Self-Compassion and Social Anxiety: A Scoping Review

Objectives Social anxiety has been linked with low trait self-compassion and high levels of self-criticism. Thus, there is growing interest in enhancing self-compassion to reduce social anxiety. However, a gap exists in reviewing the strength of the association between self-compassion and social anxiety and the efficacy of self-compassion-based interventions and inductions among socially anxious individuals. Method The present scoping review systematically searched six databases to map research on the relationship between self-compassion and social anxiety, identify the types and efficacy of self-compassion interventions and inductions (ranging from single-session experimental inductions to multi-session therapies, in which cultivating self-compassion comprised > 50% of content), and recommend future research directions. Results Of 2915 records, 27 articles containing 31 unique studies met inclusion criteria, with 20 correlational (representing 102,784 individuals, median = 224) and 11 self-compassion-based intervention or induction (representing 825 individuals, median = 63) studies. Nearly all correlational studies reported significant medium-to-large negative correlations between social anxiety and trait total self-compassion. The intervention and induction studies included diverse approaches to cultivating self-compassion from meditation to writing-based inductions. All led to improvement in self-compassion and/or social anxiety symptoms at post-intervention or post-induction within the self-compassion condition, often more so than waitlist or inactive controls, but not active comparators. However, most samples were small and evaluated university students or individuals not screened for social anxiety, with largely White, female participants. Conclusions Self-compassion evidenced a robust inverse relationship with social anxiety and held promise as an intervention approach for this population. More research is needed, including using multi-method measurement approaches, comparing multi-session clinical interventions to active control conditions, examining enhancements to existing evidence-based treatment, assessing longer-term follow-up, and recruiting larger, more diverse samples. PreregistrationA review protocol was developed a priori and registered on the Open Science Framework (https://osf.io/9j6cw).