Illustration by Stephanie Shafer May 2022, ScientificAmerican.com 85
Anna Bruk is a social psychologist and postdoctoral
researcher at the University of Mannheim in Germany.one’s strength or inadequacy? At the end of the study, we mea-
sured how self-compassionate the participants were using a
seven-point scale designed by Neff.
As predicted, people who don’t have a lot of compassion for
themselves evaluated an admission of their own mistake more
negatively than when they imagined others who took the same
step. Highly self-compassionate study participants, on the other
hand, did not fall prey to this beautiful mess effect. In their eval-
uations, the difference in how they viewed displays of vulnera-
bility in themselves versus others was significantly smaller than
in people lacking self-compassion.
We conducted similar experiments with different situations,
such as revealing one’s imperfections or confessing love to
another person first. We observed the same pattern of results:
with higher levels of self-compassion, participants became less
likely to judge their own displays of vulnerability harshly. In
other words, self-compassionate people may be less likely to fall
afoul of the beautiful mess misperception across a spectrum
of situations.
Notwithstanding the numerous benefits of showing vulner-
ability, it is, by definition, a risky business—especially for mem-
bers of marginalized communities who often bear the extra bur-
den of less psychologically safe environments. People should
always be thoughtful about when and where they choose to dis-
close information about themselves. But without self-compas-
sion, making oneself vulnerable—even in a safe space—can feel
like self-destruction, which makes it all the more difficult to
take this step. Conversely, being kinder to ourselves may give us
a safe place to land, no matter where showing our vulnerability
leads us. Then, we don’t need to have as much faith in the no -
tion that everything will go smoothly if we share our struggles
with others. Instead we can have more trust in ourselves to han-
dle the outcome either way.
Luckily, our level of self-compassion is not set in stone, and
it can be intentionally cultivated. For example, journaling exer-
cises can help people change the way they think about their own
strengths and weaknesses by writing about one’s feelings with
awareness and acceptance, offering oneself words of support
and reflecting on how others share difficult experiences. By
developing a kind, mindful attitude toward ourselves, we can
become more comfortable with showing our vulnerabilities.
This practice, in turn, can strengthen our close relationships.JOIN THE CONVERSATION ONLINE
Visit Scientific American on Facebook and Twitter
or send a letter to the editor: [email protected]