Common humanity in the classroom: Increasing self-compassion and coping self-efficacy through a mindfulness-based intervention

Abstract

Objective To examine the effectiveness of a classroom-based mindfulness-based intervention (MBI) in improving stress, coping, and psychological well-being in college students. Participants: Sixty-one students at a small liberal arts college. Methods: As part of a college course, students in the MBI condition (N = 33) completed mindfulness meditations, reflective journaling, and participated in group discussions over the course of eight weeks. A control group of students (N = 28) received traditional instruction about stress and coping as part of a concurrently taught college course. Perceived stress, mental health, mindfulness, self-compassion, and coping self-efficacy were measured before and after the intervention and instruction. Results: Significant improvements in self-compassion and coping self-efficacy emerged, particularly in the domains of common humanity, isolation, and emotion-focused coping self-efficacy. Conclusions: These findings suggest that incorporation of MBIs into the classroom can be an effective strategy to enhance the well-being of college students.

Keywords:

• College students
• mindfulness
• self-compassion
• stress
• well-being

Conflict of interest disclosure

The authors have no conflicts of interest to report. The authors confirm that the research presented in this article met the ethical guidelines, including adherence to the legal requirements, of the United States and received approval from the Human Subjects Review Board at Hendrix College.

Notes

1 Analyses were also conducted without including buy-in as a covariate. The overall pattern of results generally remained the same. However, the significant interactions between condition and time became non-significant for the following dependent measures: self-compassion (p = .057), coping self-efficacy (p = .07), and emotion focused coping self-efficacy (p = .11). In addition, the main effect of time on perceived stress also became non-significant (p = .76). Exploratory analyses were unaffected by buy-in.