The Role that Self-Compassion and Self-Control play in Hostility provoked from a Negative Life Event

The main focus of this study is to investigate the degree to which self-compassion and self-control buffer against hostility provoked by a negative life experience. To accomplish this inquiry pre and posttest state hostility measures were taken from sixty-six students displaying an increased negative affect following a statistics test. Repeat measures MANOVA revealed that the post measure increase in state hostility was significance (p>.05). Moreover, there was a significant interaction between self-compassion and self-control. Upon inspection of the group difference, participants with low self-compassion and low self-control score showed a significant increase on compared to pre-test scores or posttest scores compared to every other group. Correlational analysis revealed that while both variables were associated with pre and post-test measures of state hostility, Self-compassion was demonstrated to have a larger correlation than self-control. Moreover, the results, study limitations, and implications were discussed.