Brief Report
An examination of self-compassion in relation to positive psychological functioning and personality traits

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Abstract

This study examined the relation of self-compassion to positive psychological health and the five factor model of personality. Self-compassion entails being kind toward oneself in instances of pain or failure; perceiving one’s experiences as part of the larger human experience; and holding painful thoughts and feelings in balanced awareness. Participants were 177 undergraduates (68% female, 32% male). Using a correlational design, the study found that self-compassion had a significant positive association with self-reported measures of happiness, optimism, positive affect, wisdom, personal initiative, curiosity and exploration, agreeableness, extroversion, and conscientiousness. It also had a significant negative association with negative affect and neuroticism. Self-compassion predicted significant variance in positive psychological health beyond that attributable to personality.

Introduction

Neff, 2003a, Neff, 2003b has recently proposed the construct of self-compassion as a healthy form of self-acceptance. Self-compassion represents a warm and accepting stance towards those aspects of oneself and one’s life that are disliked, and entails three main components (Neff, 2003b). First, it involves being kind and understanding to oneself in instances of suffering or perceived inadequacy. It also involves a sense of common humanity, recognizing that pain and failure are unavoidable aspects of the shared human experience. Finally, self-compassion entails balanced awareness of one’s emotions—the ability to face (rather than avoid) painful thoughts and feelings, but without exaggeration, drama or self-pity.

Several studies have found that self-compassion is a powerful predictor of mental health. For example, self-compassion is negatively associated with self-criticism, depression, anxiety, rumination, thought suppression, and neurotic perfectionism, while being positively associated with life satisfaction and social connectedness (Neff, 2003a). Increased self-compassion has been found to predict enhanced psychological health over time (Gilbert and Proctor, in press, Neff et al., in press), and to explain lessened stress following participation in a widely implemented stress-reduction program (Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction; Shapiro, Astin, Bishop, & Cordova, 2005). Self-compassion appears to have academic benefits as well. Neff, Hseih, and Dejitthirat (2005) found that self-compassion was linked to intrinsic interest in learning and healthier coping strategies after failing an exam.

Research has shown that self-compassion can be empirically differentiated from self-esteem. Although self-esteem and self-compassion are moderately correlated, self-compassion is a stronger unique (negative) predictor of social comparison, anger, need for closure, public self-consciousness, self-rumination, contingent self-worth and unstable self-worth (Neff, 2005). Moreover, self-esteem is significantly correlated with narcissism whereas self-compassion is not (Neff, 2003a, Neff, 2005). Neff et al. (in press) found that self-compassion was associated with reduced anxiety after considering one’s greatest weakness, but that self-esteem did not provide such a buffer. In a series of controlled experiments, Leary, Tate, Adams, and Allen (2006) demonstrated that self-compassion was associated with more emotional balance than self-esteem when participants encountered potentially humiliating situations, received unflattering inter-personal feedback, or remembered past negative life events.

While this body of research is promising, there is more to be learned about self-compassion if it is to gain widespread acceptance as a psychologically adaptive mindset. For instance, most of the research conducted on self-compassion so far has focused on its negative association with psychopathology. The positive psychology movement has argued that it is necessary to consider well-being not only in terms of the absence of psychopathology, but also in terms of human strengths and potentials (Seligman & Csikzentmihalyi, 2000). We feel that self-compassion is an important human strength as it invokes qualities of kindness, equanimity, and feelings of inter-connectedness, helping individuals to find hope and meaning when faced with the difficulties of life. Thus, the current study looked at the association of self-compassion with positive aspects of well-being identified as potential benefits of a self-compassionate stance—happiness, optimism, positive affect, wisdom, personal initiative, and curiosity and exploration.

In addition, self-compassion has not yet been examined in relation to the five-factor model of personality, a needed undertaking so that self-compassion can be viewed from the perspective of this well-known personality framework. We expected there to be overlap between self-compassion and the big five, particularly neuroticism, given that feelings of self-judgment, isolation, and rumination inherent in the lack of self-compassion are similar to those described by the neuroticism construct. However, we expected that self-compassion would also predict well-being after accounting for shared variance with personality traits. For instance, we thought that self-compassion would account for unique variance in reflective wisdom, happiness and optimism due to the increased perspective, resilience, and warmth associated with self-compassion—strengths that are captured less well by the five personality dimensions.

Section snippets

Method

Participants included 177 undergraduate students (57 men; 120 women; M age 20.02 years; SD = 2.25) who were randomly assigned from an educational-psychology subject pool at a large Southwestern university. The ethnic breakdown of the sample was 56% Caucasian, 25% Asian, 14% Hispanic, 5% Mixed Ethnicity, and 1% Other. While meeting in groups of no more than 30, participants filled out a self-report questionnaire containing all study measures.

Results and discussion

First, we used a one-way ANOVA to check for sex or ethnic differences in self-compassion, and none were found. Results were therefore collapsed by gender and ethnicity for subsequent analyses. (All of the following results were also checked to ensure they did not interact with gender or ethnicity). Zero-order correlations between the SCS and other variables examined in this study are presented in Table 1. Note that self-compassion was significantly correlated with all of the positive health

Conclusion

Overall, study findings provided strong support for the contention that self-compassion does more than ameliorate psychopathology—it also predicts positive psychological strengths. Approaching painful feelings with self-compassion is linked to a happier, more optimistic mindset, and appears to facilitate the ability to grow, explore, and wisely understand oneself and others. The current research was conducted using self-report scales, of course, so common method variance may have impacted

Acknowledgments

Thanks are due to Sam Gosling, Jamie Pennebaker and Phil Shaver for their helpful advice on earlier versions of this manuscript.

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