The role of gender in relation to self-compassion and accompanying health behaviours

Self-compassion refers to being open towards oneself, as well as to one´s feelings (Neff, 2010). Therefore, it often comes along with certain health behaviours (Terry & Leary, 2011). Moreover, a lot of factors have an influence on the level of self-compassion as well as on the level of health behaviour, which includes for example gender (Bothmer & Fridlund, 2005). However, there are a lot of conflicting results in relation to gender differences and it was not studied so far whether gender might have a moderating effect on the relationship between self-compassion and health behaviour. Therefore, this study examines whether there are differences between males and females with regard to self-compassion and health behaviours, as well as whether the relationship between self-compassion and health behaviours is moderated by gender. The results showed that females scored significantly higher on health behaviours (p =.03) and that there were no differences between males and females in relation to self-compassion (p =.12). Moreover, gender did not moderate the relationship between self-compassion and health behaviours. Hence, the results underline the importance of gender when it comes to health behaviours. However, it did not reveal significant findings with regard to self-compassion and to gender as a moderator.