Investigation of the Structural Relationships Between Social Support, Self-Compassion, and Subjective Well-Being in Korean Elite Student Athletes

Abstract

The study examined whether self-compassion mediates the relationship between social support and subjective well-being, as perceived by athletes. It also investigated the structural relationships between these variables. Participants were 333 athletes attending high school or university. Structural equation analysis showed that self-compassion partially mediated the relationship between social support and subjective well-being. To test the stability of the model, a multiple group analysis was performed according to sex of participant and school level, and this demonstrated that the model had similar fit to the data regardless of group. The confirmation that self-compassion plays an intermediary role in the relationship between social support and subjective well-being demonstrates that self-compassionate attitudes can be fostered by social support, and that, in turn, has a positive effect on an individual's subjective well-being.

Exploring Self-Compassion and Versions of Masculinity in Men Athletes

“…Despite our replication of many previous self-compassion findings in other samples (e.g., women athletes, nonathlete samples of men), we were, pragmatically, unable to include all variables that have been previously assessed in self-compassion research. Of note, in recent studies including both men athletes and women athletes, several variables were identified as related to self-compassion (e.g., adaptive coping, subjective well-being, social support, perfectionist strivings, perfectionist concerns, social physique anxiety, sport anxiety; Huysmans & Clement, 2017;Jeon et al, 2016;Koc & Ermis, 2016;Lizmore et al, 2017). Therefore, in future studies on self-compassion and exclusively men athletes, it is important to consider including not only the variables identified as significant in our research but also the entire range of variables that have been previously studied.…”

“…In the wake of a sole focus on women athletes, there is a recent trend in sport self-compassion research to include both women athletes and men athletes, with encouraging findings (e.g., selfcompassion is positively related to adaptive coping, social support, well-being, and perfectionist strivings, and negatively related to shame and perfectionist concerns; Fontana, Fry, & Cramer, 2017;Huysmans & Clement, 2017;Jeon, Lee, & Kwon, 2016;Lizmore, Dunn, & Dunn, 2017). However, there are few self-compassion studies to date that have focused exclusively on men athletes and the unique challenges that men athletes face in sport, which oftentimes stem from masculinity.…”

Go soft or go home? A review of empirical studies on the role of self-compassion in the competitive sport setting

“…Studies with athlete populations show that having the impression of being socially supported (Jeon et al, 2016), perceiving teammates as a highly self-compassionate (Crozier et al, 2019) or striving for perfectionism in a healthy way (Lizmore et al, 2017) go along with reporting more SC. In contrast, being concerned about not being perfect enough may prevent SC (Lizmore et al, 2017).…”

“…More importantly, well-being is desirable for its own sake. The reviewed literature shows that the positive relation between SC and well-being exists in athletic populations as well (Ferguson et al, 2014;Ferguson, Kowalski, Mack, & Sabiston, 2015;Jeon, Lee, & Kwon, 2016). The studies suggest that SC is associated with adaptive personality characteristics and helpful behavioral inclinations in emotionally challenging situations that make well-being more likely (Ferguson et al, 2014;Ferguson et al, 2015).…”

Coaches’ implementation strategies in providing social support to Singaporean university athletes: A case study

“…More research is also needed in the Asian's context as most of the studies on providing social support to athletes have been conducted in western countries. An exception worth noting is the study of Jeon, Lee, and Kwon [28] that demonstrated how social support from important others, including coaches, positively affected both directly and indirectly via enhanced self-compassion of subjective well-being of Korean elite high school and university student athletes. In addition, Lu et al [29] found that the resilience of the Taiwanese college student athletes and their coaches' informational and tangible support conjunctively moderated the stress-burnout relation in high and low stress conditions.…”