Self Compassion Study

Self-compassion is a vital component of one’s mental well-being, leading to a successful and more prosperous life. The role of self-compassion in aiding a person’s growth is being given more precedence in today’s world and is observed as being positively related to mental strength, optimism and personal development. The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between self-compassion and positive mental health in various facets of life, including the ability to recover from failure, psychological health and openness to new experiences. It is re-iterated in the article that self-compassion is not equivalent to self-esteem. Self-compassion refers to the ability of a person to be kind toward one’s self not for the purpose of pleasure, but instead for their positive emotional balance. It includes being kind to one’s self in instances of hardships, as opposed to being harsh and overtly critical of personal defeat. On the other hand, self-esteem is related to narcissism and does not prove to be a cushion against anxiety and depression, …show more content…
The negative implications of self-esteem are highlighted and these two terms are explicitly segregated from each other. The study focused on the sphere of self-compassion and its impact on our personality traits, particularly “The Big Five” –openness to experience, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism. The study performed was a correlational study with the predictor being self-compassion or the individual’s inherent attitude toward themselves and the outcome variable being many other facets of their personality such as self-reported happiness, optimism and wisdom. The authors of the experiment believe self-compassion to be a powerful predictor of overall mental health and aimed at studying its relation to the positive focal points of a self-compassioned person, particularly positive affect, curiosity and personal initiative