Graduation Term

2023

Degree Name

Master of Science (MS)

Department

Department of Psychology: Clinical-Counseling Psychology

Committee Chair

Jeffrey Kahn

Abstract

Self-compassion, which reflects a kind stance towards oneself when suffering, is related to a whole host of positive outcomes from decreased anxiety (Neff & McGehee, 2010; Raes, 2010; Temel & Atalay, 2018) and depression (Neff & McGehee, 2010; Raes, 2010; Steindl et al., 2018; Temel & Atalay, 2018) to increased happiness (Neff et al., 2007b; Wei et al., 2011). It is important, therefore, to understand how an individual develops self-compassion. Parenting characteristics have been shown to be associated with later self-compassion and may therefore be related to its development. In addition, self-compassion has recently been conceptualized as having two different dimensions – self-warmth and self-coldness. This study seeks to explore the relationship between parenting characteristics and self-warmth and –coldness. Correlations were found between parental warmth, rejection, structure, chaos, autonomy support, and coercion and self-warmth and –coldness. Additionally, correlations were compared to determine whether positive parenting characteristics correlated more strongly with self-warmth and negative characteristics with self-coldness. It was discovered that all of the parenting characteristics correlated significantly with both self-warmth and self-coldness. Parental warmth, structure, and autonomy support were positively correlated with self-warmth and negatively correlated with self-coldness while rejection, chaos, and coercion were negatively correlated with self-warmth and positively correlated with self-coldness. It was also found that there was a significant difference in correlations with self-warmth and those with self-coldness but only in the case of negative constructs. These results can give parents a better understanding of what it takes to foster self-compassion in their children. Additionally, therapists can use these findings to incorporate warmth, structure, and autonomy support into their sessions and to process early rejection, chaos, and coercion in order to help clients to gain self-compassion as adults. Finally, this further supports the idea that self-warmth and –coldness are different dimensions and not simply poles of self-compassion.

Access Type

Thesis-Open Access

DOI

https://doi.org/10.30707/ETD2023.20230711063202810162.999947

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