Self-compassion as a predictor of social safeness in Turkish university students

There are few studies that have examined the role of self-compassion in the context of social life, while self-compassion appears to enhance interpersonal relationship skills. The purpose of this study is to examine the predictive role of self-compassion on social safeness. Participants were 401 university students (213 women, 188 men; M age= 20.5 yr.). In this study, the Self-compassion Scale and the Social Safeness and Pleasure Scale were used. The relationships between self-compassion and social safeness were examined using correlation analysis and multiple regression analysis. In the correlation analysis, self-kindness, common humanity, and mindfulness factors of self-compassion were found to be positively related, and self-judgment, isolation, and over-identification factors of self-compassion were found to be negatively related to social safeness. According to regression results, social safeness was predicted positively by mindfulness, self-kindness, and common humanity. Further isolation predicted social safeness in a negative way. The regression model explained 28% of the variance in social safeness. Together, the findings illuminate the importance of self-compassion on social adjustment. The results are discussed in the light of the related literature. Copyright (C) 2014, Konrad Lorenz University Foundation. Published by Elsevier Espana, S.L.U. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons CC BY-NC ND Licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/).