Abstract
. Objectives
. Recent
research has suggested that Chinese individuals from a collectivist culture may have a different understanding of self-compassion, which could differentially contribute to mental health. This study aimed to obtain an in-depth insight into Chinese adults’ understanding of self-compassion.
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. Methods
. Four online focus groups in Chinese undergraduates discussed the construct of self-compassion based on self-kindness, self-judgment, common humanity, isolation, mindfulness, and over-identification. Thematic analysis was used to analyse the data.
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. Results
. Chinese participants valued benign self-criticism and self-reflection when contemplating their understanding of self-compassion. Similarly, participants’ view of self-compassion dimensions can be described as dialectical in that they reflected both negative and positive perceptions in each factor rather than suggesting separate and purely negative or purely positive dimensions. There was also an overlap in the interpretation of the negative dimensions (self-judgment, isolation, and over-identification).
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. Conclusions
. The findings highlight particularities in the understanding of self-compassion in these Chinese students, which may be influenced by philosophical traditions promoting dialecticism and the dual focus on the transformation of the self and social participation. This suggests the importance of a cultural perspective when studying self-compassion and interpreting relevant research findings.
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Psychosocial factors play a critical role in young people mental health and influence various developmental outcomes. This thesis aimed to examine a theory-informed multifactorial model of adolescent depressive symptoms that included self-perception and interpersonal factors. Briefly, this model posits that early parenting practices exert influence via self-perception and peer relationships (e.g. peer difficulties and friendships) and directly play a role in depressive symptoms. Depressive symptoms, on the other hand, could also negatively influence self-perception, such as low self-esteem and self-compassion, and one’s social relationships, such as more peer difficulties and poor friendships. Furthermore, the model accounts for early parenting behaviour and peer relations playing an important role in developing self-esteem and self-compassion, but also for the opposite effect, one’s self-perception can also impact peer relationships. The current thesis examined the model through a cross-sectional study recruiting adolescents in the UK and China (Study 3) and a secondary data analysis study using data from Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (Study 4). Before examining the hypothesised developmental pathways, Study 1 and Study 2 were conducted to explore the construct of self-compassion in Chinese samples due to the definition and assessment debate in the current literature. The current thesis found that positive parenting, self-esteem, self-compassion and fewer peer difficulties play a protective role in adolescent depression, but the role of friendships in depression remains unclear. Also, the notion that positive parenting and peer relationships shape how children think about themselves, known as social-origin development of self-perception, was supported. Conversely, during adolescence, self-perception and peer relationships were associated with each other. Finally, the thesis identified cultural differences in the development of young people’s depressive symptoms with social relationships being more important in a collectivist culture and self-compassion being more eminent an individualist culture. The current thesis discussed theoretical and clinical implication of the findings and provided several assessment considerations of psychosocial factors in empirical studies in adolescents. Future studies should further explore the hypothesised pathway model. Keywords: depressive symptoms, self-perception, peer relationships, positive parenting, culture difference