The Moderating Effect of Self-Compassion in the Relationship between Self-Focused Attention and Social Anxiety

The purpose of the study was to test moderating role of self compassion in the relationship between self-focused attention and social anxiety. Scale for Dispositional Self-focused Attention in Social situation, Self-Compassion Scale, and Social Avoidance and Distress Scale were administered to a sample of 425 undergraduate students. The result was as follows: First, Correlation analysis was conducted to examine the relation among self-focused attention, self-compassion, social anxiety. Self-focused attention was positive significantly correlated social anxiety. In contrast, self-compassion was negative significantly correlated social anxiety. Second, self-compassion interacted with self-focused attention such that it played a more prominent role in protecting against social anxiety symptoms during lower self-focused attention than during higher self-focused attention. This result suggested the importance of self-focused attention and self-compassion in psychological approach to university students who have difficulty in social anxiety. (Korean J Stress Res 2016;24:65∼74)