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Positive Psychology

Does hearing a peer’s experience with self-compassion influence how compassionately we treat ourselves?: The moderating role of trait self-compassion

(PS10-77) Does Hearing a Peer’s Experience with Self-compassion Influence How Compassionately We Treat Ourselves?: The Moderating Role of Trait Self-compassion

Saturday, November 16, 2024
1:00 PM – 2:00 PM EST
Location: Franklin Hall, Level 4, Marriott Downtown
Abstract Text: Third-wave cognitive-behavioral therapies increasingly recognize the importance of self-compassion – a kind, caring, and non-judgmental way of relating to distressing thoughts, emotions, and experiences, which research has linked to greater benefit from therapeutic interventions (e.g., Foroughi et al., 2020; Kelly et al., 2014). Self-compassion can be directly cultivated through interventions that encourage clients to practice relating to their distress self-compassionately; however, individuals who are low in self-compassion are often fearful of it, and fear of self-compassion is associated with attenuated benefits from self-compassion interventions (e.g., Kelly et al., 2013). With the goal of gaining insight into how to cultivate self-compassion more effectively among individuals who are low in self-compassion, the present study investigated whether hearing about a peer’s experiences with self-compassion promotes greater state self-compassion in the listener. We hypothesized that hearing about a peer’s experience may be beneficial because social cognitive theory (Bandura, 1986) argues that when we observe a peer behaving in a way that results in positive outcomes, we become more motivated to engage in that behavior because we learn that doing so may lead to similar positive outcomes for ourselves. To test this theory vis-à-vis self-compassion, college women low in trait self-compassion (N = 212) listened to an alleged peer describe in detail the ways in which they tried to practice self-compassion during an episode of academic stress; in one condition, the peer briefly shared what positive outcomes they experienced from self-compassion and in the other they did not.  Participants reported on their own state self-compassion 2-4 days later. Contrary to hypotheses, the condition in which positive outcomes of self-compassion were explicitly mentioned did not promote greater state self-compassion in the listener, compared to the condition where outcomes were not explicitly mentioned; however, an exploratory analysis revealed that participants’ trait self-compassion level moderated the effect of condition on state self-compassion, β = .55, SE = 0.22, p = .014. Specifically, for individuals who were lowest in trait self-compassion (1 SD below the sample mean for trait self-compassion, M = 2.39, SD = 0.45), hearing a peer describe positive outcomes from self-compassion led to significantly lower state self-compassion 2-4 days later, compared to hearing the peer simply describe an instance of self-compassion, β= -.39, SE = 0.14, p = .007. The effect of condition did not differ for individuals who were at or above the mean of trait self-compassion in our sample, ps > .05. These findings provide important insight into how individuals who are very low in self-compassion respond to information about it – hearing a description of a self-compassion practice and its benefits may have a negative impact on their own practice of self-compassion, as compared to hearing a description of a self-compassion practice alone.  More research is needed to illuminate whether discussing the benefits of self-compassion in therapeutic contexts leads to similar consequences, and to understand the mechanisms through which this occurs.  
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