Recent research published in journals Mindfulness This research suggests that how people treat themselves during difficult times is related to their views on social equality. This study provides evidence that empathy acts as a bridge between self-compassion and a reduced desire to dominate other social groups. These findings raise the possibility that cultivating a kinder relationship with oneself may ultimately promote broader social harmony.
Self-compassion involves treating yourself with kindness and understanding rather than harsh judgment. Previous research has shown that self-compassion is beneficial for an individual’s mental health, but its impact on broader social attitudes remains somewhat mysterious. Scientists wanted to explore how individuals’ internal relationships with themselves extend outward to shape their feelings toward different social groups.
Specifically, the researchers investigated a concept known as social dominance orientation. This psychological term refers to someone who prefers inequality between social groups, where some demographics naturally dominate other demographics. Scientists proposed that high self-compassion is associated with higher empathy, which in turn may be linked to lower levels of dominance orientation.
“The rise of authoritarianism challenges researchers to understand the root causes of these social tensions. Psychologists routinely study personality variables, but current efforts are attempting to bridge personality factors to larger social movements. We seek to connect these variables using highly sophisticated network analysis that bridges from the intrapersonal to the interpersonal and ultimately broader social orientations,” explained study author Michael Uberg, a PhD student at the University of Auckland.
The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic provided a unique environment to test these connections. The global crisis has caused major disruptions to daily life, increased stress and intensified tensions and prejudices between groups. By collecting data before and during this pandemic, researchers were able to observe whether the psychological connections between self-compassion, empathy, and prosocial attitudes remained stable amid heightened social threats.
To examine these dynamics, scientists recruited undergraduate students from a large public university in the United States. Participation was voluntary, and students completed an online survey in exchange for course credit. The total initial sample included 1,034 students, and data were collected in two different waves to capture different social contexts.
The first wave collected responses from 578 students during the spring and fall semesters of 2019, well before the pandemic began. In the second wave, responses were collected from 456 students during the fall 2020 semester. After removing incomplete or anomalous responses, the researchers analyzed a final sample of 979 participants, consisting of 543 pre-pandemic students and 436 pandemic-era students.
The researchers used three main surveys to measure participants’ psychological characteristics. The researchers used a 26-item scale to assess self-compassion. This scale examines how often people balance positive and negative internal reactions. This scale measures tendencies such as self-kindness and self-judgment, and feelings of shared humanity and isolation.
The Self-Compassion Survey also measures the balance between mindfulness and over-identification. Mindfulness is the practice of observing negative thoughts without getting carried away. In contrast, over-identification occurs when a person becomes completely absorbed in their own pain and emotional distress.
To measure empathy, participants completed a questionnaire assessing two different empathic traits. The first characteristic is perspective-taking, which involves the mental ability to imagine other people’s situations and understand their thoughts. The second trait is empathic concern, which refers to the emotional capacity to actually feel sympathy and care for another person who is suffering.
Finally, the scientists measured social dominance orientation using a 16-item questionnaire. The survey asked participants to rate their agreement with statements about group equality and superiority. A high score on this scale indicates a greater preference for social inequality, while a low score indicates a preference for an egalitarian worldview.
Instead of looking for simple cause-and-effect relationships, the researchers used a statistical technique called psychometric network analysis. This method simultaneously maps the web of connections between all psychological variables. This helps researchers visualize which traits are directly related and which traits act as bridges between other mental traits.
The analysis revealed that preferences for social inequality had the strongest negative relationship with empathy. As people’s preference for group superiority increased, their levels of empathy tended to decrease. Empathy was then directly linked to various positive components of self-compassion, linking the inner self to the outer social view.
Researchers have noticed distinct patterns among different types of empathy. Empathic concern showed a much stronger relationship with social dominance orientation than perspective taking. This suggests that feeling emotional care for others is more strongly associated with egalitarian thinking than simply thinking about the other person’s perspective.
“Of the two components of empathy, emotional concern was more strongly related to one’s sense of equality,” Uberg told Cypost. “In some ways, thinking about someone else’s situation in isolation is not as powerful as trying to empathize with their concerns as your own.”
When researchers compared pre-pandemic and pandemic-era groups, they found that the overall web of connections remained very similar. Despite the massive social disruption and heightened anxiety brought about by the virus, the constructs linking self-compassion, empathy, and social attitudes have not undergone meaningful change. This stability provides evidence that these psychological traits are fundamentally related, regardless of external social stress.
“This statistical model convincingly shows that these correlations persisted during the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, when societal threats were heightened, suggesting that the relationship between these patterns is stable,” Huberg explained. “These results highlight the potential for self-compassion to actually bring about change at a broader societal level. Follow-up research has demonstrated that self-compassion increases people’s empathy, which may influence how they support equality between different social groups.”
Although these findings provide useful insights, there are also limitations that should be kept in mind. This study is based on a specific sample of undergraduate students from a single university in the Pacific region. This focus limits the ability to apply research findings to older adults and individuals with different cultural and socio-economic backgrounds.
Future research should also consider how specific demographic variables influence these psychological networks. For example, direct exposure to inequality may lead individuals from marginalized backgrounds to have higher levels of empathic concern. In contrast, individuals who belong to dominant social groups may have weaker connections between these traits if their environment reinforces a hierarchical worldview.
This research design only captures a snapshot in time, meaning it cannot prove that self-compassion directly causes a decline in dominant attitudes. It is possible that this relationship operates in opposite directions or that other unmeasured factors influence both traits simultaneously. Statistical models show that traits are related but do not confirm the exact order of developmental events.
“Follow-up studies testing self-compassion would provide more definitive information about the direction of these effects,” Huberg said. “We want to test whether cultivating self-compassion through the course increases self-compassion, which in turn leads to the further development of empathic abilities and egalitarian beliefs. This will help establish this intended connection more definitively.”
“Although this study was exploratory, it gave us hope that there may be a way to encourage more compassion for others in our communities by teaching them to have compassion for themselves. It could help address some of the social ills our world currently faces. If this relationship is discovered, it could have deep implications for individuals’ socio-emotional development and become a core part of educational curricula.”
The study, “Empathy as a key link between self-compassion and social dominance orientation,” was authored by Michael Uberg and Polina Belovorodova.
