Comparison of Body Appreciation, Body Image Flexibility, and Attachment Style in Women With and Without Self-Compassion

This study is to compare body esteem, body image flexibility, and attachment style in women with and without self-compassion. It is a basic research and causal-comparative. The statistical population consists of all female students of Islamic Azad University, Najaf Abad branch (11 thousand subjects). Among them, 210 women were selected as available sample size, of which 119 had self-compassion and 91 did not have self-compassion, who filled out the Body Appreciation Scale (BAS), Body Image–Acceptance and Action Questionnaire (BI-AAQ), Revised Adult Attachment Scale (RAAS), and Self-Compassion Scale–Long Form (SCS-LF). Statistical analysis was conducted using SPSS25 software. The results of one-way analysis of variance and multivariate analysis of variance showed that there was a significant difference between the two groups of women in body appreciation, body image flexibility, and attachment style. The significance level of the research variables was 0.05. Overall, women with self-compassion showed more body appreciation than women without self-compassion, and their attachment style was more secure and anxious, while women without self-compassion had more body image flexibility than women with self-compassion and their attachment style was avoidant.