Exploring the role of compassion, self-criticism and the dark triad on obesity and emotion regulation

Abstract

Emotion regulation and/or obesity have been linked to compassion, self-criticism and ‘dark’ personality traits but the relationship between these factors is unclear as most research has focused on the big five personality traits. Here, we investigated the influence of dark personality traits on emotional dysregulation, compassion and BMI. 300 participants completed measures of emotion dysregulation, compassion, self-criticism and dark tetrad personality traits; also providing their BMI. MLR revealed psychopathy, high self-criticism and low compassion ‘for self’ predicted poor emotion regulation; accounting for > 50% of the variance. Whilst their effects on BMI were also significant, no factors singularly predicted BMI. Our research offers important insights into the complexity of factors that may contribute to poor emotion regulation. Of novel value, we found a link between self-compassion, self-criticism and emotion regulation; with self-criticism emerging as the biggest predictor of emotion dysregulation of all explored variables. Although implications for obesity are limited, it is notable that our population demonstrated less obesity than the general public. This is important, as it ascertains that emotion dysregulation, self-criticism, low self-compassion and dark personality traits are not associated with BMI in those of healthy weight.