ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Psychol.
Sec. Positive Psychology
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1645815
Self-Compassion: No Communal Alternative to Agentic Self-Esteem
Provisionally accepted
- 1Friedrich-Alexander-Universitat Erlangen-Nurnberg, Erlangen, Germany
- 2University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria
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Research on associations of the two fundamental dimensions of self-concept and positive attitudes toward one's self has primarily focused on self-esteem which has been shown to be dominantly explained by agency and not communion. The present research included selfcompassion as an alternative positive self-attitude construct, characterized by self-kindness rather than positive self-evaluations. Based on theoretical considerations and previous results, we expected self-compassion to be equally predicted by communion and by agency. Two studies came to very similar results: Self-compassion was strongly related to agency, especially to its facet assertiveness. In contrast, self-compassion was only weakly related to communion. On the level of self-compassion's subcomponents, only self-kindness was related to communion, especially to its facet warmth. Self-esteem was most strongly predicted by agency, especially by its facet assertiveness; competence and warmth showed additional weaker predictive power. Thus, self-compassion seems to be an alternative, but no communal alternative to self-esteem.
Keywords: agency, communion, self-concept, self-compassion, self-esteem
Received: 12 Jun 2025; Accepted: 05 Sep 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Hauke-Forman and Kollmayer. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Marlene Kollmayer, University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria
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