Relationship between psychological resilience and parental acceptance-rejection: The mediating role of self-compassion

Self- compassion means that individual’s trying to understand oneself without prejudice, and being sensitive and kind instead of being judgemental and critical. The aim of this study was to examine the mediating role of self-compassion in the relationship between perceived parental acceptance and psychological resilience in emerging adults. The study also examined whether gender differ in terms of the variables of parental acceptance, self-compassion and psychological resilience. The study group consisted of 545 university students who were studying in a state university and who were reached with stratified sampling method. The Adult Parental Acceptance-Rejection Scale, the Self-Compassion Scale and the Ego-Resilience Scale were used. Correlation analysis, path analysis, Multivariate Hotelling T2 test were applied in the analysis of data. As a result of the study, self-compassion was found to have “full mediating” role in the relationship of perceived maternal acceptance and paternal acceptance with psychological resilience. In addition, perceived parental acceptance and psychological resilience were found to show significant differences in terms of gender. Warmth and acceptance centred parent-child relationship can be considered as a protective factor that can increase the ability to overcome challenging life events by supporting the development of self-compassion.