Activating the inner caregiver: The role of support-giving schemas in increasing state self-compassion

Self-compassion, which involves treating oneʹs own suffering with compassion, mirrors the interpersonal experience of giving support to others. In four experiments we examined the hypothesis that activating support-giving schemas can increase state self-compassion. In Experiments 1 and 2, participants first recalled a negative event (Experiment 1) or experienced a lab-based test failure (Experiment 2), then were randomly assigned to recall an experience of giving support to versus having fun with another person, and finally completed a measure of state self-compassion. Experiments 3 and 4 examined the effects of actually giving support to another person (via written advice), compared to not giving support or simply reading about anotherʹs problem, and assessed effort invested in writing a self-comforting statement, operationalized as statement length (Experiment 3), and self-reported self-compassion (Experiment 4). As predicted, both forms of support-giving schema activation increased self-compassion. Alternative explanations involving affect, self-esteem, and awareness of othersʹ problems were addressed. These results suggest that one way to increase compassion for the self is to give it to others.