links between self-compassion and performance-approach goals
were a little more complicated, though results were consistent with our hypotheses.
Self-compassion was positively associated with perceived competence but negatively
associated with fear of failure. In turn, perceived competence and fear of failure wereboth positively associated with performance-approach goals—a ﬁnding that is
consistent with past research (Elliot & Church, 1997). This means that the greater
perceived competence experienced by self-compassionate participants was linked to
an increase in the tendency to adopt performance-approach goals, while the lesser
fear of failure experienced by self-compassionate participants was linked to adecrease in this tendency. The opposing directionality of these mediating links mayhelp explain why the direct relationship between self-compassion and performanceapproach goals was not as strong as that which was found between self-compassion
and performance-avoidance goals.
Of course, one might ask whether or not the negative relationship between selfcompassion and performance-approach goals is necessarily a good thing, since somehave argued that performance-approach goals have certain beneﬁts (Harackiewicz etal., 1998). For instance, research indicates that performance-approach goals lead to
improved course grades among college students (Harackiewicz, Barron, Carter,
Lehto, & Elliot, 1997), a relationship that was also found in the current study. From
our point of view, however, the concern with demonstrating superiority over others
that drives the adoption of performance-approach goals is deeply problematic. As
many prominent psychologists and educators have argued (Covington, 1992;
Damon, 1995; Elias, 1989; Finn, 1990; Roeser, Midgley, & Urdan, 1996), feelingsof self-centeredness and disconnection from others are a problem among today’s
students—feelings that are likely to be fostered by performance-approach goals.
Moreover, research indicates that the type of contingent self-esteem represented by
performance-approach goals is linked to prejudice and even violence towards thoseperceived to threaten the ego (Baumeister, Smart, & Boden, 1996; Crocker,
Thompson, McGraw, & Ingerman, 1987). For these reasons, there is strong cause toquestion the beneﬁcial nature of performance-approach goal adoption.
Mastery goals are typically considered to be the most positive and adaptive typeof achievement goal, due in part to the strong association between mastery goals

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K. D. Neﬀ et al

and intrinsic motivation (Heyman & Dweck, 1992; Rawsthorne & Elliot, 1999).
When people are intrinsically motivated, they experience life as more enjoyable andsatisfying (Ryan & Deci, 2000). Consistent with past research, this study foundthat mastery goal adoption was the strongest predictor of intrinsic motivation inacademic contexts. As expected, self-compassion was linked to higher levels of
intrinsic motivation through the mediating variable of mastery goal adoption,although self-compassion was also found to have a direct association with intrinsic
motivation. Past research has indicated that self-compassionate individuals tend to
experience a greater sense of autonomy and self-determination in their lives (Neﬀ,
2003a), which may be one reason why self-compassion makes an independent
contribution to increased intrinsic motivation in learning contexts (Deci et al.,1991).
Finally, it was hypothesized that self-compassion would be linked to lower levels ofanxiety through its negative association with performance goals, but that selfcompassion would also have a direct association with anxiety levels. The latter part of
the hypothesis was conﬁrmed, but not the former. In a regression analysis thatexamined the link between self-compassion, perceived competence, fear of failure,
and achievement goals simultaneously, it was found that self-compassion was thestrongest predictor of anxiety, followed by fear of failure and perceived competence,but that performance goals did not signiﬁcantly predict anxiety levels. The ﬁndingthat performance goals were not signiﬁcantly associated with anxiety levels stands incontrast to past research (e.g., Elliot & McGregor, 1999; Middleton & Midgley, 1997;
Skaalvik, 1997). One reason for this discrepancy may be that past research has tended
to focus on the relationship between achievement goals and test anxiety in particularrather than general anxiety levels, although both types of measures have been used
(Linnenbrink & Pintrich, 2002). Another explanation may be that previous ﬁndings
linking achievement goals to anxiety levels have typically not accounted for thediﬀering levels of perceived competence and fear of failure associated with the various
goals. Either way, the answer to these questions is beyond the scope of the current
study and will need to be addressed in future research.

Study 2
The results of the ﬁrst study were largely interpreted in terms of the ability of selfcompassion to provide students with emotional resiliency in the face of failure, andtherefore to foster adaptive academic achievement goals. However, the link between
self-compassion and academic achievement goals was not assessed in the context ofan actual academic failure, so that other possible explanations for the ﬁndings could
be advanced. For instance, what if self-compassion is merely a reﬂection of the belief
that one is not likely to fail in the ﬁrst place? After all, self-compassion was found tobe signiﬁcantly correlated with perceived competence, and perhaps it is the
conﬁdence that failure is unlikely to occur that leads self-compassionate individuals
to adopt mastery rather than performance-avoidance goals. Of course, we do notbelieve this to be a credible alternative hypothesis. Nonetheless, we thought that it
would be useful to conduct a second study that assessed the link between selfcompassion and achievement goals shortly after a perceived academic failure, todetermine if self-compassion would still be positively associated with mastery goals
and negatively associated with performance goals in this context. (Conducting asecond study also allowed us to replicate the ﬁndings of the ﬁrst study in a morenaturalistic context.)Self-compassion, Achievement Goals, and Academic Failure

277

TABLE 4 Standardized Regression Coeﬃcients for Self-compassion and Control
Variables (Exam Score and Gender) Predicting Achievement Goals, Intrinsic
Motivation and Perceived Competence
Mastery
Self-compassion.33**
Exam Score
7.05
Gender
7.17
F
3.31*
Adjusted R2.12

Performance
Approach

Performance
Avoidance

Intrinsic
Motivation

Perceived
Competence

7.16
.25*
7.04
2.81*
.06

7.50**
7.04.09
7.55**
.20

.23*
.10
.18
4.71**
.12

.33*
.11
.01
3.26*
.08

Note: N = 110. Gender is coded: 0 = Males; 1 = Females.
*p 4 .05; ** p 4 .01.

TABLE 5Strategies

Correlations between the Self-compassion Scale (SCS) and COPE

Coping Strategies
Problem-focused Strategies
Active Coping
Planning
Suppression of Competing Activities
Restraint Coping
Seeking Instrumental Social Support
Emotional-focused Strategies
Seeking Emotional Social Support
Positive Reinterpretation and Growth
Acceptance
Venting of and Focus on Negative emotions
Avoidance-oriented Strategies
DenialBehavioral Disengagement
Mental Disengagement

SCS
.05
7.03
7.10
.03
7.02
7.01
.24**
.22*
7.30**
7.22*
7.16
7.20*

*p 4 .05; ** p 4 .01.

For similar reasons, we wanted to examine the association between selfcompassion, intrinsic motivation and perceived competence after an academic
failure. We expected that the positive association between these variables would still
hold, especially as Mantzicopoulos (1997) has found that excessively blaming oneself
for an academic failure can lead to lowered perceptions of competence and a loss of
intrinsic motivation. Moreover, examining perceptions of competence after an actual
test performance would allow us to determine the link between self-compassion andperceived competence while holding test grades constant, conﬁrming that selfcompassion is associated with perceptions of competence rather than actual
competence.
We were also interested in examining the link between self-compassion and coping
strategies when faced with academic failure. In many ways, self-compassion can bethought of as a useful coping strategy that helps individuals to maintain a balanced

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K. D. Neﬀ et al

perspective in the face of failure, and which transforms negative emotions of shameand self-condemnation into more productive emotions of compassion for one’s
imperfect humanity. In the coping literature, coping is typically deﬁned as: ‘‘cognitiveand behavioral eﬀorts to manage speciﬁc external and/or internal demands that areappraised as taxing or exceeding resources of the person’’ (Folkman & Lazarus, 1991,
p. 210). Coping strategies are generally classiﬁed into three broad categories: (1)problem-focused; (2) emotion-focused; and (3) avoidance-oriented (Zeidner, 1995).
Problem-focused coping attempts to change stressful situations by taking proactive
actions to change circumstances for the better. This coping strategy may employ
attempts directly to remove the stressor, to plan out future productive action, tocurtail other activities in order to focus on the problem at hand, or to seek
instrumental help in the situation. Emotion-focused coping attempts to change theway a person attends to or interprets the situation so that the resulting aﬀective
reaction is altered. This may involve eﬀorts to seek emotional support, to reappraise
the meaning of a situation, to focus on and vent negative feelings, or to accept asituation with equilibrium. Avoidance-oriented coping is aimed at avoiding thestressor rather than facing it, and may include denying the reality of a situation, giving
up, or mentally disengaging through excessive sleep or intoxicants.
Problem-focused coping is often considered to be the most psychologically
adaptive strategy, whereas avoidance-oriented coping is typically viewed as
dysfunctional (Carver, Scheier, & Weintraub, 1989). Traditionally, emotion-focused
coping was also viewed as pathological or maladaptive. However, it is now recognizedthat emotion-focused strategies in which individuals make eﬀortful attempts tomaintain awareness of, and understand, their emotions are related to positive
psychological adjustment (Pennebaker, 1993; Stanton, Kirk, Cameron, & DanoﬀBurg, 2000), and that these strategies are especially useful when nothing can be done
to change one’s circumstances. It is highly adaptive to use emotion-focused strategies
when dealing with a failed academic performance, therefore, since the situation has
already occurred. As Zeidner (1995) comments, functional coping with academic
failure involves: ‘‘learning to tolerate or adjust to the reality of failure, maintaining a
positive self-image, maintaining emotional equilibrium and decreasing emotional
stress, and maintaining a satisfying relationship with the environment’’ (p. 128).
Past research (Neﬀ, 2003a) has found that self-compassion is strongly linked toemotional intelligence, which entails the ability to experience one’s feelings withclarity and to repair and regulate negative mood states. Thus, we hypothesized that
self-compassion would facilitate adaptive emotion-focused coping strategies indealing with perceived academic failure situations by allowing individuals to clearlyface and accept their feelings about the failure. Also, the emotional balance provided
by the mindfulness component of self-compassion should allow individuals toreframe failure situations so that their growth potential is acknowledged, as opposed
to becoming over-identiﬁed with the failure and exaggerating its importance.
However, we expected the mindfulness aspect of self-compassion to have a negative
link with the emotion-focused strategy of focusing on and venting of negative
emotions. This type of behavior has a ruminative quality—for example, one item in
Carver, Scheier and Weintraub’s (1989) measure that represents this type of coping
is: ‘‘I feel a lot of emotional distress and I ﬁnd myself expressing those feelings a lot.’’
Rumination, however, is psychologically maladaptive, and has been strongly
associated with depression and anxiety (Nolen-Hoeksema & Morrow, 1991). A
negative correlation between self-compassion and rumination has also been found(Neﬀ, 2003a).

Self-compassion, Achievement Goals, and Academic Failure279

In addition, we expected a negative association between self-compassion andavoidance-oriented coping strategies. Because having self-compassion means that
individuals do not engage in harsh self-condemnation, they experience the emotionalsafety needed to face situations without running away from them. In fact, it has beenfound (Neﬀ, 2003a) that self-compassion is negatively associated with attempts toavoid or repress unwanted thoughts, especially those involving negative aﬀect(Wegner & Zanakos, 1994). As for the potential association between self-compassion
and problem-focused coping, we did not advance any ﬁrm hypotheses. This isbecause it is unclear how relevant problem-focused coping strategies are to the taskof dealing with the negative emotions that stem from an academic failure experience.
Because this task involves coping with a situation that has already occurred andcannot be altered, strategies such as active coping, which involve eﬀorts to remove or
circumvent stressors (e.g., ‘‘I take additional action to try to get rid of the problem’’)are of questionable utility in such circumstances.

MethodParticipants
Originally 214 undergraduate students agreed to participate in the study, recruitedfrom several courses in engineering and psychology departments at two large urban
universities. The sample was 49% male and 51% female, with a mean age of 20.65
years (SD = 1.98), and was 73% White, 11% Asian, 9% Hispanic, 1% Black, and
6% other. Because the study was focused on reactions to perceived academic failure,
however, most of the study data presented here only examines the responses of thoseparticipants (51%, n = 110) who indicated that they were highly dissatisﬁed with
their recent midterm exam grade in the course. Note that there were no signiﬁcantgender, age, or ethnic group diﬀerences between those who were satisﬁed with theirgrade and those who perceived it as a failure, nor were there any signiﬁcantdiﬀerences in the self-compassion levels of either group.
Procedure
Participants were recruited from college courses that were speciﬁcally chosen for
their diﬃculty, so that it would be likely that many students would receive
unsatisfactory grades. On the class day immediately following the one in which
students received the results of their midterm exam (which occurred 2 – 5 days later),participants were given a self-report survey questionnaire during class. After some
initial demographic questions, participants were asked to report their grade on themidterm, and the degree to which they were dissatisﬁed with the grade. Next,
participants were given measures assessing their achievement goals, intrinsic
motivation, perceived learning competence, and coping behaviors. The selfcompassion measure was given last so as not to potentially bias responses to theprevious measures. Instructions for the coping measure indicated that students who
were dissatisﬁed with their recent midterm grade should ﬁll out the coping items
while focusing on their reactions to their poor test performance. Students who weresatisﬁed with their recent midterm grade were told that they should ﬁll out thequestions in reference to a previous experience of academic failure. However,
because we wanted to examine the responses of students for whom the failure

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K. D. Neﬀ et al

experience was emotionally current, the study focused on the responses of students
who indicated that they were dissatisﬁed with their grade. Note that we decided tofocus on participants who perceived their performances as failures rather than those
who actually received an ‘‘F’’ failing grade, as we felt that subjective perceptions offailure were most relevant to achievement goals. However, actual test grades wereused as covariates in analyses to ensure that actual test performances weren’t
accounting for results.
Measures
Grade satisfaction. To assess perceptions of grade satisfaction, two questions weretaken from Turner’s (1998) contextual conditions of test feedback questionnaire,
which was designed to assess students’ general perception of the grades they receive.
Using a 7-point scale (1 = ‘‘strongly disagree’’ to 7 = ‘‘strongly agree’’), students
were asked to indicate the extent to which: ‘‘I received the grade I want,’’ and ‘‘Iconsider this grade to be a failure’’ (the ﬁrst question was reverse coded). The
reliability for this two-item scale was a = .75. The median grade satisfaction score
for the original sample was 4.0, and only participants who scored at or below themedian were included in the current sample.
Achievement goals. Students’ academic achievement goals for the course wereassessed using the Elliot and Church (1997) goal-orientation scale, which contains
three six-item subscales: mastery goals (a = .91), performance-approach goals(a = .94), and performance-avoidance goals (a = .83). Responses were given on a
7-point scale (1 = ‘‘not at all true of me’’ to 7 = ‘‘very true of me’’). Note that it was
decided to use a slightly diﬀerent scale to measure achievement goals in Study 2 thanin Study 1 (which employed Midgley et al.’s, 1998, goal orientation scales), in order
to bolster the generalizability of ﬁndings across measures.
Intrinsic motivation. This study used the intrinsic motivation scale developed by
Elliot and Church (1997). The scale includes eight items, such as: ‘‘I think this class isinteresting,’’ ‘‘I’m glad I took this class,’’ and ‘‘I don’t like this class at all.’’Responses were given on a 7-point scale (1 = ‘‘strongly disagree’’ to 7 = ‘‘strongly
agree’’). The reliability for the scale was a = .93.
Perceived competence. To assess perceived competence, participants were given theperceived competence for learning scale (Williams & Deci, 1996) used in Study 1.
Coping with failure. The strategies used by students to cope with the negative
feelings and stress that stemmed from their unsatisfactory grade were assessed using
an adapted version of Carver, Scheier and Weintraub’s (1989) COPE scale. The scale
contained twelve subscales and forty-eight items in total, with responses being given
on a 4-point scale of (1 = ‘‘I don’t do this at all’’ to 4 = ‘‘I do this a lot’’).
The subscales classiﬁed as problem-focused coping were:.
.
.

Active coping—exerting eﬀorts to remove or circumvent the stressor (a = .69);
Planning—thinking about how to confront the stressor or planning one’s
active coping eﬀorts (a = .85);
Suppression of competing activities—avoiding involvement in other activities inorder to concentrate more completely on dealing with the stressor (a = .72);

Self-compassion, Achievement Goals, and Academic Failure
.
.

281

Restraint coping—coping passively by holding back one’s coping attempts
until they can be of use (a = .64); andSeeking instrumental social support—seeking assistance, information, or advice
about what to do (a = .82).

The subscales classiﬁed as emotion-focused coping were:.
.
.
.

Seeking emotional social support—getting sympathy or emotional support
from another (a = .88);
Positive reinterpretation and growth—making the best of the situation by
growing from it or viewing it in a less negative light (a = .74);
Acceptance—accepting the fact that the stressful event has occurred (a = .75);
andFocus on and venting of emotions—an increased awareness of one’s emotional
distress, and a concomitant tendency to ventilate or discharge those feelings(a = .87).

The subscales classiﬁed as avoidance-oriented coping included:.
.
.

Denial—an attempt to reject the reality of the stressful event (a = .78);
Mental disengagement—psychological disengagement from the event throughdaydreaming, sleep, or self-distraction (a = .57); andBehavioral disengagement—giving up on the attempt to attain one’s goals(a = .59).

Note that because the purpose of current investigation was to examine coping
behaviors in academic context, two subscales in the original COPE measure,‘‘turning to religion’’ and ‘‘alcohol/drug use’’ were not included in this study.
Self-compassion. Participants were given the 26-item SCS (Neﬀ, 2003a), which was
described in Study 1.

Results
First, it should be noted that there was no diﬀerence in the self-compassion levels of
those who perceived their exam grade as a failure (M = 17.67, SD = 4.03) and those
who did not (M = 18.05, SD = 4.60), F(1, 213) = .40, p = .53. Similarly, there wasno signiﬁcant correlation between self-compassion and perceptions of one’s grade asa failure (r = 7.10, p = .18), or between self-compassion and one’s actual grade on
the exam (r = .09, p = .24).
For those individuals who perceived their grade as a failure, we examined theassociation between self-compassion and academic achievement goals using
regression equations, as this allowed us simultaneously to control for the variancedue to actual grade on the exam and gender (as done in Study 1), while providing
results in a format that would be directly comparable to those obtained in Study 1.
Results are presented in Table 4. As expected, it was found that the SCS had asigniﬁcant positive association with mastery goals, and a signiﬁcant negative
association with performance-avoidance goals. The association between the SCS andperformance-approach goals was not signiﬁcant. Also as expected, the SCS had asigniﬁcant positive correlation with intrinsic motivation and perceived competence.

282

K. D. Neﬀ et al

Table 5 presents correlations between the SCS and coping strategies for those who
perceived their grade as a failure. As expected, self-compassion had a signiﬁcant
positive correlation with the two emotion-focused coping strategies of positive
reinterpretation/growth and acceptance, and a signiﬁcant negative correlation withthe emotion-focused strategy of focus on/venting of negative emotions. Also as
hypothesized, self-compassion showed a signiﬁcant negative correlation with the two
avoidance-oriented strategies of denial and mental disengagement. No signiﬁcantassociations were found between self-compassion and problem-focused coping
strategies.

Discussion
As was found in Study 1, self-compassion had a signiﬁcant positive association withmastery goals and a signiﬁcant negative association with performance-avoidance
goals, even shortly after an academic failure. The association between selfcompassion and performance-approach goals in the current study was not signiﬁcant,although it should be noted that the directionality and size of the b-weight was similar
to that found in Study 1, which was signiﬁcant. (The diﬀerence in signiﬁcance levels in
the two studies was probably attributable to the smaller sample size of Study 2.) Theseﬁndings help conﬁrm the idea that because self-compassionate individuals are kinder
to themselves when they fail, are more aware that failure is part of the common
human experience, and are more mindful of their negative emotions, they are moreable to see failure experiences as a chance to learn and grow rather than becoming
consumed with fear about what a negative performance says about their self-worth.
This resilience allows for the adoption of more adaptive academic achievement goals.
A signiﬁcant positive association was also found between self-compassion andintrinsic motivation in Study 2. Even after receiving a disappointing grade, it seems
that self-compassionate individuals were more able to remain interested and involvedin the course topic. This may be due to the fact that self-compassionate individuals
do not launch into excessive self-blame when they fail or feel isolated and overidentiﬁed with their failure—behaviors that are likely to detract from the ability toremain interested in learning for its own sake. Another beneﬁt of this emotionallybalanced stance was that self-compassionate individuals were found to retain higher
levels of perceived competence relative to their less compassionate counterparts(even when controlling for actual test performance).
Moreover, when examining the relationship between self-compassion and copingwith a perceived academic failure, it was found that self-compassion was signiﬁcantly
associated with the tendency to cope with one’s negative feelings by using theadaptive emotion-focused strategies of positive reinterpretation/growth and acceptance. Given that a failure situation cannot be reversed once it has taken place, it issensible to accept that the situation has occurred with as much calm and equanimity
as possible, and then to see how one might learn and grow from the failure
experience. As we had also expected, self-compassion showed a signiﬁcant negative
correlation with the emotion-focused strategy of focus on and venting of negative
emotions. Excessively focusing on and talking about one’s negative experience is a
type of ruminative behavior that has been shown to be psychologically dysfunctional(Nolen-Hoeksema & Morrow, 1991). With self-compassion, although negative
feelings are acknowledged and accepted with mindful awareness, one does not run
away with the feelings so that one becomes consumed with distress. Self-compassion
showed no correlation with the emotion-focused strategy of seeking emotionalSelf-compassion, Achievement Goals, and Academic Failure283

support, perhaps because self-compassion is an internal process that does notnecessarily involve interpersonal discussion. In fact, past research (Neﬀ, 2003a) has
found that self-compassion is signiﬁcantly associated with the emotional processingof one’s feelings, but not with the expression of those feelings to others.
Also as hypothesized, self-compassion showed a negative link with all three
avoidance-oriented strategies, though only the correlations with the strategies ofdenial and mental disengagement were signiﬁcant. This suggests that when one treats
failure situations with compassion, there is no need to deny, repress, or avoid one’s
feelings—the feelings can be acknowledged, accepted, processed, and allowed topass. Ironically, when individuals do attempt to repress or deny their negative
emotions, the strategy inevitably backﬁres, as evidenced in Wegner’s (1989) wellknown ‘‘white bear’’ experiments. Thus, holding negative emotions in compassionate
awareness is a more adaptive way of dealing with failure, so that one does not
become inadvertently ﬁxated on thoughts of inadequacy and self-doubt.
Finally, this study did not ﬁnd signiﬁcant correlations between self-compassion
and any of the ﬁve problem-focused coping strategies. These strategies focus either
on taking active steps to remove the problem causing stress, making plans that will
help avoid the problem, cutting back on other activities in order to focus on solving
the problem at hand, or asking others for help in resolving the situation. However, it
is not clear to what extent the problem-focused scale items used in this study evenmade sense to participants, given that the problem on which they were focusing wasan unsatisfactory midterm grade that had already occurred and therefore could not
be ﬁxed or resolved. It should be noted that another recent study (Neﬀ, Kirkpatrick,Rude, & Dejitthirat, 2004) included an examination of the link between selfcompassion and coping styles without reference to speciﬁc situations, and in this caseself-compassion was found to have a signiﬁcant positive correlation with the
problem-focused coping styles of active coping and planning. Moreover, it was
found that the greater emotional clarity associated with self-compassion helped tomediate the link, suggesting that in situations that can be changed, the balanced
mindset of self-compassionate individuals also helps them to take eﬀective steps toeliminate the causes of stress.

Conclusions
First, some of the limitations of these two studies should be addressed. One
limitation has to do with the issue of causality. Both studies relied on correlations
and regressions for their analyses, which cannot determine the directionality ofeﬀects between variables. Thus, although the theoretical model positing that selfcompassion leads to more adaptive achievement goals and coping strategies iscoherent, it is possible that achievement goals and coping strategies also impact selfcompassion levels. Future research will be needed in order to further examine thisissue. Also, the two studies relied entirely on self-report measures, and moreexperimentally-based methods will be needed to provide additional insight into therole of self-compassion in academic motivation and coping. Still, results do suggestthat self-compassion is associated with adaptive motivational patterns and coping
strategies in academic contexts, and that further examination of these associations iswarranted.
Overall, ﬁndings from these studies suggests that self-compassion helps tofacilitate the learning process by freeing individuals from the debilitatingconsequences of harsh self-criticism, isolation, and over-identiﬁcation in the face

284

K. D. Neﬀ et alof failure, and instead provides students with self-kindness, a sense of common
humanity, and emotional balance. This constructive attitude towards the self
appears to help students focus on mastering tasks at hand rather than worrying
about performance evaluations, to retain conﬁdence in their competence as learners,
and to foster intrinsic motivation. Results also suggest that self-compassion isassociated with lower anxiety levels, and that self-compassionate individuals are
more likely to adopt adaptive coping strategies when confronted with academic
failure. Thus, this research suggests that the encouragement of self-compassion
among students could be highly beneﬁcial in learning contexts. Many educators are
struggling to understand how to encourage positive self-attitudes among theirstudents in a way that doesn’t run the risk of inadvertently encouraging narcissism
and downward social comparisons. School-based interventions, which draw upon
the self-compassion construct, may prove to be a useful alternative to self-esteembased interventions, by helping to remediate debilitating self-attitudes in a moreconstructive manner. It may be that when dealing with students who are struggling
with particular course topics, the encouragement of self-compassion on the part ofteachers—in conjunction with an emphasis on mastery rather than performancegoals—may prove particularly eﬀective. Of course, research on self-compassion isstill in its nascent stages and more research will need to be done before any policy
implications can be drawn. Nonetheless, there are enough positive indicators fromthese two studies to suggest that more research on this topic would be a worthwhilepursuit.

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