The Associations Among Self-compassion, Self-esteem, Self-criticism, and Concern Over Mistakes in Response to Biomechanical Feedback in Athletes

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). Future research is needed to explore self-compassion and athletes’ responses to feedback through a variety of emotionally challenging scenarios and different feedback modes