In plain language
Self-compassion — treating yourself with kindness rather than harsh judgment — is often promoted as a healthier alternative to chasing self-esteem, because it does not depend on evaluating yourself positively. But are self-esteem and self-compassion really alternatives, or do they feed each other as young people develop? This was the first longitudinal study to test which comes first: does self-compassion build self-esteem, does self-esteem enable self-compassion, or do they reinforce each other?
A large sample of 2,809 Australian adolescents (49.8% female) reported their self-esteem and self-compassion every year for four years, from Grade 9 to Grade 12. The researchers used autoregressive cross-lagged structural equation models to track how each construct predicted year-to-year changes in the other.
The result was clear and one-directional: self-esteem consistently predicted increases in self-compassion across all four years, but self-compassion did not predict changes in self-esteem. In other words, adolescents seem to need a basic sense of their own worthiness before they can extend compassion toward themselves. This challenges the idea that self-compassion can simply replace self-esteem, and suggests that fostering a sense of worth in young people may lay the groundwork for a kinder relationship with themselves.
Key findings
- Across four annual waves (Grades 9–12; N = 2,809), self-esteem consistently predicted increases in self-compassion the following year.
- The reverse path was not supported: self-compassion did not predict changes in self-esteem over time, favoring the “self-compassion as consequence” model.
- The difference between the two cross-lagged paths was statistically significant (z = 8.37, p < .001), confirming the asymmetry was not due to chance.
- Girls reported consistently lower self-esteem (standardized differences .49–.58) and lower self-compassion (.31–.43) than boys in every year of the study.
- Supplementary analyses of the six components of self-compassion (self-kindness, common humanity, mindfulness, self-judgment, isolation, overidentification) showed the same pattern: self-esteem predicted each component, but not vice versa.
- Neither age nor parents' marital status predicted self-esteem or self-compassion at any time point.
How to cite
APA
Donald, J. N., Ciarrochi, J., Parker, P. D., Sahdra, B. K., Marshall, S. L., & Guo, J. (2018). A worthy self is a caring self: Examining the developmental relations between self-esteem and self-compassion in adolescents. Journal of Personality, 86(4), 619–630. https://doi.org/10.1111/jopy.12340
BibTeX
@article{donald2018worthy,
author = {Donald, James N. and Ciarrochi, Joseph and Parker, Philip D. and Sahdra, Baljinder K. and Marshall, Sarah L. and Guo, Jiesi},
title = {A worthy self is a caring self: Examining the developmental relations between self-esteem and self-compassion in adolescents},
journal = {Journal of Personality},
year = {2018},
volume = {86},
number = {4},
pages = {619--630},
doi = {10.1111/jopy.12340}
}
Related work
- All publications by Joseph Ciarrochi (searchable, with free PDFs)
- Process-Based Therapy & Idionomic Analysis
Author: Joseph Ciarrochi (ORCID 0000-0003-0471-8100). Free copy hosted with permission for scholarly use. Please cite the published version via the DOI above.