Year: 2019
Type: article
Abstract: Self-compassion refers to an adaptive way of responding to the self when in distress and consists of three main components: mindfulness, common humanity, and self-kindness. Self-compassion offers a promising alternative to the construct of self-esteem for predicting and influencing responses to ostracism, a specific type of social exclusion in which an individual is ignored for unknown reasons. The present study examined the differential associations of trait self-compassion and trait self-esteem with attribution, emotion regulation, shame, and prosocial responses following an experience of ostracism using the Cyberball ostracism paradigm. Undergraduate participants (n = 219) completed trait self-esteem and trait self-compassion measures, experienced an online ostracism simulation using Cyberball, and then completed a measure of attribution for the ostracism experience, a measure of state emotion regulation strategies, and a measure of state shame. Subsequently, participants engaged in an inclusion trial of Cyberball to measure prosocial behavior. Multiple linear regression analyses revealed that self-esteem and self-compassion positively predicted emotion reappraisal, but self-compassion did not significantly predict emotion acceptance. Neither self-compassion nor self-esteem predicted external attribution of the ostracism event, but both self-compassion and self-esteem positively predicted internal attribution of the ostracism. Furthermore, both self-compassion and self-esteem negatively predicted a shame response to ostracism, with self-compassion showing stronger negative predictive power of shame. Finally, neither self-compassion nor self-esteem significantly influenced participants' prosocial response to ostracism. Results, limitations, and implications for clinical practice and research are discussed.
Author: Russell S. Anderson
Language: English
Subfield: Social Psychology
Field: Psychology
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W3002464496