The forest and the trees: Examining the association of self-compassion and its positive and negative components with psychological functioning

Neff, Kristin D.; Long, Phoebe; Knox, Marissa C.; Davidson, Oliver; Kuchar, Ashley; Costigan, Andrew; Williamson, Zachary H.; Rohleder, Nicolas; Tóth‐Király, István; Breines, Juliana G.

doi:10.1080/15298868.2018.1436587

Cited by 173 publications

(183 citation statements)

References 45 publications

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“…This reinforces the utility of a brief single dose intervention, such as the MyCB intervention, to improve negative affect and self-compassion in a different health context in which it was originally developed and trialled. Despite self-compassion theoretically having the capacity to enhance positive affect (Neff et al, 2018;, there was no significant difference in positive affect between the experimental and control conditions in this pilot study, mirroring the findings of the prior MyCB intervention feasibility study undertaken in the breast cancer context . Given that the large RCT demonstrated reductions in anxiety and depression that were maintained up to three months post-intervention , it is possible that the impact of the MyCB intervention may be predominantly on ameliorating negative affect, rather than enhancing positive affect.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 74%

Enhancing self-compassion in individuals with visible skin conditions: randomised pilot of the ‘My Changed Body’ self-compassion writing intervention

Sherman

Roper

Kilby

2019

Health Psychology and Behavioral Medicine

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Background: Abnormalities in the appearance of skin are commonly associated with compromised self-body perceptions, arising from physical manifestations of the skin condition that deviate from the individual's idealised body image. These body image concerns are associated with a range of psychological issues including anxiety, depression, fear of negative evaluation, and suicidal ideation. Unfortunately, stigma and embarrassment associated with these body image concerns mean that these issues are rarely discussed in clinical medical consultations. There is thus a need for highly accessible and acceptable interventions to address skin-related body image concerns. We have previously demonstrated that a web-based self-compassion focused therapeutic writing approach, the 'My Changed Body' intervention, is efficacious in addressing body image concerns of women in the breast cancer context. The aim of this experimental pilot study was to investigate the feasibility of applying the My Changed Body intervention to address visible skin-related body image concerns. Methods: Participants (N = 50) with a range of visible skin conditions provided online informed consent, then completed measures of demographic and medical history, body image disturbance, selfcompassion and positive and negative affect. They were then randomly allocated either to an active control expressive writing condition (n = 25) or to the My Changed Body writing condition (n = 25). Participants were blind to their condition allocation. Immediately after completing their allocated writing exercise, participants completed self-compassion and affect measures. Results: Controlling for pre-writing body image disturbance, repeated measures ANCOVAs with fixed effects revealed that self-compassion and negative affect significantly improved after the My Changed Body writing exercise, compared to the control condition. There was no between groups difference at follow-up in positive affect. Conclusions: This study suggests that the My Changed Body writing intervention may provide benefit to individuals with visible skin conditions. A randomised controlled trial is needed to further confirm these results. ARTICLE HISTORY

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 74%

Enhancing self-compassion in individuals with visible skin conditions: randomised pilot of the ‘My Changed Body’ self-compassion writing intervention

Sherman

Roper

Kilby

2019

Health Psychology and Behavioral Medicine

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“…But it is self-obvious that the inclusion of the uncompassionate components in the SCS total score for a large part determines the relation between self-compassion and psychopathology, and hence obscures the true protective value of real compassionate self-responding (Muris 2016;Muris et al 2016b). In one of our latest papers (Muris et al 2019), we used Neff et al (2018aNeff et al ( , 2018b own data to actually demonstrate that the relations between self-compassion and various indices of psychopathology symptoms were mainly carried by the uncompassionate components of self-judgement, isolation, and over-identification, but unfortunately Neff (2019) still finds arguments to discard these findings and to advocate the use of the SCS's total score as the most optimal index of self-compassion.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Moreover, compassionate and uncompassionate selfresponding components in the SCS have been demonstrated to relate in a different way to external constructs (e.g., Brenner et al 2017;Brenner et al 2018;Coroiu et al 2018;Lopez et al 2018;Neff et al 2018aNeff et al , 2018b. This can be linked to Gilbert's (2000) Theory of Social Mentalities, which proposes that there are two distinct but related processing systems that underlie people's patterns of cognition, affect, and behavior in response to interpersonal challenges: the safeness system and the threat-defense system.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Self-compassion and Adolescents’ Positive and Negative Cognitive Reactions to Daily Life Problems

et al. 2019

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Objective To examine the relationship between self-compassion and positive and negative cognitive reactions to daily life problems in a sample of 117 adolescents aged 14-19 years. Method Participants completed a survey containing the Self-Compassion Scale (SCS), the Adolescents' Reactions to Adversity Questionnairea self-developed scale for measuring cognitive responses to hypothetical scenarios describing daily life problems of young people (e.g., failing an important test, breaking up with a friend), and measures of neuroticism and self-esteem (control variables). Results Self-compassion as indexed by the SCS total score was found to be associated with higher levels of positive cognitive reactions and lower levels of negative cognitive reactions. These relations remained present when controlling for neuroticism and self-esteem. Further analyses revealed a quite differential pattern of results for the compassionate (selfkindness, common humanity, and mindfulness) and uncompassionate (self-judgment, isolation, and over-identification) components of the SCS. Conclusions This study indicates that self-compassion is a relevant construct for understanding adolescents' cognitive responses to daily problems and yields new evidence for our critical point that it is inappropriate to use the total selfcompassion score in a context of protection and resilience against life stress.

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“…Additionally, measurement models should reflect essential distinctions proposed on a conceptual level. Although proponents of the SCS stress the relevance of positive and negative dimensions, this distinction is not reflected in advocated measurement models (see also Neff et al, in press).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…First, whereas Neff and colleagues argue in favour of models with a general factor of self‐compassion, this factor structure has been heavily debated recently (Brenner, Heath, Vogel, & Credé, ; López et al, ; Muris, ; Muris, Meesters, Pierik, & de Kock, ; Muris, Otgaar, & Petrocchi, ; Muris & Petrocchi, ; Neff, ; Neff, ; Neff et al, in press; Neff, Whittaker, & Karl, ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Self–Compassion as A Facet of Neuroticism? A Reply to the Comments of Neff, TóTh–KiráLy, and Colosimo (2018)

Geiger¹,

Pfattheicher

Härtung³

et al. 2018

Eur J Pers

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In this paper, we respond to comments by Neff et al. (2018) made about our finding that the negative dimensions of self‐compassion were redundant with facets of neuroticism (rs ≥ 0.85; Pfattheicher et al., 2017) and not incrementally valid. We first provide epistemological guidance for establishing psychological constructs, namely, three hurdles that new constructs must pass: theoretically and empirically sound measurement, discriminant validity, and incremental validity—and then apply these guidelines to the self‐compassion scale. We then outline that the critique of Neff et al. (2018) is contestable. We question their decisions concerning data‐analytic methods that help them to circumvent instead of passing the outlined hurdles. In a reanalysis of the data provided by Neff et al. (2018), we point to several conceptual and psychometric problems and conclude that self‐compassion does not overcome the outlined hurdles. Instead, we show that our initial critique of the self‐compassion scale holds and that its dimensions are best considered facets of neuroticism. © 2018 European Association of Personality Psychology

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The forest and the trees: Examining the association of self-compassion and its positive and negative components with psychological functioning

Cited by 173 publications

References 45 publications

Enhancing self-compassion in individuals with visible skin conditions: randomised pilot of the ‘My Changed Body’ self-compassion writing intervention

Enhancing self-compassion in individuals with visible skin conditions: randomised pilot of the ‘My Changed Body’ self-compassion writing intervention

Self-compassion and Adolescents’ Positive and Negative Cognitive Reactions to Daily Life Problems

Self–Compassion as A Facet of Neuroticism? A Reply to the Comments of Neff, TóTh–KiráLy, and Colosimo (2018)

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