Adverse life events that occur in childhood may decrease an individual’s ability to effectively cope with challenges throughout their lives. The proper management of stress is essential to avoid problems that can crop up in all areas of life. College students who employ stress management tactics are better able to achieve well-being and academic success. This study examined the potential moderating association between “from within” coping supports or internal risk factors and academic success, mental health, and resilience qualities. Using a sample of college students at a large public university in the southeastern United States, this study demonstrates that viewing stress in a negative way may increase a student’s chances of failing to cope well with difficulty. Similarly, results of the analysis demonstrate that high perceived stress increases college students’ mental health issues and may diminish their capacity to cope with the challenges of the college environment. University officials may use the results from this study to inform policy and practice to address students’ ability to cope with stress and succeed academically.

No description available.

Sammanfattning Ensamhet är en vanlig upplevelse som har kopplats till en mängd olika hälsoproblem. Forskning har visat att det finns samband mellan upplevd ensamhet och olika faktorer såsom ålder, kön och relationsstatus. På senare tid har även psykologiska faktorer som självmedkänsla visat sig ha ett samband med upplevd ensamhet. Syftet med denna studie var att undersöka upplevd ensamhet, självmedkänsla samt sambandet mellan dessa i en svensk kontext. 266 personer i Sverige, mellan 25–65 år (M= 37.4, SD=11.9) besvarade demografiska frågor samt två formulär: Revised UCLA loneliness scale (R-UCLA) och Self Compassion Scale (SCS). Data analyserades genom ANOVA, oberoende t-test, korrelationsanalys och multipel linjär regressionsanalys. Resultaten visade att singlar och unga vuxna (25–34 år) upplevde sig något mer ensamma samt att de som är föräldrar, ensamboende och åldersgrupper mellan 35–65 år var något mer självmedkännande. Dock var dessa skillnader av liten effekt. Det framkom även ett signifikant negativt samband av stor effekt mellan upplevd ensamhet och självmedkänsla. Sambandet var något starkare för gruppen män. Denna studie påvisar att sambandet mellan upplevd ensamhet och självmedkänsla är bestående även i en svensk kontext. För att vidare undersöka kausalitet och eventuella interventioner mot upplevd ensamhet uppmuntras framtida forskning att genomföra longitudinella studier och interventionsstudier. / Abstract Loneliness is a common experience that has been linked to a variety of health problems. Research has shown that there is a relationship between loneliness and various factors such as age, gender, and relationship status. More recently, psychological factors such as self-compassion have also been shown to be associated with loneliness. The aim of this study is to examine perceived loneliness, self-compassion, and the relationship between these in a Swedish context. Participants in the study were 266 persons from Sweden, aged between 25-65 years (M= 37.4, SD=11.9). Data was collected using a web-based questionnaire comprising the Revised UCLA loneliness scale (R-UCLA) and Self Compassion Scale (SCS) as well as demographic questions. Data were analyzed using ANOVA, independent t-tests, Pearson correlation and multiple linear regression. The results showed that singles and young adults (25-34 years) feel somewhat lonelier and that those who are parents, those living alone and those between the ages 35-65 where more self-compassionate. However, these differences were of small effect sizes. There was also a significant negative correlation of large effect between perceived loneliness and self-compassion. The correlation was somewhat stronger for men. This study demonstrates that the connection between perceived loneliness and self-compassion is persistent in a Swedish context. To further investigate causality and possible interventions against perceived loneliness, future research is encouraged to conduct longitudinal studies and clinical trials.

Suicide is a significant public health concern worldwide and the 10th leading cause of death in the United States. Risk factors for suicide include depression, anxiety, hopelessness, and previous suicide attempts, among others. Some vulnerable groups may have unique risk factors that exacerbate suicide risk; for instance, college students experience academic stress, and individuals with chronic illnesses, such as fibromyalgia and cancer, face persistent health complications. However, protective characteristics, such as self-compassion, may reduce suicide risk. Comprised of self-kindness, mindfulness, and common humanity, self-compassion is beneficially associated with mental and physical health, and to the task of suicide prevention. As such, we examined the relation between self-compassion and suicidal behavior, and the potential parallel mediating effects of depression, anxiety, and hopelessness across four samples (community, N = 632; collegiate, N = 338; fibromyalgia, N = 508; cancer, N = 241). Across all four samples, the combined effect of depression, anxiety, and hopelessness mediated the relation between self-compassion and suicidal behavior. Our findings provide support for the notion that self-compassion has a beneficial association with suicidal behavior directly, as well as indirectly via its influence on the suicide risk factors of depression, anxiety, and hopelessness. Increasing self-compassion through interventions such as Compassion-Focused Therapy and Mindful Self-Compassion may not only increase self-compassion, but may also facilitate adaptive coping, particularly in times of distress, that ameliorates symptoms of psychopathology and suicide risk. Future prospective, longitudinal studies, and randomized control trials, are needed to examine causal effects of self-compassion on emotional dysfunction and suicidal behavior.

This thesis examined how women cope with various types of body-related discrepancies, such as those related to their physical appearance, and their effects on eating behavior. The Hierarchical Action-Based Model of Inconsistency Compensation, an integrative model comprising tenets from the action-based model of dissonance (Harmon-Jones et al., 2009) and Self-Determination Theory (Ryan & Deci, 2017), was used as a guiding framework to understand motivational differences in compensation processes and eating behavior following a body-related discrepancy. This objective was achieved through three studies broken down into two articles. The first study (Article 1; N = 398) used a mixed method cross-sectional design and examined the types of body-related discrepancies women face, their contextual elicitors, and motivational differences in the propensity of experiencing them. Following the recollection of such experiences, the associations between women’s motivation for eating regulation and eating intentions, and the mediating role of dissonance-based processes in these relationships, were examined. Results revealed that women, in general, experience discrepancies related to the appearance and care toward their body. These experiences were often elicited by body exposure (e.g., reflection in the mirror) and occurred in a non-social-evaluative context. Additionally, women with more controlled eating regulation experienced more discrepancies in eating quality and physical activity. Furthermore, results demonstrated that women with more autonomous eating regulation intended to engage in more healthy eating in response to a body-related discrepancy, whereas women with more controlled eating regulation intended to engage in more disordered eating. These distinct pathways were partly explained by differences in self-compassion, and consequently dissonance arousal, and selection of behavioral (versus cognitive) compensation strategies. The second study (Article 2; N = 107) replicated findings from Study 1 by exposing women to a mirror while being instructed to talk about their body in a non-social-evaluative (n = 52) or a social-evaluative (i.e., presence of two female judges; n = 55) context. Dissonance was experimentally manipulated in an additive fashion (i.e., mirror versus mirror and social evaluation) to determine whether motivational differences in dissonance processes and eating behaviors were contingent upon the evaluative nature of the context. Results partly replicated findings in Study 1, such that women with more autonomous eating regulation intended to engage in more healthy eating following mirror exposure (ME), and this relationship was partly explained by engagement in behavior modification strategies, whereas women with more controlled eating regulation intended to engage in more disordered eating following ME. These relationships persisted across ME conditions. Finally, the third study (Article 2; N = 199) used the same paradigm as Study 2 with the additional manipulation of women’s self-related body talk during ME, such that women were instructed to engage in positive/compassionate (social-evaluative n = 47; non-social-evaluative n = 52) or negative (social-evaluative n = 48; non-social-evaluative n = 52) body talk. This allowed us to observe the effects of positive and negative body talk on women’s eating behaviors and the moderating role of motivation following ME. Results demonstrated that women with more controlled eating regulation benefitted from counter-attitudinal (positive/compassionate) body talk during ME as indicated by more intent to engage in healthy eating behavior. Taken together, results suggest that increased salience of body-related discrepancies negatively affects women’s ability to regulate their eating if they do so for more controlled reasons. This is partly attributed to low emotion regulation resources and use of avoidant compensation strategies. However, these negative implications on their eating behavior can be alleviated via dissonance by facilitating the restructuring of body-related cognitions in contexts that typically elicit body-related discrepancies.

Emerging evidence indicates self-compassion can be beneficial for medical populations and for medical adherence; yet, research to date has not fully examined the reasons for this association. This study examined the association of dispositional self-compassion to adherence across five medical samples and tested the extent to which perceived stress accounted for this association. Five medical samples (total N = 709), including fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue syndrome, and cancer patients, recruited from various sources, completed online surveys. Self-compassion was positively associated with adherence in all five samples. A meta-analysis of the associations revealed a small average effect size (average r = .22, [0.15, 0.29]) of self-compassion and adherence and non-significant heterogeneity among the effects (Q (4) = 3.15, p = .532). A meta-analysis of the kappa2 values from the indirect effects of self-compassion on adherence revealed that, on average, 11% of the variance in medical adherence that was explained by self-compassion could be attributed to lower perceived stress. Overall, findings demonstrate that dispositional self-compassion is associated with better medical adherence among people with fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue syndrome, and cancer, due in part to lower stress. This research contributes to a growing evidence base indicating the value of self-compassion for health-related behaviours in a variety of medical populations.

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.

The current study consisted of 4,116 student-athletes (Mage = 19.84; women = 66.9%; White = 78.2%) to achieve two purposes when considering the disrupting effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and the cancellation of collegiate sports. First, I examined the relationship between gender, race/ethnicity, competition level, and athletic identity. Though there were no significant differences across NCAA Divisional levels, I found a significant gender by race interaction with Black male athletes reporting stronger athletic identities compared to White male and female athletes as revealed by post-hoc analyses. Second, I examined the relationship between athletic identity and psychological distress and found that when social support and self-compassion are both low, there is a moderate, positive relationship between athletic identity and psychological distress for the White female athletes. Additionally, there were main effects for self-compassion and social support where higher levels were related to lower psychological distress among the White female athletes and Latino/a athletes. For the Black male athletes, there was a main effect for only self-compassion. There was a significant self-compassion by social support interaction for the Black female athletes and White male athletes, suggesting that when self-compassion is low, or high, there are higher levels of psychological distress experienced when social support is low. Implications of the findings, limitations, and future directions are discussed.

Vården är en viktig institution i samhället, och betydelsen av en robust vård blev än mer påtaglig i samband med Covid-19 pandemin. För att vården ska fungera på ett tillfredsställande sätt krävs att personalen mår bra och vill stanna kvar inom organisationen, även när arbetsbördan plötsligt ökar. Ett sätt att förebygga stressrelaterad ohälsa och öka trivseln är att ge vårdpersonal verktyg för att själva arbeta med sin psykiska hälsa. 62 regionanställda som påbörjat men inte avslutat ett självhjälpsprogram fick en enkät skickad till sig. 73 regionanställda som påbörjat programmet, varav några också fullföljt det hade möjlighet att fylla i en uppföljningsenkät som tillhandahölls av regionens företagshälsovård. Svaren i enkäten och uppföljningsenkäten analyserades med innehållsanalys. Utifrån resultatet förs en diskussion kring vad som hindrat personalen från att fullfölja programmet, hur de upplevt deltagandet i programmet och vad de själva tror skulle behövas från ett självhjälpsprogram för att förebygga stress. I resultatet framkom indikationer om att stress är både en förutsättning och ett hinder för stressförebyggande självhjälpsprogram, genomförande under arbetstid kan öka följsamheten, gruppinslag kan vara en verksam komponent och användarvänlighet har stor betydelse för följsamheten.

Self-compassion is associated with a variety of positive outcomes including well-being and positive body image. There is a need for accessible online self-compassion resources that can be disseminated to the general public. This study examined the efficacy of The Gift of Self-Compassion course (GSC): a 30-day internet-delivered self-compassion training within a non-clinical general population sample. Outcomes examined were self-compassion, well-being, and body dissatisfaction. Using a randomized controlled design, this study compared the GSC to an expressive writing (EW) curriculum. Participants were 215 adults from the general population. Seemingly unrelated regression models were used to estimate treatment differences between groups as well as the relationship between usage and outcome. Compared to control participants, GSC participants reported significantly greater improvements in self-compassion and well-being, but not measures of affect or body dissatisfaction. Our hypothesis that usage would impact outcomes was only partially supported.