The Moderating Effect Of Undergraduates' Self-compassion To Negative Events

Self-compassion is a potentially important, measurable quality that offers a conceptual alternative to other more egocentric concepts of self-related processes and feelings, such as self-esteem, and also offers an alternative approach to thinking about mental health. Self-compassion entails being kind and understanding toward oneself in instances of pain or failure rather than being harshly self-critical; perceiving one's experiences as part of the larger human experience rather than seeing them as isolating;and holding painful thoughts and feelings in mindful awareness rather than over-identifying with them. This study which includes three experiments, aims to know the cognitive and emotional processes by which self-compassionate people deal with negative life events.In the various studies, participants responded to hypothetical scenarios, reacted to success/failure feedback, and reflected on negative personal experiences. Study 1 found that self-compassion buffered people against negative self-feelings when imagining distressing life events. In Study 2, after a test of ability, participants were randomly assigned to the success or failure feedback. Self-compassion moderated negative emotions after receiving failure feedback, particularly for participants who were low in self-esteem. In Study 3, after participants remember negative personal experiences carefully, experimentally induced a self-compassionate perspective and found that self-compassion leads undergraduates to acknowledge their role in negative events without felling overwhelmed with negative emotions.In general, these studies suggest that self-compassion attenuates undergraduates'reactions to negative events in ways that are distinct from and, in some cases, more beneficial than self-esteem.