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Self-Compassion, Self-Esteem, and Irrational Beliefs

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Abstract

Assumptions associated with Rational-Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT) suggest that self-compassion, but not self-esteem, should be incompatible with irrational beliefs and with the emotional disturbances that they produce. In this study, 184 university students responded to a self-compassion scale along with measures of irrational beliefs, self-esteem, depression, and anxiety. As expected, self-compassion correlated negatively with irrationality, predicted better mental health, and explained inverse connections of self-esteem with irrational beliefs. In support of REBT, the irrationality of low frustration tolerance also partially mediated the inverse self-compassion relationship with anxiety. Other findings for self-esteem and for the irrational belief of self-worth, nevertheless, suggested complexities for the REBT conceptual framework. These data most importantly confirmed self-compassion as part of what REBT would describe as an effective personal philosophy.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, Psychology/Department #2803, 350 Holt Hall – 615 McCallie Avenue, Chattanooga, TN, 37403, USA

    Erin Stephenson, P. J. Watson & Ronald J. Morris

  2. Oregon Department of Human Services and Oregon Health Authority, Oregon Enterprise Data Analytics, Salem, OR, USA

    Zhuo Job Chen

Authors
  1. Erin Stephenson
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  2. P. J. Watson
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  3. Zhuo Job Chen
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  4. Ronald J. Morris
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Correspondence to P. J. Watson.

Ethics declarations

All four authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest. All procedures performed in this study involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards. Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

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Stephenson, E., Watson, P.J., Chen, Z.J. et al. Self-Compassion, Self-Esteem, and Irrational Beliefs. Curr Psychol 37, 809–815 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-017-9563-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-017-9563-2

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