Exploring The Relationship Of Self-compassion,Stress And Negative Affect In Undergraduates

Self-compassion is a healthy self-construct that described as the disposition of accepting and caring for oneself,particularly as treating oneself with kindness and concern in adversity.Self-compassion entails three main components,namely self-kindness,common humanity and mindfulness.Self-kindness—being kind and understanding toward oneself in instances of pain or failure;common humanity—perceiving one’s experiences as part of the larger human experience;mindfulness—holding painful thoughts and feelings in balanced awareness.Self-compassion is an emotionally positive self-attitude that should protect against negative affect and is closely related to the individual’s physical and mental health.Stress is defined as a state of threatened homeostasis that induced by the internal or external environment,thereby threatening an individual’s physical and mental health and further calling for restoration.In general,stress is associated with decreased well-being,increased negative affect.Existing studies have shown that self-compassion could help individuals cope with stress effectively and improve indicators of emotional well-being.Additionally,two studies have been conduct to explore whether self-compassion could reduce the negative effect of the perceived stress on emotional health among college students.Study one aimed to analyze if self-compassion could mediate the relationship between chronic academic stress and emotional health among undergraduates who were preparing for the Postgraduate Entrance Examination.The second study examined whether self-compassion helps buffer against negative affect when faced with acute psychosocial stress in a laboratory setting.The results are as following:1.Self-compassion was negatively associated with psychological stress and negative affect.Psychological stress was positively related to negative affect.2.Mediation analyses indicated that self-compassion could buffer the relationships between psychological stress and negative affect.3.There was no significant difference in heart rate and perceived stress report respectively between the high self-compassion group and low self-compassion group.But the heart rate variability presented significant difference,and the high self-compassionate participants showed higher heart rate variability during speech stage and recovery stage than participants with low levels of self-compassion.4.In the speech stage,different self-compassionate individuals reported negative affect differently.Participants with higher levels of self-compassion have a lower negative emotion.