Kindness matters: Helping people to achieve their goals by overcoming the barriers to being self-compassionate

善良很重要：帮助人们克服自我同情的障碍来实现目标

• 批准号: ES/S005692/2
• 负责人: Fuschia Sirois
• 金额: $ 12.76万
• 依托单位: Durham University
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Research Grant
• 财政年份: 2022
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2022 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=ES%2FS005692%2F2
• 关键词: Kindness; matters; Helping; people; achieve

Goals are important - they influence how we think and behave, and even express who we are (e.g., someone who has the goal to go jogging, may refer to themselves as 'a runner'). Unfortunately, although people often have the best intentions they still struggle to achieve their goals (hence the popularity of phrases like 'the road to hell is paved with good intentions'). Our research explores why people struggle and identifies ways to help. Most important goals (e.g., regularly exercising, completing work on time, being a better parent) require continued efforts over a lengthy period of time. Therefore, people inevitably encounter lapses and setbacks (e.g., they have a hard day and don't go running as planned). Common reactions to such lapses include self-criticism and self-blame (e.g., this is all my fault), which can make people feel bad and, in turn, lead them to delay or abandon their goals (e.g., running isn't for me). Our research investigates the idea that changing how people respond to these situations may help them to achieve their goals. Specifically, we propose that helping people to respond self-compassionately; which means responding in a kind, non-judgmental, and accepting way towards themselves in these situations (e.g., someone might tell themselves that everyone has a hard day from time to time) can help people to bounce back from these lapses. Unfortunately, evidence also indicates that responding with self-compassion can be challenging for some people.However, currently there is no coherent explanation for why this is that case, of for understanding who is likely to struggle and why. The proposed research therefore introduces a new framework for understanding the challenges people have for being self-compassionate and uses this to propose some new ways to help people to respond self-compassionately if they experience a lapse while striving for their goals. We will then go on to test the effectiveness of these strategies in three different applied settings in partnership with local and national organizations. Our first set of studies will investigate and compare the effects of three strategies designed to promote self-compassionate responses to lapses in goal pursuit: (i) mental contrasting (thinking about positive outcomes of being self-compassionate followed by obstacles that stand in the way of doing so), (ii) stocktaking (thinking about times in the past when one was self-compassionate), and (iii) forming implementation intentions (if-then plans that specify how to respond with self-compassion after difficulty). The strategies will be evaluated in the context of three broad types of goals: health behaviours, work/academic, and relationships. We will also test who is likely to struggle to respond to goal lapses in a self-compassionate way, why this is, and if the strategies that we develop are effective for these individuals as well. Our main set of studies will apply the insights from the first set of studies to test whether the tools for helping people to be self-compassionate are effective in key contexts. Specifically, we will work with a gym, a publisher, and a parenting organisation to investigate the impact of the three strategies (alone or in combination) in helping people to respond compassionately to a lapse in the pursuit of exercise goals, work deadlines, and parenting. Taken together, the proposed research will help to understand why people struggle to be self-compassionate (proposing a framework that can be used in the future) and develop and test new ways to help people to think about how they can respond in a more compassionate, rather than a critical way, when facing lapses or setbacks. In addition to making a contribution to theory, the proposed research also has the potential to have important societal benefits by promoting mental health and increasing productivity.

目标很重要--它们影响我们的思维和行为，甚至表达我们是谁（例如，目标是慢跑的人，可以称自己为“跑步者”）。不幸的是，尽管人们通常有最好的意图，但他们仍然努力实现他们的目标（因此像“通往地狱的道路是由善意铺成的”这样的短语很受欢迎）。我们的研究探讨了人们为什么挣扎，并确定了帮助的方法。最重要的目标（例如，定期锻炼，按时完成工作，做一个更好的父母）需要在很长一段时间内持续努力。因此，人们不可避免地会遇到失误和挫折（例如，他们有一个艰难的一天，不去运行按计划）。对这种失误的常见反应包括自我批评和自责（例如，这都是我的错），这会让人们感觉不好，反过来，导致他们推迟或放弃他们的目标（例如，跑步不适合我）。我们的研究调查了这样一种想法，即改变人们对这些情况的反应可能有助于他们实现目标。具体来说，我们建议帮助人们做出自我同情的反应;这意味着在这些情况下以一种善良，非评判和接受的方式对自己做出反应（例如，有人可能会告诉自己，每个人都有一个艰难的一天不时）可以帮助人们从这些失误反弹。不幸的是，有证据表明，对一些人来说，用自我同情来回应可能是一个挑战，然而，目前还没有一个连贯的解释来解释为什么会这样，也没有一个连贯的解释来解释谁可能会挣扎，为什么会挣扎。因此，拟议中的研究引入了一个新的框架来理解人们在自我同情方面所面临的挑战，并利用这个框架提出了一些新的方法来帮助人们在为目标而努力的过程中遇到失误时做出自我同情的反应。然后，我们将继续测试这些策略的有效性，在三个不同的应用环境中与当地和国家组织的合作伙伴关系。我们的第一组研究将调查和比较三种策略的效果，这些策略旨在促进对目标追求失误的自我同情反应：（一）心理对比（思考自我关怀的积极结果，然后是阻碍自我关怀的障碍），（ii）评估（思考过去自我同情的时候），以及（iii）形成实施意图（如果-那么计划，指定如何在困难后以自我同情回应）。将在三大类目标的背景下对这些战略进行评估：健康行为、工作/学术和关系。我们还将测试谁可能会以自我同情的方式努力应对目标失误，为什么会这样，以及我们开发的策略是否对这些人也有效。我们的主要研究将应用第一组研究的见解来测试帮助人们自我同情的工具在关键环境中是否有效。具体来说，我们将与一家健身房、一家出版商和一家育儿组织合作，调查这三种策略（单独或组合）在帮助人们对追求锻炼目标、工作期限和育儿方面的失误做出同情反应方面的影响。总的来说，拟议的研究将有助于理解为什么人们难以自我同情（提出一个可在未来使用的框架），并开发和测试新的方法来帮助人们思考如何在面对失误或挫折时以更富有同情心的方式做出反应，而不是批判性的方式。除了对理论做出贡献外，拟议的研究还可能通过促进心理健康和提高生产力来产生重要的社会效益。