Poster #127 - Self-Compassion in Children and Adolescents: A Systematic Review of Empirical Studies

• In Event: 3-206 - Poster Session 13
  In Poster Session: PS 13 Section - Moral Development

Integrative Statement

Self-compassion may be a critical life skill not only for adults but also for young people, since self-compassion has the potential to promote self-kindness, common humanity and mindfulness instead of self-judgment, isolation and over-identification. Pioneering researcher Kristin Neff (2009) has suggested self-compassion as a promising construct for developmental psychology, however, whereas self-compassion continues to grow as an increasingly well-recognized construct within the field of psychology, both in terms of basic and applied research and clinical practice, the relative scarcity of research conducted to date on self-compassion in children and adolescents, as well as the absence of comparative longitudinal studies, is surprising. Moreover, there is no literature, which scrutinizes the question at which age and stage of development children are able to grasp and apply the construct of self-compassion. Despite the intuitive appeal of extending adult notions/ conceptualizations of self-compassion to children and adolescents, age-related differences in cognition, emotion and behavior must be taken into account when examining their applicability to younger populations (cf. in the field of depression, Digdon & Gotlib, 1985).

Thus, the purpose of the present contribution is to illustrate the importance of considering normative developmental processes in the study of childhood self-compassion. First, we discuss theoretical models and methods of assessment in childhood self-compassion from a developmental perspective aiming to clarify the role of developmental issues in both the manifestation of self-compassion and its assessment. We then provide a systematic review of empirical studies that have been published so far assessing self-compassion in children and adolescents. Finally, we summarize and discuss child outcomes with which self-compassion has been found to be associated, and examine interventions that have been implemented aiming to improve self-compassion in children and adolescents.


The reviewed articles were selected from four different databases and one webpage based on predefined inclusion criteria: Correlational and interventional studies in English and/or German were selected, examining self-compassion in normative samples with an average age between six and 18;11 years. Fifty-four studies met the inclusion criteria (cf. Figure 1). Included studies used either the Self-Compassion Scale (SCS; Neff, 2003), or child-/ adolescent-adapted versions, and short forms of the of the SCS as well as translations into other languages, the Fears of Compassion Scales (Gilbert 2010), as well as an adapted version of the Santa Clara Brief Compassion Scale (Hwang et al. 2008). Across these studies, self-compassion was associated with various child outcomes, mainly in the socio-emotional domain (including general wellbeing and psychopathology) and to a lesser extent in the cognitive domain. Furthermore, ten different intervention programs were implemented, some of which are more closely related to self-compassion than others. Interestingly, children younger than 12 years of age have rarely been investigated. We discuss limitations and shortcomings of current research and outline avenues for future research.

Authors

• Regula Neuenschwander, University of Bern
  Presenting Author

• Jörg Hupfeld, University of Bern
  Non-Presenting Author

• Florence Olivia von Gunten, University of Bern
  Non-Presenting Author