Meta-Analysis of Gender Differences in Self-Compassion

By Lisa M. Yarnell, Rose E. Stafford, K. Neff, Erin D. Reilly, Marissa C. Knox, Michael C. Mullarkey. 2015

452 citations recorded by the source corpus.

While research suggests strong associations of self-compassion with mental health and well-being, gender norms may hinder the development of self-compassion by women on one hand, and men on the other. This study represents one of the first systematic analyses of potential gender differences in self-compassion using meta-analytic techniques, including whether such gender differences are moderated by age or ethnic minority status. Fixed-effects models were used to estimate the average effect size (ES) of gender differences in self-compassion scores across 71 journal articles and dissertations providing a total of 88 estimates. Results revealed that males had slightly higher levels of self-compassion than females, with a small ES observed (d = .18). This difference was larger in samples with a higher percentage of ethnic minorities. Researchers and practitioners should take these group differences into account in future studies and interventions focused on self-compassion, while not overemphasizing gender differences in self-compassion as being large in size.

Subfields: Clinical Psychology, Experimental and Cognitive Psychology

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/51f978aeb5a1d4bec417e5614aca3960fab6338a

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Clinical Psychology

1. Oliver Dickhäuser
2. S. Garbade
3. Ulli Zessin
4. D. Chan
5. L. Chan
6. Xiaoyan Sun
7. M. van Gelderen
8. Afra Spoelder

In Experimental and Cognitive Psychology

1. A. Xavier
2. M. Cunha
3. Paula Freitas Castilho
4. Oliver Dickhäuser
5. S. Garbade
6. Ulli Zessin
7. D. Chan
8. L. Chan

Citations in the corpus

• Self-Compassion: Theory, Method, Research, and Intervention. (2022, methodology): “We conducted a meta-analysis of 88 study samples that showed that men reported slightly higher levels of self-compassion than women with a small effect size (Yarnell et al. 2015).”
• Self-compassion and psychological well-being among adolescents in Hong Kong: Exploring gender differences (2016, background): “Because of the application of comprehensive score rather than subscale scores of Self-Compassion Scale in those studies, it is hard to locate the sources for such disparity (Yarnell et al., 2015).”
• The Relationship Between Self-Compassion and Well-Being: A Meta-Analysis. (2015, background): “A meta-analysis regarding gender differences (Yarnell et al., 2015) showed that males report slightly higher levels of self-compassion than do females (d = .18).”
• Understanding self-compassion in adolescents: Validation study of the Self-Compassion Scale (2016, result): “These findings are in accordance with previous studies in non-clinical and clinical adult populations (Castilho et al., 2015; Yarnell et al., 2015).”
• Self-Compassion When Coping With Venture Obstacles: Loving-Kindness Meditation and Entrepreneurial Fear of Failure (2019, background): “Indeed, previous research also found self- compassion to be slightly lower for woman compared to men (Yarnell et al., 2015).”