Mindful Self-compassion and Perfectionism

A Randomized Controlled Trial of a Mindful Self-compassion Intervention to Improve Evaluative Concerns Perfectionism, Depression, Anxiety, and Unhealthy Body Image in College Students

The study is a randomized controlled study. A total of 200 students will be invited to participate in a 5-session mindful self-compassion course aimed at increasing self-compassion and reducing maladaptive perfectionism, anxiety, depression, and unhealthy body image. Self-compassion is the ability to show oneself kindness in instances of perceived inadequacy, failure, and suffering by attending to distressing experiences with kindness, mindfulness, and the ability to recognize these as a part of a shared humanity. Twelve participants will be randomly selected for pre- and post interviews to qualitatively evaluate outcome. Ten participants with high perfectionistic tendencies will be selected to participate in a narrative life story interview.

The investigators will test four hypotheses: At baseline, low levels of maladaptive perfectionism, and lower levels of depression, anxiety and body appreciation - reversed, will be related to greater self-compassion. The investigators expect high level of maladaptive perfectionism to be related to lower baseline self-compassion, higher levels of depression and anxiety and lower levels of body appreciation. The intervention, a five session self-compassion intervention, will be sufficient to induce positive changes in perfectionism and psychological symptoms of anxiety, depression and body-appreciation- reversed. Changes in self-compassion will co-vary with changes in maladaptive perfectionism and body appreciation. Higher baseline levels of maladaptive perfectionism will predict greater gains from the intervention, because perfectionistic students will have greater need for a self-compassion intervention.

Receiving no intervention (control groups will be offered the intervention after the experimental group has completed the course)

Mindful self-compassion is a course developed by Kristin Neff and Christopher Germer designed to cultivate self-compassion as measured by three subcategories: self-kindness, mindfulness, and a sense of common humanity. This study will shorten the original 8-week course to 5 sessions, and will include interventions and lectures aimed directly toward addressing evaluative concerns perfectionism.

Adaptive perfectionism as measured by the "Personal Standards" subscale and maladaptive perfectionism/evaluative concerns perfectionism as measured by "Doubts about Actions" and "Concern over Mistakes" subscales of the Frost Multidimensional Perfectionism Scale. Personal Standards consists of seven items (6 items for "pure personal standards"), Doubt about Actions consists of four items, and Concern over Mistakes consists of 9 items. All items are on a 5-point Likert scale ranging from strongly disagree to disagree with higher scores indicating most perfectionistic tendencies. Full range: 20-100 with higher scores representing more perfectionistic tendencies. Evaluative concerns perfectionism range: 13-65, higher scores indicate more evaluative concerns perfectionism. Personal standards range: 7-35 with higher scores indicating higher personal standards.

Baseline (two for control group), one week prior to intervention, every week for four weeks until completion of intervention (including one week after last session), 6 months after intervention

Body image as measured by the 13 item Body Appreciation Scale consisting of a 5-point Likert scale. Range: 13-65, lower scores indicating no body appreciation and higher scores indicating greater body appreciation.

Baseline (two for control group), one week prior to intervention, one week after last session, 6 months after intervention

Depressive tendencies as measured by the 12 item Major Depression Inventory which measures symptoms of depression on a 6-point Likert scale (not at all to all of the time), range: 12-72, with higher scores indicating more symptoms of depression.

Baseline (two for control group), one week prior to intervention, every week for four weeks until completion of intervention (including one week after last session), 6 months after intervention

Anxiety as measured by the 20 item "trait subscale" of the State and Trait Anxiety Inventory. The Inventory consists of a 4-point Likert scale (almost never to almost always), range: 20-80, higher scores indicating greater anxiety.

Baseline (two for control group), one week prior to intervention, every week for four weeks until completion of intervention (including one week after last session), 6 months after intervention

Assessment of self-compassion with the Self-Compassion Scale short form.Total score range from 12 (no self-compassion) to 60 (high on self-compassion). Higher values represent greater self-compassion, lower scores indicate no self-compassion.

Baseline (two for control group), one week prior to intervention, every week for four weeks until completion of intervention (including one week after last session), 6 months after intervention

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