Self-compassion and social anxiety in late adolescence: Contributions of self-reflection and insight

ABSTRACT

This study aimed to explore the moderating effects of self-reflection and insight in the self-compassion and social anxiety relationship. A convenience sample of 110 college students aged between 18-20 years reported on self-compassion, self-reflection and insight, as well as social anxiety symptoms. Findings revealed that: (1) late adolescents with both high levels of self-compassion and self-reflection were less prone to experience social anxiety, yet those with lower self-compassion and high self-reflection reported more social anxiety symptoms; and (2) late adolescents who were both more self-compassionate and presented higher levels of insight were more protected against social anxiety. Both self-reflection and insight could be relevant mechanisms for understanding how psychological interventions might generate changes in late adolescent’s social anxiety symptoms.

KEYWORDS:

• Self-reflection
• insight
• self-compassion
• social anxiety
• late adolescence

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed here.

Notes

1. Three-way interactions for each moderator model were employed to estimate the effects of gender. The analyses suggested that these effects did not differ by gender for either self-reflection (p =.66) or insight (p =.67). However, a small number of male students were included in the current study, hence the results are not conclusive for potential gender effects.