A longitudinal analysis of the relationship between self-compassion and the psychological effects of perceived stress

By L. Stutts, Mark R. Leary, Andrew Zeveney, Ashley S. Hufnagle. Self and Identity, 2018

110 citations recorded by the source corpus.

ABSTRACT Self-compassion is consistently associated with psychological well-being, but most research has examined their relationship at only a single point in time. This study employed a longitudinal design to investigate the relationship between baseline self-compassion, perceived stress, and psychological outcomes in college students (n = 462) when the outcomes were measured both concurrently with perceived stress and after a lag of six months. Self-compassion moderated the effects of perceived stress such that stress was less strongly related to depression, anxiety, and negative affect among participants who scored high rather than low in self-compassion. Self-compassion also moderated the effects of perceived stress on depression and anxiety prospectively after six months. Self-compassion predicted positive affect but moderated the effects of perceived stress on positive affect in only one analysis. This study suggests that high self-compassion provides emotional benefits over time, partly by weakening the link between stress and negative outcomes.

Subfields: Clinical Psychology, Experimental and Cognitive Psychology

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/c8792b03f80a3e95f863d979daf8f7dc87107600

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In Clinical Psychology

In Experimental and Cognitive Psychology

Citations in the corpus

Positive psychology in a pandemic: buffering, bolstering, and building mental health (2021, background): “Moreover, longitudinal research shows that self-compassion helps us over the long run by reducing the negative effects of perceived stress over time (Stutts et al., 2018).”