The present study investigated the effect of self-compassion on creative idea selection. Although choosing creative ideas is a crucial process for organizations, past research has found that most individuals struggle in this process. This is likely due to people’s tendency to favor ideas which are useful over ideas which are original, whereas creative ideas possess both qualities.

The present study hypothesized that a brief self-compassion intervention would improve creative idea selection. Specifically, the study predicted that state anxiety would mediate this effect, with self-compassion negatively affecting it and state anxiety negatively relating to creative idea selection. 

Furthermore, the study predicted that gender would moderate the expected mediation, with women showing lower state anxiety and better creative performance compared to men following the intervention. A between-subjects design was adopted with two conditions: self-compassion intervention, where participants completed a written task inducing self-compassion, and control, where participants completed a similar written task with no self-compassion induction. Following the task, participants completed a creative idea selection task where they chose the most creative idea to promote a healthy lifestyle. 

Results did not find support for the positive effect of self-compassion on creative idea selection, nor for the mediating role of state anxiety or the moderating effect of gender. However, the study did find support for a correlation between gender and creative idea selection, with women outperforming men. Practical implications including not relying merely on brief self-compassion interventions to improve creative choices and involving both genders in creative decision-making.