The Influence of Advice and Friendship Ties on Self-Compassion Crossover in Police Platoon Networks

Abstract

Suffering is an inevitable aspect of employees’ professional lives, particularly for those in demanding and stressful occupations, such as policing. One way to combat employee suffering is through the practice of self-compassion. Traditionally conceptualized as a trait, researchers have discovered much about the benefits and outcomes of self-compassion. However, recent studies have shown that self-compassion can be more malleable, and as a result, we know much less about what may lead to self-compassionate states. In this study, we adopt the view of self-compassion as a state and investigate how an employees’ social context may affect their self-compassion. Specifically, we draw from crossover theory to examine how employees’ relationships (advice and friendship ties) and structure (group similarity) influence their similarity in self-compassion. We conducted a social network analysis among police officers in various platoons. Results of this study show that employees have similar self-compassion levels to those they share advice ties with, but dissimilar to those with whom they share friendship ties. Implications for theory and practice are discussed.