An Examination of Whether and How a Peer's Display of Self-Compassion Can Affect College Students' Personal Self-Compassion: A Test of Social Cognitive Theory

Abstract

Self-compassion is a kind, caring, and non-judgemental way of relating to personal suffering (Gilbert, 2014; Neff, 2003a), and is a robust predictor of wellbeing (e.g., MacBeth & Gumley, 2012; Zessin et al., 2015). Current interventions for cultivating self-compassion are effective but demanding, meaning there is merit in investigating more accessible approaches to learning self-compassion. The present studies used social cognitive theory, which argues that behaviours can be learned through observing them in others (Bandura, 1965; 1986), as a framework to investigate a novel approach to facilitating learning and performance of self-compassion. Based on this theory, we first hypothesized that observing a peer who describes distress and self-compassionate coping would lead to greater subsequent learning and performance of self-compassion than observing a peer who describes distress without self-compassionate coping. Second, we hypothesized that the subsequent benefit to learning and performance of self-compassion would be greater after observing a peer who describes distress and self-compassionate coping with rewarding outcomes, compared to observing a peer who describes distress and self-compassionate coping without outcomes. Our third hypothesis was that as predicted by social cognitive theory, observing rewarding outcomes of self-compassion would have an indirect effect on the observer’s subsequent performance of self-compassion, via increasing the observer’s positive outcome expectancies for self-compassion and motivation to be self-compassionate. To test these hypotheses, we conducted two studies, each with a sample of undergraduate women low in trait self-compassion recruited through a Canadian university’s psychology participant pool and through posters on the university campus. Study 1 had a sample of n = 370; Study 2 currently has a sample of n = 191 and recruitment is ongoing. Both studies used the same design, with Study 2 amended slightly to improve the precision and reliability of our measures, with the goal of clarifying the findings of Study 1. Each study was a two-part online study. In the first part of the study, participants were randomly assigned to listen to one of three audio clips in which they heard an ostensible peer describe either: distress with self-compassionate coping and rewarding outcomes; distress with self-compassionate coping and no specified outcomes; or distress only (as a control condition). Participants completed measures of outcome expectancies for self-compassion and motivation to be self-compassionate immediately after hearing the audio clip; 2-4 days later they completed measures of learning and performance of self-compassion. ANCOVAs revealed that contrary to our first two hypotheses, there were no effects of experimental condition on subsequent learning or performance of self-compassion in either study. Testing for the hypothesized indirect effect of observing rewarding outcomes of self-compassion on performance of self-compassion revealed that our third hypothesis was also not supported in either study. That said, the serial mediation model used to test this hypothesis revealed that in both studies, outcome expectancies for self-compassion immediately after the manipulation significantly predicted motivation to be self-compassionate at the same time point and performance of self-compassion 2-4 days later. Overall, findings of two studies indicate that observing self-compassion displayed by an unknown peer in the form of the brief audio clips used in this study did not lead to observational learning of self-compassion. However, the fact that outcome expectancies for self-compassion emerged as a significant predictor of motivation to be self-compassionate and subsequent performance of self-compassionate coping offers partial support for the applicability of social cognitive theory to self-compassion. Future research should explore whether self-compassion can be learned observationally with a more engaging demonstration of self-compassion using both experimental and naturalistic designs. Continuing to explore the role of outcome expectancies for self-compassion in predicting self-compassion motivation and performance would also be informative.