Demographic Perspectives of Self-Compassion: Exploring Self-Compassion among Urban Malaysian Adolescents

Abstract

The study of self-compassion in Malaysia's context is still in its infancy compared to the western countries. It is important to explore the profiles of self-compassion any target population before explaining the phenomenon of self-compassion in further details. In conjunction with that, the presents study aims to examine the demographic perspective specifically, gender, household income, and self-compassion profile of adolescents residing in the capital city of Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur. A total of 377 (male = 219, female=158) adolescents aged 16 years old from the Federal Territory of Kuala Lumpur were recruited and agreed to participate in this study. The quantitative approach has been used which participants have completed a set of questionnaires consisting of demographic questions such as gender and household income and also the Social Compassion Scale. Completed questionnaires were then collected and data were analyzed using the IBM SPSS Software version 22 using descriptive analysis. The results showed a sub-factor of self-compassion such as self-kindness=3.28, self-judgment=.89, common humanity=1.07, isolation=1.09, mindfulness=.96 and over identification=.99. The mean for self-judgmental as the highest, followed by isolation and self-kindness. The negative factors were higher than positive factors for self-compassion among adolescents compared to other sub-factors of self-compassion. The findings have important implications which provide demographics information on the gender, household income, and self-compassion profile of the adolescents in Kuala Lumpur. Future research suggested using inferential statistics to examine the relationship and influence of self-compassion on adolescent’s life and well-being.