DOI: https://doi.org/10.15368/theses.2012.189
Available at: https://digitalcommons.calpoly.edu/theses/869
Date of Award
11-2012
Degree Name
MS in Psychology
Department/Program
Psychology & Child Development
Advisor
Jason Williams
Abstract
Self-compassion denotes a compassionate and empathic attitude toward oneself (Neff, 2003b). In the past decade, the Self-Compassion Scale (SCS) has been used to measure self-compassion in individuals and its effects on social, psychological, and physiological functioning. While many studies have found positive effects of high self- compassion showing promise for the use of the construct in clinical and empirical applications, there is a dearth of literature regarding the psychometric properties of the SCS. Furthermore, previous studies have not evaluated the individual subscales of the SCS as they relate to other inventories. This study evaluated the SCS and its subscales in relation the to the well-established Beck Depression Inventory II (BDI-II). The study included 142 undergraduate Cal Poly students who completed both the SCS and the BDI- II. As predicted, a statistically significant negative correlation was found between total SCS and BDI-II scores (r = -.57). Statistically significant negative correlations were also found between BDI-II total scores and the Self-Kindness (r = -.35), Common Humanity (r = -.37), and Mindfulness (r = -.35) subscales of the SCS. Statistically significant positive correlations were found with BDI-II total scores and the Self-Judgment (r = .49), Isolation (r = .59) and Over-Identified (r = .43) subscales of the SCS. This study evaluated the convergent and discriminant validity of the SCS and its subscales as compared to the BDI-II.