Predictors of self-compassion

The results in this study showed that there were 3 factors affecting self- compassion in British students. They comprised of year of study, a number of brothers and sisters and attitudes towards social media use that had the effects on self- compassion in British students. Firstly, it was found that even though year of study could predict self-compassion in British students, the levels of self-compassion of the students in each year of study were not significantly different. It may be that their mean score of self-compassion were quite similar (the seniors had the highest mean scores, followed by the sophomores, the juniors and the freshmen). These results seemed to be consistent with previous research which showed that self-compassion was beneficial for the freshmen because it was positively related to life-satisfaction as well as developing identity; it combatted the negative emotions during their study (Hope et al., 2014), and; enhanced the perceived competence and mental health in the first and the second year social work students (Ying, 2009).

Secondly, a number of brothers and sisters had a significant effect on self- compassion. It was found that the students, who have a brother or sister had a significantly higher levels of self-compassion than those who did not have any brothers or sisters at a significant level of .05 but there was no difference levels of self- compassion among the students who did not have any brothers and sisters and the students who had more than one brother or sister. A possible explanation for this might be that their brothers and sisters were the members of their families and could help them when they had to deal with difficulties in life by giving them some advices, the information, the social support. Their brothers and sisters could also give them some feedbacks to realise about themselves and their situations. These results further supported the study of Neff & McGehee (2010) which reported that family and cognitive factors were the predictors of self-compassion. They were in line with Wilcox et al. (2005) which found that emotional support from family and old friends could help the first year students to deal with the stress when they adjust themselves for studying at the university for the first few days. They were also in accord with previous studies indicating that social support was a protective factor and it could influence the wellbeing in the family, the parenting and the resilience in children

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(Armstrong et al., 2005) and recognising family support could help premedical

students to believe in their ability to deal with their study (Klink et al., 2008).

This can be partially explained by the fact that their brothers and sisters were in the same generation and this probably makes the students to feel comfortable to talk about their problems. These results corroborated the study of the Department of Health & Human Services State Government of Victoria Australia (2016) who reported that talking to someone that the individual trusted, was likely to help them: to have a better understanding of their problems; think about the problems from other perspectives; release stress; perceive that they were not alone, and; recognise many results for the problems. They seemed to be consistent with the idea of Barker (2007) which proposed that if adolescents felt bad when they asked for help from their parents, they were probably looked for help from other family members instead.

Thirdly, attitudes towards social media use could predict the levels of self- compassion in British students. It was found that attitudes toward social media use were positively related to self-compassion. In other words, students who had a strong perception that social media use was beneficial for them were more self- compassionate. These results may be due to the tendency of students with a positive attitude towards social media, to use it frequently to share their negative experiences which allow them to receive the feedback, advice, or information to make them feel better. Part of this may be associated with perceiving that other people encountered the same situations, and dealing with the negative feelings effectively. The findings in the study seemed to be partially consistent with Flaherty, Pearce, & Rubin's (1998) study which found that participants in their study used the Internet to fulfil their pleasure and Baym, Zhang, & Lin's (2004) study which suggested that face-to-face communication was the main choice for communication whereas the Internet was widely used among college students. They further supported the idea of Ho & McLeod (2008) who indicated that the computer-mediated conversation reduced the disadvantages of face-to-face communication, for example, providing the invisibility and decreasing the users’ identity. Similarly, Shaw & Gant (2002) suggested that Internet usage reduced the levels of loneliness and depression but it boosted the levels of perceived social support and self-esteem in undergraduate students in the United States.

In addition, the findings in the thesis indicated that religion and current average mark could not predict self-compassion in British students. These findings were in

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line with Neff et al.'s (2008) study which indicated that religious beliefs could not predict the levels of self-compassion in Taiwan and the United states. They also supported the ideas of Neff, Hsieh, & Dejitterat (2005) as they did not find a relationship between self-compassion and undergraduate students’ actual grades in the United States.

Surprisingly, the outcomes in this thesis could not demonstrate that family had influenced the levels of self-compassion in British students. They were contrary to that of Neff & McGehee (2010) who reported that family and cognitive factors were the predictors of self-compassion; Kelly & Dupasquier (2016) who presented that perceived affection from parents was associated with being self-compassionate and gaining self-compassion via their experience and perceiving of social protection, and; Pepping, Davis, O’Donovan, & Pal (2015) who revealed that high levels of denial and overprotection from parents and low levels of affection from parents were relevant to low levels of self-compassion. Finally, these outcomes showed that both friends inside and outside classrooms did not predict self-compassion in British students. This seemed to break from previous studies which have suggested that when young people studied at the universities, they mainly received social support from their friends at the university and the university students tended to receive instrumental and appraisal support from their friends in classrooms and lecturers which was different from the support they had received from their flatmates (Wilcox et al., 2005).