Exploring the relationship between perfectionism, self-compassion, and well-being in athletes

Perfectionism is a combination of setting excessively high personal standards of performance which are accompanied by tendencies for overly critical evaluations of one's own behaviour (Frost et al., 1990). Perfectionism is linked to a range of negative performance and well-being related outcomes in sport (see Hill et al., 2018). As such, athletes with higher levels of perfectionism may experience more frequent self-criticism, leading to emotional distress (Alipour Ataabadi et al., 2022). The opposite of self-criticism is self-compassion. Self-compassion is one approach that may reduce the self-critical evaluations an athlete experiences (Mosewich et al., 2013). In addition, self-compassion has been shown to lead to greater psychological well-being in athletes (Walton et al., 2020). Based on the aforementioned research, we hope to understand whether perfectionism predicts self-compassion and well-being in athletes.