How self-compassion informs decision-making in ordinary times

Do people with a life history of responding adaptively to personal losses worry less about potential losses in the future? The present research tested the hypothesis that individuals higher in self-compassion would value potential losses less during decision-making. In Study 1, crowdsourced participants (N = 305) in an online survey completed measures of their preoccupation with avoiding losses and answered investment scenarios with escalating loss-potential. Those higher in self-compassion reported lower assessment vs. locomotion modes of self-regulation, prevention vs. promotion regulatory focus, and fear of invalidity. They also invested larger amounts in the scenario with the highest loss-potential and took more "double-or-nothing" chances for gain. In Study 2, undergraduate participants (N = 205) in an in-lab experiment showed similar trait-correlations as in Study 1. Those higher in self-compassion took greater chances of misremembering items in a game with high-penalty vs. low-penalty instructions. The results link self-compassion with ordinary cost/benefit decision-making and may, therefore, have implications for the development of self-control.