Different Levels of Compassion to Self/Others: Predicting Undergraduates' Emotional and Motivational Experiences During Group Work

• In Event: 35.078 - MTCC Roundtable Session 14
  In Roundtable Session: 35.078-6 - Understanding Student Perspectives Regarding Stressful Experiences

Abstract

When facing a course-assigned group project, undergraduates bring various goals, personal histories, and tolerance for others’ vagaries, and these affect their project commitment. Continuing previous work on the contribution of achievement goals, social goals, and conflict, the current study collected data from 634 undergraduates taking courses with an assigned group project. A cluster analysis grouping students by level of self-compassion, referring to one’s self-kindness, and compassion to others, referring to respectful regard for others’ sufferings, suggested four groups, three clusters high in compassion to others but decreasing in levels of self-compassion, and a fourth cluster with mid-levels of both compassion variables. The four clusters differed significantly on nine measures of achievement and social goals, conflict, emotions, and project commitment.

Authors

• John Jongho Park, The Pennsylvania State University

• Nathan Hyungsok Choe, The University of Texas at Austin

• Diane L. Schallert, The University of Texas at Austin