P.27 Self Compassion by Neff

“It is not only Westerners who are harshly judgmental toward them-selves, of course. We recently conducted a study in the United States, Thailand, and Taiwan and found that in Taiwan-_where there is a strong Confucian ethic there is also strong belief in self-criticism as a motivating force. The Confucian ideal is that you should criticize yourself in order to keep yourself in line focusing on meeting the needs of others instead of yourself. In countries where Buddhism plays a stronger role in daily life, such as Thailand, people are much more self-compassionate. In fact, in our cross-cultural study we found that people had the highest levels of self-compassion in Thailand and the lowest in Taiwan, with the United States falling in between. In all three countries, however, we found that self-criticism was strongly related to depression and dissatisfaction with life. It appears that the negative impact of self-criticism may be universal, even though different cultures encourage it to a greater or lesser degree.”

She cites her scales, which she validated and published an article about her self-compassion scales.