Self-compassion in religious practitioners : criterion validity evidence for the Self-Compassion Scale – Brazil

Recebido em: 7 jan. 2019. Aprovado em: 26 nov. 2019. Publicado em: xx xxx. 2020. Abstract: The construct of self-compassion is based on Buddhist’s teachings on compassion towards oneself. This study provides criterion validity evidence for the Self-Compassion Scale – Brazil. A comparison on self-compassion in Buddhist and Catholic practitioners may contribute to support the Brazilian version of the scale, as well as shed light into religious differences on the matter. Participated in the study 59 Catholics and 59 Buddhists, all self-declared a religious practitioner. We administered a socio-demographic questionnaire and the Self-Compassion Scale – Brazil. Buddhist practitioners presented significantly higher score in self-compassion (M = 4.45, SD = .51) than Catholic practitioners (M = 2.98, SD = .63): t(116) = 13.78, p < .001 (d = 2.56). In addition, there was a significant positive correlation between frequency of religious practice and self-compassion (r = .39, p = .003). Future studies may investigate the relationship between self-compassion and neo-Pentecostal practitioners, which has been increasing in number in Brazil.


Evidences for criterion validity are valuable
to ascertain the efficacy of the measure into predicting an external variable. This variable is fundamental for its strong relationship to the construct being tapped by the scale: the association between scale and the criterion under study offers evidence that helps predicting the how the construct will perform in certain events in given contexts (Primi, Muniz, & Nunes, 2009;Reppold, Gurgel, & Hutz, 2014). As the Self-Compassion Scale is proven to be useful for assessments in clinical contexts, providing as much as validity evidence possible supports its relevance and strength for use by psychologists.
The self-compassion construct adopted for the scale has deep Buddhist influences. In this sense, for the present investigation the main hypothesis is that self-compassion is different between Brazilian religious practitioners from Catholicism and Buddhism, with the latter presenting higher scores than the former.
Self-compassion ensembles a positive emotional attitude towards oneself; it is compassion turned inward. Even though Western Psychology has begun to investigate self-compassion recently, it is a core concept to the Buddhist Philosophy. Growing interest in studying self-compassion came from a tendency of integrating Buddhist constructs such as mindfulness in Western Psychology -both in science and practice (Neff, 2003a;Neff & Lamb, 2009;Reppold & Menezes, 2016). The extent of the mindfulness interventions in Psychology is noticeable within the so-called third wave of cognitive-behavior psychotherapies, which include the Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, the Mindfulness Based Therapy, and the Compassion Focused Therapy (Stevens, 2016).
The pioneer psychological study into the selfcompassion construct is credited to Kristin Neff (www.self-compassion.org), the first to propose an operational definition and construct measurement through the Self-Compassion Scale (Neff, 2003b).
Since then, a considerable body of research on self-compassion has been developed, and published. Neff, Whittaker, and Karl (2017) show evidence that the measure is very sound.

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seeing one-self as chosen to suffer, isolating from other people. Mindfulness engenders a balanced awareness of thoughts and feelings that overcome the person in a given negative experience, instead of over-identifying with them -i.e., guiding all understanding of one-self, of everyone else, and of the world according to the lived suffering (Neff, 2003b(Neff, , 2016.
It is important to note that self-compassion is a construct apart from self-pity. This presupposes taking distance from other people and being absorbed by owns' problems. In doing so, one forgets that other people may also be experiencing the same difficulty, or even worse (Neff, 2003b(Neff, , 2016. One of the studies conducted amidst the process of developing the original scale also compared self-compassion between college students and Buddhist practitioners from the United States (Neff, 2003b). Results showed significant differences on self-compassion, with a higher score in Buddhist practitioners (p < .05).
Moreover, Buddhist participants also presented significantly higher scores on the positive factors of the Self-Compassion Scale (self-kindness, common humanity, and mindfulness), and lower scores on the negative factors (self-judgment, isolation, and over-identification). Further analysis indicated a significant positive correlation between self-compassion and years of religious practice amongst the Buddhist practitioners (r = .35; p < .05), i.e., a higher self-compassion scores goes along with duration of practice, precisely as hypothesized by Neff (2003b).
Another study that investigated the relation between religion and self-compassion used samples from Thailand, United States, and Taiwan (Neff, Pisitsungkagarn, & Hsieh, 2008). The Asian cultures involved in the study bear different takes on how to treat one-self. In Thailand, the way of life is predominantly influenced by Buddhism; in Taiwan, there is a strong influence of Confucianism, considered as a philosophy, instead of a religion. Confucianism recognizes shame, judgment, and the threat of isolation as ways into self-enhancement. Therefore due to the low religious variability of the Thai sample, Neff et al., (2008)

compared United States and
Taiwan. Results indicated that religious orientation did not predict self-compassion among American participants, nor among the Taiwanese.
Notwithstanding the results, Neff et al. (2008) found significant differences for self-compassion among the three cultures (p < .05). The highest self-compassion score was in the Thai sample (mean of 3.41), followed by the American sample (M = 3.14), followed by the Taiwan sample (M = 2.92).
The analysis also indicated that the Thais showed higher levels of self-kindness and mindfulness, as well as lower levels in self-judgment, isolation, and over-identification, compared to Americans and Taiwanese (Neff et al., 2008). There aren't many published investigations on self-compassion in Buddhist practitioners, even less in Brazil. It is relevant nevertheless to consider studies that tap into these aspects. Souza and Hutz (2016b) observed that selfdeclared Buddhists showed the highest score in self-compassion, compared to other religions.
Nonetheless, religious groups varied greatly on sample size and were not approach whether the religion was indeed practiced.
As aforementioned, we expect to find higher self-compassion in Buddhist practitioners, ibge.gov.br/brasil/pesquisa/23/22107). We also expect to find sex differences in self-compassion within groups, as indicated by previous studies (Neff, 2003b;Souza & Hutz, 2016a, b, c).
Our main goal is to present criterion validity evidence for the Brazilian version of the Self-Compassion Scale. Consequently, we also shed light into the relationship between religious practice and self-compassion in a Brazilian sample.

Method Participants
One-hundred and eighteen Brazilian adults participated on the study, with minimum age of 18 years-old and at least a high-school diploma.   (Souza & Hutz, 2016a).
As there are significant differences between men and women in terms of self-compassion (Neff, 2003b), results must acknowledge this on interpreting data. Brazilian studies have shown that women has lower self-compassion than men (Souza & Hutz, a, b), just as the same found in Neff's (2003b) north-American samples.

Ethical Considerations
This study was approved by the … Research Ethics Committee (approval number …). All participants provided informed consent according to the ethics committee guidelines.

Results
As expected, Buddhist practitioners presented higher score in self-compassion than Catholic practitioners: t(116) = 13.78, p < .001. The score in Concerning the association between duration of religious practice in years and selfcompassion in the Buddhist sample, there were no significant correlations (r = .19, p = .162). There was, nonetheless, a significant positive correlation between frequency of practice per week and self-compassion: r = .39, p = .003. As a result, the more the Buddhist practices her/his religion, the higher is her/his self-compassion score. We decided to divide the Buddhists practitioners in two groups: Group 1 up to 6 times/week of practice (n = 8), self-compassion mean score = 3.87 (SD = .73); and Group 2 daily practitioners (n = 49), self-compassion mean = 4.55 (SD = .41). The difference between groups was significant: t(55) = -3.812, p <.001. Cohen's d was 1.14.
Although not previously outlined, we performed other calculations, since the present study is mainly exploratory due to its topic. There were no significant correlations between age and the selfcompassion score within the Buddhist sample (r = -.06), neither within the Catholic sample (r = .10).

Discussion
According to the rationale that supports the construct of self-compassion (Neff, 2003a(Neff, , 2016 there is a strong Buddhist basis underneath the six elements that interact to generate the phenomenon. Taking this into account, it could be anticipated that Buddhist practitioners score higher in self-compassion than non-Buddhists. This in fact was observed by Neff (2003b), and some evidence along these lines was gathered by Souza and Hutz (2016b) in terms of religious affiliation, although without considering practice.
The present study, hence, contributes with a further look into religion and self-compassion, adding practice to the equation.
The main purpose of the present study was to provide evidence of criterion validity for the Brazilian-Portuguese Version of the Self-Compassion Scale (Souza & Hutz, 2016a, d). In order to carry out the investigation, we compared selfcompassion in Buddhist and Catholic practitioners.
Results showed that Buddhist practitioners scored significantly higher than Catholic participants in self-compassion, with a large effect size detected.

This favors adequate criterion validity for the
Brazilian version of the scale.
Results also suggested that duration of practice, as well as frequency of practice per week, have their own influence on Buddhist practitioners. The longest the person practices Buddhist meditation, the higher is her/his self-compassion score. This result is also consistent with Neff's (2003b) study with Buddhist practitioners and duration of practice.
Other evidence we provided for differentiating Buddhist practitioners was that the more frequent were the practices per week, the higher was their self-compassion score. This is interesting as, for instance, one of the elements of the construct of self-compassion -mindfulness -requires dedicated exercising of a meditative practice for one side, and the ability of keeping this skill functioning in the person's life (Reppold & Menezes, 2016).
The gender comparisons did not show the significant differences in self-compassion as it would be expected, according to previous studies (Souza & Hutz, 2016a, b). The one variable that is new to the present investigation is the practicing of the self-declared religion. It is possible that religious practice is beneficial to women, whom have been reported to show lower scores in self-compassion.
The limitation we would like to discuss about this study is sampling. Indeed we were not able to balance the amount of men and women for the Catholic practitioner's sample. In fact,