Future-outlook mediates the association between self-compassion and well-being

Abstract

Self-compassion has been strongly associated with high levels of life satisfaction and low levels of depressive symptoms, but relatively little research has explored mechanisms that may underlie these associations. This study investigated whether three indicators of future-outlook – balanced time perspective, optimism, and savouring-anticipating – mediate these relationships. A sample of 157 undergraduates (Mage = 33.21, SD = 11.32) completed an online survey. As hypothesised, multiple mediation analyses found that balanced time perspective and savouring-anticipating mediated self-compassion's relationships with life satisfaction and depressive symptoms; where high trait self-compassion was associated with a well-balanced time perspective and high savouring-anticipating tendencies which, in turn, were associated with high life satisfaction and low depressive symptoms. Against expectation, optimism did not mediate either relationship when assessed as one of three parallel mediators. These results add to the budding literature on mechanisms underlying self-compassion's positive effects on well-being.