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Psychology & Health

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Stomaching rejection: Self-compassion and self-esteem moderate the impact of daily socialrejection on restrictive eating behaviours amongcollege women

Janine B. Beekman, Michelle L. Stock & George W. Howe

To cite this article: Janine B. Beekman, Michelle L. Stock & George W. Howe (2017):Stomaching rejection: Self-compassion and self-esteem moderate the impact of daily socialrejection on restrictive eating behaviours among college women, Psychology & Health, DOI:10.1080/08870446.2017.1324972

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/08870446.2017.1324972

Published online: 05 May 2017.

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Stomaching rejection: Self-compassion and self-esteem moderate theimpact of daily social rejection on restrictive eating behaviours among

college women

Janine B. Beekman*,†, Michelle L. Stock and George W. Howe

Department of Psychology, The George Washington University, Washington, DC, USA

(Received 6 September 2016; accepted 18 April 2017)

Objective: The present study examined whether having high self-esteem or aself-compassionate perspective help mitigate the impact of daily socialrejection on negative affect and restrictive eating behaviours.Design: Following a baseline survey assessing self-esteem and self-compassion,121 college women completed online daily diaries for one week.Main Outcome Measures: Negative affect and restrictive eating behaviours.Results: On days when women reported more rejection, they also reported higherrestrictive eating behaviours and greater negative affect. Effects were moderatedby self-esteem and self-compassion, such that the lower participants were in self-esteem or self-compassion, the stronger the positive relation between rejection andnegative affect and restrictive eating. However, only the common humanity/isolation dimension of self-compassion significantly moderated daily effects ofrejection when controlling for self-esteem. Mediated moderation results revealdifferent mechanisms by which self-esteem and self-compassion buffer againstrejections’ effects on affect and restrictive eating.Conclusion: Self-compassion and self-esteem influence the complex impactthat social rejection has on affect and restrictive eating. More than otherdimensions of self-compassion or self-esteem, remembering one’s commonhumanity can result in a healthier response to social rejection.

Keywords: restrictive eating; social rejection; self-compassion; SEM; dailydiary; college women

A healthy relationship with food is vital to maintaining or improving overall health.Yet, restrictive eating (e.g. chronic restrained eating, extreme dieting) remains one ofthe most significant health issues facing college women (Delinsky & Wilson, 2008;Eisenberg, Nicklett, Roeder, & Kirz, 2011; Lowe et al., 2006; Smith-Jackson & Reel,2012). As rates of obesity remain high in the United States (Ogden, Carroll, Kit, &Flegal, 2012), the prevalence of dysfunctional eating persists (Neumark-Sztainer, Wall,Larson, Eisenberg, & Loth, 2011). This health issue is particularity prevalent amongcollege females; while the college years represent a period of rapid weight gain(Truesdale et al., 2006), women in college also report high rates of dysfunctional orpathological eating tendencies (Lowe & Thomas, 2009).

*Corresponding author. Email: janine.beekman@ipsos.com†Present address: Dr. Beekman is now at Ipsos Public Affairs, Washington, DC, USA.

© 2017 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group

Psychology & Health, 2017https://doi.org/10.1080/08870446.2017.1324972

While dysfunctional eating behaviours are influenced in part by biological factors(e.g. physiology and genetics; Ericsson, Poston, & Foreyt, 1996), the increase in thesebehaviours over the past several decades suggests that environmental or contextual fac-tors are also to blame (Kumanyika et al., 2008). For example, restrictive eating – such asdieting, fasting or limiting food intake to a certain number of calories or certain foods orfood groups – stems in part from a cultural context in the United States that promotesthinness, stigmatises overweight, yet encourages uncontrolled consumption of energy-dense, hyper-palatable foods (Irving & Neumark-Sztainer, 2002). However, restrictiveeating behaviours may also be negatively impacted by stress (Byrd-Bredbenner, Quick,Koenings, Martin-Biggers, & Kattelmann, 2016); increased stress promotes unhealthyeating behaviours (Lowe, 2002; Macht, 2008). Furthermore, feelings of stress affect eat-ing in a complex way. For roughly 70% of individuals, stress leads to an increase in foodintake; for 30%, stress leads to restriction (Epel et al., 2004). Eating too much or too littleare both maladaptive; however, the focus of the current research will be on restrictive eat-ing, both because it is understudied in relation to social rejection and disproportionatelyaffects college women.

Social rejection can be a potent source of stress (Williams, Forgas, & von Hippel,2005). Furthermore, the mindset one has when facing rejection can, in turn, impactreactions to rejection and its downstream consequences. Self-focused attitudes, or differ-ent ways of relating to oneself – including self-esteem and self-compassion – maybuffer the effects of rejection on unhealthy eating, though this potential is understudied.The first aim of the present study was to examine, using daily diary methodology, theassociations of daily social rejection with restrictive eating behaviours and affective pre-cursors that mediate this relationship. The second aim of our study was to test whetherself-esteem and self-compassion differentially reduce the negative impact of rejectionon restrictive eating among college women.

Social rejection and restrictive eating

Social rejection is a common yet painful experience that occurs when an individual isdeliberately excluded from a social interaction for social (rather than practical) reasons(Leary, 2001). Social rejection, even by strangers, increases health risk behaviours anddecreases health protective behaviours (Abrams, Hogg, & Marques, 2005; Baumeister,DeWall, Ciarocco, & Twenge, 2005; Pascoe & Smart Richman, 2009), including

Figure 1. Self-esteem (SE), controlling for BMI, moderates effects of daily rejection on (a)negative affect and (b) restrictive eating.

2 J.B. Beekman et al.

unhealthy and healthy eating, respectively (Salvy et al., 2011; Twenge, Catanese, &Baumeister, 2002). For example, research on the consequences of social rejection foundthat rejected individuals drink less of a purportedly ‘healthy’ but bad-tasting beverage andeat more unhealthy cookies (Baumeister et al., 2005); these findings were replicated andeven more pronounced among socially anxious individuals (Oaten, Williams, Jones, &Zadro, 2008). Another study found that overweight participants responded affirmativelyfor food during an operant conditioning task and had more subsequent energy intake ifthey were rejected than if they were included in an earlier lab task (Salvy et al., 2011).

But this research is not limited to eating too much when faced with the stress ofsocial rejection. More recent research examined individual differences that may leadsome to eat more when rejected, and some to eat less. For example, after being rejected,college students who habitually ate more in response to stress (stress hyperphagics) atesignificantly more than habitual stress restrictors (stress hypophagics), who restrictedtheir food intake in the face of social rejection (Sproesser, Schupp, & Renner, 2014).There is a dearth of research examining restrictive eating cognitions and behaviours inthe face of social rejection, even though both restrictive eating and social rejection arecommon incidents among college women.

Mediating role of negative affect

There are several mechanisms that have been proposed to explain why individuals makeunhealthy eating decisions when rejected, but one of the most frequently studied is neg-ative affect. Literature on the affective consequences of rejection and the stress and cop-ing literature offer support for how negative affect may lead to unhealthy eating.Furthermore, the emotional eating literature (e.g. Arnow, Kenardy, & Agras,1995;Waller & Osman, 1998) offers a lens through which to explore the causal link betweenrejection and unhealthy eating.

Rejection has pronounced affective consequences, leading to negative responsessuch as shame, sadness, anxiety and distress (Dickerson, Gruenewald, & Kemeny,2004; Leary, Tambor, Terdal, & Downs, 1995; Leary, Twenge, & Quinlivan, 2006;Svetieva et al., 2016; Williams, 2007; Zwolinski, 2014). Though affect is often mea-sured globally, more specific facets of negative affect are sometimes isolated and stud-ied. For example, shame: A growing body of literature on self-preservation theory(Gruenewald et al., 2004) proposes that shame is evoked by social evaluative threat

Figure 2. Self-compassion (SC), controlling for BMI, moderates effects of daily rejection on (a)negative affect and (b) restrictive eating.

Psychology & Health 3

(e.g. rejection). Both chronic and acute experiences of shame, measured by self-reportand with physiological indicators (e.g. sympathetic nervous system and hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal axis activity), are impacted by social threat (Rohleder, Chen, Wolf, &Miller, 2008). Yet, one meta-analysis on exclusion and rejection (Blackhart, Nelson,Knowles, & Baumeister, 2009) concluded that rejection causes significant shifts in abroader range of emotion and affect. Simply put, rejected people feel globally worse –beyond simply ashamed – than their accepted and neutral-condition counterparts. Inlight of evidence that multiple dimensions of negative affect may be affected by rejec-tion, a global measure of negative affect will be included in the present study to expandon previous research examining only a single dimension (e.g. shame).

Global negative affect in turn, leads to unhealthy dietary patterns (Grossniklauset al., 2010; Haedt-Matt & Keel, 2011; Lane, 2007; Macht, 2008). In one study utilisingEcological Momentary Assessment (EMA), college women reported mood and eatingbehaviours throughout the day (Heron, Scott, Sliwinski, & Smyth, 2014). Results con-firmed that negative affect – including worry, sadness and unhappiness – was higherwhen women reported both restricting food intake and losing control over their eating.Negative emotional reactions to rejection may also lead to the use of maladaptive eatingbehaviours as emotion-focused coping (Arnow et al., 1995; Cervera et al., 2003; Evers,Stok, & de Ridder, 2010; Martyn-Nemeth, Penckofer, Gulanick, Velsor-Friedrich, &Bryant, 2009). Using food to cope with the emotional consequences of stressors iswidely accepted to be a form of maladaptive emotion regulation that is a significantcontributor to the current obesity epidemic (Adam & Epel, 2007).

Reacting to rejection: The role of the self

If restrictive eating is one coping response to social rejection, replacing this mechanismwith another strategy could reduce the negative impacts of rejection on eating. How-ever, this strategy would need to address the emotion regulation needs of a rejectedindividual in order to replace emotion-focused coping. Because rejection is threatening(Leary & Baumeister, 2000; Williams, 2001), since it is viewed as a de-valuation of theself by others, it follows that self-constructs would be important buffers in the face ofrejection. This phenomenon is partially due to the ways in which individuals use self-reflection and self-reassurance as a form of intrapersonal relating when that interper-sonal relating is threatened, a key tenant of social mentality theory (Gilbert, 1989,2005). Fostering a kinder way of relating to oneself, for instance through care-seeking

Figure 3. Common Humanity/Isolation (CH/I) component of self-compassion moderates effectsof daily rejection on restrictive eating independent of self-esteem.

4 J.B. Beekman et al.

or care-giving mentalities, is one way of intrapersonal relating when relating to othersis not possible or is threatened (Hermanto & Zuroff, 2016) – such as in the case ofrejection.

Indeed, several methods of relating to the self during and following rejectionhave been proposed and explored, such as boosting self-esteem and engaging in self-affirmation (Sherman & Cohen, 2006; Smart Richman & Leary, 2009; Sommer, 2001).Furthermore, self-compassion has been proposed as an important buffer in the face offood-related stress or appearance-related threats on eating behaviours (Adams & Leary,2007; Breines, Toole, Tu, & Chen, 2014). Thus, in the present study, two related butunique concepts capturing how one relates to the self will be examined as possible buffersfor the negative effects of rejection on restrictive eating: self-esteem and self-compassion.

Self-esteem

Having high self-esteem, or confidence in one’s own abilities, worth and social rank,can affect one’s reaction to social rejection. Indeed, low self-esteem predicts strongernegative reactions to social rejection: lower levels of self-esteem relate to greater activa-tion in the brain regions associated with social pain (Kashdan et al., 2014). Low self-esteem is also associated with responding to rejection with more self-blame and greatercortisol reactivity (Ford & Collins, 2013). After a personal failure or after experiencingrejection, individuals low in self-esteem tend to dwell more on the negative outcome,blame themselves more for it and generally take it more personally (Dandeneau &Baldwin, 2004). According to Sociometer theory (Leary et al., 1995), self-esteem canalso be a gauge of one’s inclusionary status; people with low self-esteem generally per-ceive more rejection, while people with higher self-esteem tend to perceive more inclu-sion and less rejection (Leary et al., 1995). So, even if rejection happens, having highself-esteem helps one to perceive it less often and as less severe, while low self-esteemleads to more negative affect, especially shame and blame. Additionally, having highself-esteem has been shown to be protective against maladaptive eating, ranging frombulimic behaviours (Vohs et al., 2001) to dysfunctional and restrictive eating (Shroff &Thompson, 2006). Thus, we expect that self-esteem will buffer against the effects ofdaily rejection on negative affect and, in turn, restrictive eating.

But the notion of self-esteem as a powerful protective mechanism has faced chal-lenges in the literature. Traditionally, self-esteem is defined as a broad self-evaluation

Figure 4. Mediated moderation models.

Psychology & Health 5

that is boosted by reaching goals yet threatened by perceived failure (Kernis, 2003).Thus, self-esteem is often contingent on one feeling competent or successful in impor-tant life domains, including but not limited to social belonging (Deci & Ryan, 1995).Global self-esteem is based on consistent positive evaluation of the Self, however whensomething negative and unavoidable happens – such as inevitable social rejection –ego-defensive drawbacks such as narcissism emerge because these experiences can bedissonant with a positive evaluation of the self (Neff, 2003b). As such, self-esteem canbe related to maladaptive attitudes such as self-enhancement bias (Sedikides & Gregg,2008). Thus, there is a need to explore the buffering potential of other positive self-attitudes, above and beyond self-esteem, that are not contingent on success (oravoidance of failures) or evaluations of the self. Self-compassion offers one suchalternative.

Self-compassion

Another positive self-attitude that has emerged in the literature as an alternative way ofrelating to oneself, and help in coping with social stressors such as rejection, is self-compassion. Self-compassion has not yet been explored in the face of rejection, and isparticularly relevant to inspiring healthy eating cognitions and behaviours. Self-compassion involves directing the same kind of kindness, understanding and forgive-ness towards oneself when faced with adversity that one would convey to a loved onein the same situation. It is a malleable, non-evaluative, emotionally positive self-attitude(Neff, 2003a) that has demonstrably promoted adaptive psychological functioning (Neff,Kirkpatrick, & Rude, 2007), positive mood (Odou & Brinker, 2014) and physical health(Sirois, Kitner, & Hirsch, 2014) including healthy eating and intuitive eating amongcollege women (Kelly, Miller, & Stephen, 2016; Kelly & Stephen, 2016; Schoenefeld& Webb, 2013). In fact, previous research has elucidated the impacts of self-compassionon daily restrictive eating: on days where individuals were more self-compassionate,they reported less disordered (including restrictive) eating (Breines et al., 2014, Study1). Additionally, recent research among college women found that daily fluctuations inself-compassion predicted fluctuations in eating behaviours: on days when womenreported greater self-compassion, they also reported more intuitive eating – a measureof a healthy relationship with food marked by the propensity to follow hunger and sati-ety cues when deciding how much, when and what to eat – while daily self-esteem wasnot associated with intuitive eating (Kelly & Stephen, 2016; Kelly et al., 2016).

Self-compassion is a multi-dimensional construct; Neff (2003a) conceptualised self-compassion as comprised of three components: self-kindness (vs. self-judgment), com-mon humanity (vs. isolation) and mindfulness (vs. over-identification). Many studiesuse a global measure of self-compassion – a mean or sum of all three components (e.g.Kelly & Stephen, 2016). However, the exact factor structure of a global self-compassionscale is the subject of current debate (e.g. Costa, Marôco, Pinto‐Gouveia, Ferreira, &Castilho, 2016), and researchers have begun to examine and notice differences in whateach component predicts. Therefore, self-compassion as a whole (mean score of allthree components) will be initially examined, but secondary analyses will focus on thethree components of self-compassion separately.

6 J.B. Beekman et al.

Self-compassion and self-esteem as independent predictors

Self-compassion has been shown to be distinct from other ways of relating to oneself(Neff, 2003b), but it is most often compared to, and contrasted, with self-esteem (Neff& Vonk, 2009). Unlike self-esteem, which boosts well-being because it helps peoplefeel superior and self-confident, self-compassion boosts well-being because it helps peo-ple feel secure and safe, and does not rely on comparing oneself to others or derogatingothers to boost one’s own feelings of self-worth (Neff, 2011). Self-compassion and self-esteem are highly correlated, so studies examining self-compassion often include mea-sures of self-esteem to test whether self-compassion predicts outcomes over and aboveself-esteem (Neff & Vonk, 2009). In the present research, analyses of self-compassioncontrol for self-esteem, and analyses of self-esteem control for self-compassion, todetermine if each self-attitude predicts unique variance in the predicted associations.

Moderating roles of self-focused constructs: Different mechanisms of mediation

One key distinction that sets self-compassion apart from self-esteem is how the selfrelates and reacts to emotion. Self-esteem is effective in the face of threat because itprovides a distraction or replacement for negative feelings – by feeling better aboutoneself. It is an effective coping mindset because it allows the target of rejection toignore or push aside painful feelings or replace them with warmer, more positive self-focused feelings. Crucially, self-esteem is effective because it reduces the negativeimpact of rejection on negative affect or related constructs. Self-compassion, on theother hand, requires that individuals do not avoid or repress painful feelings, so theycan be compassionate about their experience in the first place (Neff, 2003a). Self-compassion requires that people do not over-identify with their emotions, allowing forcognitive space to extend oneself kindness or recognise the broader human context – orcommon humanity – of one’s experience of pain, suffering or failure (Bennett-Goleman,2001; Neff, 2003a). Thus, we would not predict that self-compassion, on its own,buffers against rejections’ impact on self-reported affect or feelings of control. Wewould, however, predict that self-compassion would buffer the effects of negative affecton more downstream behaviours such as restrictive eating (Breines et al., 2014).

The present study

The present research used a seven-day daily diary methodology to examine, over time,the association between social rejection and restrictive eating in a sample of collegewomen. In order to probe the mechanisms behind this association, we also examineddaily negative affect. Prior to the week-long diary phase, in a separate assessment, wemeasured trait-level constructs, including self-compassion and self-esteem. The aims ofthe study were to elucidate the impacts of daily rejection on affect and restrictive eatingbehaviours, and determine the mechanisms by which (and extent to which) positiveself-attitudes buffer these associations. The following hypotheses were tested:w

H1: Individuals who report more daily social rejection will report more negative affect andincreased restrictive eating behaviours.

Psychology & Health 7

H2: Self-esteem will buffer (moderate) the impact of daily rejection on restrictive eatingbehaviours, such that the relationship between rejection and eating will be stronger for indi-viduals low in (vs. high in) self-esteem. Self-esteem will similarly buffer rejection’s impacton negative affect, such that the relationship between rejection and negative affect will bestrongest for women low in self-esteem.

H3: (a) Self-compassion will buffer the impact of daily rejection on restrictive eating beha-viour, such that the relationship between rejection and eating will be stronger for individu-als low (vs. high) in self-compassion. Self-compassion will also buffer the effect ofnegative affect on restrictive eating behaviours, such that the relationship between negativeaffect and behaviour will be strongest for women low in self-compassion.

(b) Exploratory analyses will examine the relative buffering potential of the three differentcomponents of self-compassion by examining each component in isolation.

H4: Negative affect will mediate the effects of rejection on restrictive eating. Givenhypotheses 2 and 3, self-esteem and self-compassion will moderate this indirect mediationpath.

Method

Participants

Potential participants (college women over 18 who participated in research studies fordepartmental credit) were invited to take part in an online study described as a studydesigned to help us learn more about college women’s day-to-day feelings, life experi-ences and health behaviours. Of the 133 undergraduate women who provided consentto participate, 121 (Mage = 19.47 (SD = 2.06); 71.9% White) completed measures for atleast five diary entries in addition to the baseline. When data were available, partici-pants who were excluded from analyses were compared to the rest of the sample on allstudy variables; means on available study variables did not differ significantly betweenthese participants and those included in main analyses (ps > .23).

Procedure

After an electronic informed consent process, participants filled out an initial baselinesurvey, which included measures of trait self-compassion, self-esteem and BMI.Between 1 and 3 weeks later, a seven-day daily diary data collection took place duringthe same week for all participants. All data was collected via SurveyMonkey (2015).Participants completed the daily diary between 5 pm and midnight, and were promptedby email each evening to complete the surveys. The protocol for this daily diary studywas most expressly adapted from a recent study on daily self-compassion and disor-dered eating (Breines et al., 2014).

8 J.B. Beekman et al.

Table1.

Bivariate

correlations,means

andstandard

deviations

ofallstud

yvariables.

M(SD)

12

34

56

78

1.BMI

22.7

(3.7)

–2.

Self-com

passion

2.83

(.60)

−.26*

*–

3.SC

:CH/IS

2.87

(.68)

−.27*

*.88*

**–

4.SC

:SK

/SJ

2.76

(.69)

−.19*

.92*

**.70*

**–

5.SC

:MI/OI

2.86

(.62)

−.26*

*.91*

**.74*

**.75*

**–

6.Self-esteem

3.68

(.73)

−.14

.61*

**.55*

**.59*

**.50*

**–

7.Daily

rejection

1.57

(.37)

−.02

−.20*

−.30*

*−.18*

−.22*

−.28*

*–

8.Negativeaffect

1.86

(.60)

−.07

−.40*

**−.40*

**−.33*

**−.35*

**−.30*

*.65*

**–

9.Restrictiv

eeatin

g1.80

(.71)

.17

−.32*

**−.29*

*−.30*

*−.34*

**−.15

.23*

.37*

**

Note:

Daily

constructsrepresentgrandmeanacross

the7days.

*p<.05;

**p<.01;

***p

<.001

.

Psychology & Health 9

Baseline survey measures

Self-esteem

Participants responded to the 10-item Rosenberg self-esteem scale (Rosenberg, 1979).Sample items include I feel that I have a number of good qualities and On the whole, Iam satisfied with myself (1 = not at all like me to 5 = very much like me). A mean scorewas calculated (α = .88).

Self-compassion

Self-compassion was measured using the 26-item Self-Compassion Scale (Neff, 2003b).Participants were asked how they typically act towards themselves in difficult times.Six subscales reflected the dimensions self-compassion: common humanity (e.g. WhenI’m down and out, I remind myself that there are lots of other people in the world feel-ing like I am); isolation (e.g. When I’m really struggling, I tend to feel like other peoplemust be having an easier time of it); self-kindness (e.g. When I’m going through a veryhard time, I give myself the caring and tenderness I need); self-judgment (e.g. I’m intol-erant and impatient towards those aspects of my personality I don’t like); mindfulness(e.g. When something painful happens, I try to take a balanced view of the situation);and over-identification (e.g. When something upsets me I get carried away with my feel-ings). Responses ranged from 1 = Almost never to 5 = Almost always. Reverse-scoreswere calculated for isolation, self-judgement and over-identification, and then meanscores were calculated for each subscale to assess each dimension of self-compassion:Common Humanity vs. Isolation (CH/I; α = .75), Self-Kindness vs. Self-Judgment (SK/SJ; α = .86) and Mindfulness vs. Over-identification (M/OI; α = .73). The reliability forthe full 26-item Self-Compassion Scale was also high (α = .91).

Body Mass Index (BMI)

Past research examining the associations between self-compassion and eating outcomesand rejection and eating outcomes have adjusted for BMI (e.g. Blechert, Goltsche,Herbert, & Wilhelm, 2014; Schoenefeld & Webb, 2013), as BMI relates significantly toeating outcomes and is therefore a potential confound. Therefore, to control for suchconfounding, BMI was calculated using height and weight, which were assessed viaself-report in imperial units.

Daily diary measures

Daily surveys were assessed each day, for seven days (but not at baseline), to measurewithin-person covariation on main predictor and outcome variables.

Rejection experiences

Daily experiences of rejection were measured each day by first asking if participantshad felt rejected or excluded by a (1) friend, (2) romantic partner, (3) someone else atwork or school; felt excluded or left out by a (4) group of people and (5) felt rejected,excluded or left out on social media (0 = did not happen, 1 = occurred but not

10 J.B. Beekman et al.

meaningful, 2 = occurred and somewhat meaningful, 3 = occurred and very meaningful,4 = occurred and extremely meaningful). Participants were also asked how much theyfelt rejected, excluded or left out, alone, and connected to others (reverse coded)(1 = very slightly or not at all to 5 = extremely). Means for all nine rejection items foreach day were calculated to form a rejection experiences composite score (dailyαs = .82 to .89).

Negative affect

Participants were asked to reflect on the extent to which they felt three emotions duringthe day: Ashamed, Sad and Anxious1 (1 = very slightly or not at all to 5 = extremely).Means for the three items were calculated for each day (αs = .66 to .78).

Restrictive eating behaviours

Restrictive disordered eating behaviours were assessed using items from a maladaptiveeating scale used by Breines and colleagues (2014). Each day participants were askedhow frequently they engaged in several disordered eating behaviours , e.g. avoidedeating when you were hungry, tried to control your weight by eating little or no food(6 items, daily αs = .79 to .84). Responses ranged from 1 = never to 5 = always.

Results

Descriptive statistics

Means, standard deviations and bivariate correlations between study variables are shownin Table 1. BMI ranged from underweight (17.2) to obese (34.7). Daily reports ofrestrictive eating behaviour were comparable to other studies examining college women(e.g. Heron et al., 2014; Zeigler-Hill & Noser, 2015), M = 1.80, SD = .71. Additionally,daily reports of rejection were relatively low overall, M = 1.57, SD = .37, however theyvaried both between participants and across days.

BMI was correlated negatively with each of the 3 self-compassion subscales, Com-mon Humanity vs. Isolation (CH/I; r = .27, p < .003), Self-Kindness vs. Self-Judgment(SK/SJ; r = –.19, p < .05) and Mindfulness vs. Over-identification (M/OI; r = –.26,p < .005). The self-compassion subscales also correlated highly with each other, as wellas with self-esteem (all rs > .25). Daily rejection was correlated positively with negativeaffect (r = .65, p < .001) and restrictive eating (r = .23, p < .02). Perceptions of rejectionwere also negatively correlated with all three self-compassion subscales, as well as self-esteem (all ps < .01).

Multilevel random effects models

Analytic strategy

Hierarchical Linear Modelling (HLM) was conducted using MPlus software (Muthén &Muthén, 2011). Multiple observations taken from individuals can be thought of as mul-ti-level data, with daily observations (e.g. diary entries) constituting the Level 1 dataand the individual characteristics (e.g. trait-level moderators) constituting level 2 data

Psychology & Health 11

(Nezlek, 2008). Therefore, where moderation of self-compassion and self-esteem wasexamined, daily measures were included as Level 1 data in the models, while baselinemeasures were included as Level 2 data. HLM provides independent estimates of asso-ciations between Level 1 constructs and models them at Level 2 using maximum likeli-hood estimation. We used a nested data structure, multilevel random effects coefficientmodelling, to measure how the between-person Level 2/baseline constructs moderatethe within-person Level 1/daily relationships. This was performed by examining, in sep-arate models for each moderator and outcome, how self-compassion and self-esteemmoderate the effects of daily rejection on restrictive eating and negative affect. Eachself-attitude was entered into the model alone and then subsequently with the other self-attitude included as a covariate. BMI was included as a covariate in all models.Analyses included the MPlus default missing data estimation approach, full informationmaximum likelihood (FIML), which assumes data are missing at random (MAR: thatis, random contingent on controlling for all measured variables in the model).

Hypothesis 1: Direct effects of rejection on restrictive eating and negative affect

As expected, analyses revealed a significant positive association between self-reportedrejection and restrictive eating (b = .092, p < .02), not taking into account baseline self-compassion or self-esteem. There was also a significant association between rejectionand negative affect (b = .26, p < .001). Thus, on days when individuals felt morerejected, they also reported more restrictive eating and greater negative affect.

Moderators of the association between rejection and eating-related outcomes

Where moderation of self-esteem and self-compassion was present, we probed signifi-cant interactions by graphing the association between the Level 1 variables (daily rejec-tion and restrictive eating) for participants who scored relatively low (–1 SD) vs. high(+1 SD) on the self-compassion subscales and self-esteem. Several significant interac-tions emerged:

Hypothesis 2: Self-esteem

Self-esteem, controlling for BMI, moderated the effects of rejection on negative affect(b = –.042, p < .04), such that the lower participants were in self-esteem, the strongerthe positive relationship between rejection and negative affect (Figure 1(a)). However,while an interaction indicates the slopes are significantly different from each other, sim-ple slopes revealed that the relationship between rejection and negative affect is signifi-cant at both high and low levels of self-esteem (ps < .001). Furthermore, self-esteem,controlling for BMI, moderated the effects of rejection on restrictive eating (b = –.076,p < .001), such that the lower participants were in self-esteem, the stronger the positiverelationship between rejection and restrictive eating (Figure 1(b)). Simple slopesrevealed the relationship between rejection and restrictive eating was only significant atlow levels of self-esteem (b = .131, p < .001).

Notably, when self-compassion was entered into the two-level random effects modelas a covariate, the moderating effects of self-esteem fell below significance: controllingfor self-compassion (all subscales combined) and BMI, there was no moderating effect

12 J.B. Beekman et al.

of self-esteem on the relationship between daily rejection and negative affect(b = –.031, p = .198) or the relationship between daily rejection and disordered eatingbehaviours (b = –.055, p = .110) independent of self-compassion.

Hypothesis 3: Self-compassion

Controlling for BMI, self-compassion moderated the effects of rejection on negativeaffect (b = –.046, p < .04). The less self-compassionate participants were, the strongerthe positive relationship between rejection and restrictive eating (Figure 2(a)). However,simple slopes once again revealed that the relationship between rejection and negativeaffect is significant at both high and low levels of self-compassion (ps < .01). Self-com-passion also moderated the effects of rejection on restrictive eating (b = –.072,p < .013), such that participants lower in self-compassion indicated a stronger relation-ship between rejection and restrictive eating (Figure 2(b)). Simple slopes computedat +/–1 SD revealed the relationship between rejection and restrictive eating wassignificant at low levels of self-compassion (b = .113, p < .001) but not high SC(b = .027, p = .24).

Similar to the effect of adding self-compassion to the self-esteem moderation model,when self-esteem was entered into this model, the moderating effects of self-compassionwere no longer significant, indicating joint effects: controlling for self-esteem and BMI,there was no moderating effect of self-compassion on the relationship between rejectionand affect (b = –.023, p = .408) or rejection and disordered eating (b = –.046, p = .326)independent of self-esteem.

Self-compassion components

Probing the three different components of self-compassion while controlling for self-esteem, however, revealed one buffering effect independent of self-esteem: controllingfor BMI and self-esteem, the common humanity/isolation (CH/I) component of self-compassion moderated the effects of rejection on restrictive eating (b = –.068, p < .05),such that the lower participants were in CH/I, the stronger the relationship betweenrejection and restrictive eating (Figure 3). CH/I only marginally moderated the effect ofrejection on negative affect (b = –.039, p = .07). Neither self-kindness/self-judgment(SK/SJ) nor mindfulness/over-identification (MI/OI) significantly moderated, indepen-dent of self-esteem, the effects of daily rejection on affect or restricted eating(ps > .11).

Hypothesis 4: Mediated moderation

To determine the extent to which negative affect explains the relationship betweenrejection and restrictive eating – at different levels of trait self-compassion and self-esteem – mediated moderation analyses were conducted using methods developed byMacKinnon and colleagues (e.g. MacKinnon & Valente, 2014). Mediated moderationwas conducted only on those rejection-eating relationships where significant moderationof self-attitudes was present. We first examined within-level mediation on the level 2data, with between-level moderation at level 1. Prior to inclusion in analyses, allbaseline Level 2 variables were centred around their group mean, per previous research

Psychology & Health 13

utilising multilevel HLM (e.g. David & Suls, 1999). Then, at the within level, wecalculated three slope estimates for the effect of (1) rejection on the affect, (2) affect onrestrictive eating and (3) rejection on restrictive eating. Then, at the between level, weregressed each centred proposed moderator on the three slope estimates. Mediated mod-eration was present when either the rejection → mediator path was moderated and themediator → outcome path was constant, or the rejection → mediator path was constantand the mediator → outcome path was moderated, or both pathways were moderated.The PROCESS macro (Hayes, 2013) was then used to calculate indices of the strengthof these indirect mediation effects. Finally, using RMediation (Tofighi & MacKinnon,2011), we tested for a simple mediation effects and confidence intervals at +/–1 SDlevels of the moderator variables to probe the presence of mediation at high and lowlevels of self-esteem and self-compassion.

Two significant patterns of mediated moderation emerged. The first pattern is rejec-tion to negative affect moderation, in which the moderator qualifies the rejection-affectpath of the model, but the affect-eating path is constant (Figure 4(a)). The second pat-tern is affect to eating moderation, in which the moderator qualifies the affect-eatingpath, but the rejection-affect path is constant (Figure 4(b)). No models in which theself-esteem or self-compassion moderated both the rejection → affect and affect → eat-ing behaviour pathways fit the data significantly.

The significant patterns of mediation of a moderator (e.g. Fairchild & MacKinnon,2009) will be referred to as rejection-affect and affect-eating moderation models, respec-tively. Within rejection-affect moderation models, unstandardised betas representing thesignificant constant relationship between affect and eating and the moderation of rejec-tion and affect are presented; within affect-eating moderation models, unstandardisedbetas representing the significant constant relationship between rejection and affect andthe moderation of affect and eating are presented. Finally, estimates (μ) and 95% confi-dence intervals representing the indirect rejection-affect-eating effects at +/–1 SD of themoderators (self-esteem and the common humanity component of self-compassion) arereported.

When self-esteem was entered into the model as a moderator, by itself2 but control-ling for BMI, only rejection-affect moderation was present: the rejection → negativeaffect pathway was moderated by self-esteem (b = –.039, p < .05), while the negativeaffect → restrictive eating pathway was not (b = .074, p < .007), as illustrated inFigure 4(a) (mediated moderation index: –.86, CI: [–.289, –.007]). For low self-esteemparticipants, the indirect effect estimate is μ = .021 and the distribution of the productof coefficients method 95% CI is [.006, .037], indicating an indirect effect. For highself-esteem participants, the indirect effect estimate is μ = .017 [.005, .031], also indicat-ing an indirect effect. However, when CH/I was entered into the model along with self-esteem, the rejection-affect moderation was no longer significant.

When potential moderation of self-compassion (full scale) was entered into themodel, controlling for BMI only (but not self-esteem3), affect-eating moderation waspresent: the rejection → negative affect pathway was constant (b = .253, p < .001),while the negative affect → restrictive eating pathway was moderated by self-compas-sion (interaction b = –.18, p < .001), as in Figure 4(b) (moderated mediation index: –.14;SE(boot) = .104; CI: [–.395, –.011]). For participants lower in self-compassion, the indi-rect effect estimate is μ = .032 and the distribution of the product of coefficients method

14 J.B. Beekman et al.

95% CI is [.013, .053], indicating an indirect effect. However, for participants higher inself-compassion, the indirect effect estimate is μ = .003 [–.014, .02], indicating no indi-rect effect.

Finally, when potential moderation of CH/I was entered into the model, controllingfor BMI and self-esteem, affect-eating moderation was once again present: the rejection→ negative affect pathway was constant (b = .251, p < .001), while the negative affect→ restrictive eating pathway was moderated by CH/I (interaction b = –.13, p < .001),as illustrated in Figure 4(b) (moderated mediation index: –.11; SE(boot) = .090; CI:[–.351, –.013]). For low CH/I participants, the indirect effect estimate is μ = .068 andthe distribution of the product of coefficients method 95% CI is [.047, .092], indicatingan indirect effect. However, for high CH/I participants, the indirect effect estimate isμ = –.006 [–.023, .01], indicating no indirect effect. Since this mediated moderationheld even when both moderators were included in the model, we can conclude that CH/I moderates the rejection → negative affect → restrictive eating mediation model (1)because it moderates the affect → eating pathway and (2) over and above the moderat-ing role of self-esteem.

Discussion

Across several days, self-reported rejection was associated with increased negativeaffect and higher instances of restrictive, maladaptive eating behaviours among collegewomen. However, this relationship is qualified by the women’s self-attitudes. A grow-ing body of research identifies the importance of examining self-esteem and self-compassion in the face of threat (Adams & Leary, 2007; Ford & Collins, 2013; Neff,2011), however the present research is the first to explore the role of self-compassionand negative affect in disordered eating-related processes in the face of daily socialrejection. Previous research supports that being compassionate towards oneself is com-patible with a healthy relationship with food (Kelly & Stephen, 2016; Kelly et al.,2016; Schoenefeld & Webb, 2013), evidenced by finding that within-person variabilityin self-compassion over time predicts more adaptive daily eating outcomes over thesame time period (e.g. Kelly et al., 2016). However, asking women about experienceswith social rejection over the course of a week, along with assessing their feelings andeating behaviours, reveals the mediation processes that drive the protective nature ofcertain self-attitudes can against social threat – in addition to elucidating how more sta-tic, between-person variability in self-compassion buffers this effect.

Beyond self-esteem: Remembering common humanity in the face of rejection

Challenging previous research about the power of self-esteem in the face of rejection(Leary et al., 1995), self-esteem alone – i.e. over and above self-compassion – did notprotect against the negative effects of rejection; only when self-compassion was notentered into the model did self-esteem’s buffering effects emerge. This somewhat chal-lenges previous research that self-compassion and self-esteem are distinct and separableconstructs (Neff, 2011), and suggests joint effects. Perhaps, speculatively, it is easier tobe compassionate towards yourself when you hold yourself in high esteem, or it iseasier to like yourself when you are compassionate towards yourself; future research

Psychology & Health 15

examining changes in both self-esteem and self-compassion over time may be necessaryto explore these relationships.

When examining the buffering potential of self-compassion in the face of rejection,the protective effects were similar to that of self-esteem. However, only the CommonHumanity/Isolation component buffered above and beyond that of self-esteem. Thisfinding supports the very reason why self-compassion may be particularly helpful in theface of rejection – and one which sets it apart from other positive self-attitudes: Theconverse of common humanity is isolation (Neff, 2003a), so it follows that when peoplereframe rejection as a universal and common experience, they feel less isolated and thusexperience greater feelings of belonging (a vital need that is threatened by rejection).To the extent that self-compassion includes an acknowledgement that rejection is com-mon, and millions of others experience it every day, self-compassionate people shouldfeel less alone in their experience – even though the immediate environment may berejecting. No other self-attitude emphasises this ‘we are all in this suffering together’component, and since isolation is a key component of rejection, self-compassion as cop-ing with rejection offers unique buffering potential. Accordingly, the present researchfound that the common humanity vs. isolation (CH/I) component may be the compo-nent of self-compassion that is particularly important in buffering rejection’s effects.

The particular relevance of common humanity in the face of rejection may extendthe implications of this research beyond the domain of self-compassion, as the mecha-nism behind this dimension may reflect a ‘horizontal’ form of social comparison.Unlike vertical social comparison, which conceptualises others in relation to the self interms of status, dominance, or agency (whether one is better/worse than others, adimension more aligned with self-esteem), horizontal social comparison emphasises sol-idarity or communion with others (e.g. Locke, 2003, 2005). When people compare hori-zontally, they are reflecting on how similar one is to a target – a connectivecomparison. In the case of common humanity, such a target is very broad, ranging fromone’s community to humanity as a whole; and this connective comparison may be pro-tective in the same way that common humanity is protective (Sasaki, Ko, & Kim,2014). Thus, beyond implications for self-compassion research, the present findingsmay have implications pertinent to similar research examining the role of the communalfunction of social comparison in the context of social-evaluative threat.

Pitfalls of self-esteem

While one component of self-compassion buffered against rejection independent of self-esteem, self-esteem was not protective independent of self-compassion. This may berelated to some common aspects of self-esteem that can make the pursuit of it maladap-tive (Crocker, Luhtanen, Cooper, & Bouvrette, 2003). Global self-esteem depends onevaluations of self-worth in many domains, including social approval (Harter, 1999).This contingent self-attitude can then backfire when faced with information in the envi-ronment that is dissonant, or not compatible, with a positive self-view. So, it is best forindividuals with high self-esteem to ignore or brush off negative social feedback, tomaintain their enhanced (and potentially biased) self-view. Indeed, in the presentresearch, self-esteem buffered against rejections’ impacts on negative affect: those highin self-esteem were less affected by rejection vis a vis both negative affect and

16 J.B. Beekman et al.

restrictive eating. Self-compassion, on the other hand, did not similarly protect againstnegative affective responses to rejection; only rejection’s effects on restrictive eating.

This is not to say, however, that the buffering potential of self-esteem is moot. Infact, in many of the analyses in the present study, self-compassion and self-esteem havecomplementary – even joint – effects. Complex combinations of the two self-attitudesseem to act on negative affect and the downstream health effects thereof. Investigatingthese combinations would require employing three-way interactions between self-es-teem, self-compassion and rejection experiences. The sample size in the present studywas underpowered to detect such complex effects; future research could undertake thisexploration.

Self-esteem and self-compassion: Different buffering mechanisms

Digging deeper into the mechanisms by which rejection affects restrictive eating eluci-dates just how differently self-esteem and self-compassion act as protective factors: Medi-ated moderation analyses revealed that self-esteem – or more precisely, the joint effect ofself-esteem and self-compassion – moderates this pathway at the ‘front’ of the models –people high in self-esteem aren’t as affected, in terms of their affective response to therejection, as those low in self-esteem. However, the relationship between negative affectand restrictive eating remained constant regardless of level of self-esteem. On the otherhand, the common humanity/isolation component of self-compassion moderates the medi-ation pathway on the ‘back’ of the model – regardless of how strongly women see them-selves within the broader context of common humanity (rather than in isolation), theywere similarly affectively affected; however, only the less common humanity-focusedwomen indicated that this negative affect lead to restrictive eating.

In other words, self-esteem buffers against the effects of rejection on eating becauseit buffers against sadness, shame and anxiety in the face of rejection. A sense of com-mon humanity buffers against the effects of rejection on eating because it buffersagainst the negative effects of inevitable feelings of sadness, shame and anxiety in theface of rejection. This dovetails well with the very concept that sets self-compassionapart from self-esteem and similar self-enhancing attitudes: Self-compassion requiresfacing negative emotions head-on; confronting negative affect, recognising it, and cop-ing with it in a more adaptive way (Neff, 2003a). So it makes sense that a componentof self-compassion and self-esteem moderated the links between rejection, affect andrestrictive eating in different places along the mediation pathway.

Strengths, limitations and future directions

The use of daily diary methodology has many strengths (Breines et al., 2014; Bolger,Davis, & Rafaeli, 2003), as it allows us to examine self-reported rejection and disor-dered eating as they are experienced in participants’ everyday lives. This reduces thepotential for possible retrospective bias or demand characteristics that may occur in alaboratory setting, though does not entirely eliminate this potential; the timeframe forwhich participants reflect is potentially reduced, but not removed. Further, by examiningself-compassion and self-esteem at the between-level, and daily self-report constructs atthe within-level, we can account for low within-participant variability and observesignificant moderating relationships of self-constructs on within-participant changes dayto day. However, the results of this study should be qualified by certain limitations.

Psychology & Health 17

The findings are consistent with the hypothesis that rejection influences eating restric-tion through increasing negative affect, but other causal interpretations cannot be ruledout, given the cross-sectional nature of the analyses; While rejection, affect and eatingwere measured over several days, relationships between the variables are based on con-temporaneous measures (within the same day).

Future research might address some of the limitations to this study. Experimentalresearch is needed to examine whether inducing self-compassionate mindset, or highself-esteem, can reduce induced rejections’ effects on affect and eating. Furthermore,self-esteem and self-compassion are not the only ways of relating to oneself; the buffer-ing potential of others self-focused constructs, such as spontaneous self-affirmation(Taber et al., 2016) which have been shown to buffer against health threats, could alsobe explored in the face of social threat, such as rejection. Body image flexibility maybe another key individual-difference level moderator (Webb & Hardin, 2016) that couldshape how shame impacts the social threat – affect – disordered/intuitive eating path-way particularly if the threat is weight- or appearance-related social rejection. Addition-ally, self-regulation and self-control offer another possible mediating mechanism toexplain the relationship between rejection and eating (e.g. Baumeister et al., 2005;Beekman, 2016), so examining other mediators is another avenue of research that couldbe explored to elucidate this complex buffering relationship of positive self-attitudes onreactions and health outcomes related to rejection.

Though there was no clear evidence of biased responses, if socially-desirable respond-ing or demand characteristics do occur in this type of research, physiological or otherimplicit measures of reactivity could not only reduce bias but could also further elucidatethe mechanisms by which affective responses to social threat are impacted by self-compassion. For example, practicing self-compassion has been shown to cause measur-able reductions in sympathetic activity and subjective anxiety responses, but not HPA axisactivation as indexed by salivary cortisol responses to a social stress test (Arch et al.,2014), while a social-evaluative body image threat has been shown to elicit cortisolresponse (Lamarche, Gammage, Klentrou, Kerr, & Faulkner, 2014; Lamarche, Kerr, Faul-kner, Gammage, & Klentrou, 2012). Understanding how these physiological measuresinterface with negative affect – beyond subjective anxiety – in the face of social threat,for people armed with a self-compassionate mindset, is an avenue for future research.

Finally, other forms of maladaptive eating in the face of rejection should beexplored, such as overeating. Often over-eating is used as an experimental proxy forself-regulation in the face of rejection. Yet, given that 70% of individuals in the broaderpopulation are stress eaters rather than stress-restrictors (Epel et al., 2004), this is animportant maladaptive eating behaviour to consider in addition to restrictive eating.

Conclusion

The present research is the first to explore how self-compassion and self-esteem differ-entially impact the complex impact that social rejection can have on negative affect andrestrictive eating. Social rejection is part of the shared human experience. Findings sug-gests that we could all benefit from remembering this when we are rejected. Rejectionhurts, and inspires shame and sadness, but no one is alone in these feelings, andremembering this common humanity can result in a healthier response to one of life’smost hurtful inevitabilities.

18 J.B. Beekman et al.

AcknowledgementThe authors would like to thank David MacKinnon for his valuable input on analyses.

Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes1. Prior analyses not reported herein examined different facets of negative affect – individual

components alone such as shame, sadness, etc. – all yielding similar results. This is poten-tially due to high correlation between affect dimensions. Regardless, preliminary and finalanalyses, in addition to rejection research that advocates for the impact of rejection a widerrange of negative affects, led to the decision for a more global indicator that is both brief andrepresents different dimensions of negative affect.

2. When self-compassion was entered into the model as a covariate along with BMI, all rejec-tion-affect moderation was no longer present.

3. When self-esteem was entered into the model as a covariate along with BMI, all rejection-af-fect moderation was no longer present.

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