Exploration of caregiver behavior on fear of emotion, spirituality, and self-compassion

Self-compassion has positive implications for psychological health; however, less is known regarding the role and impact of early experiences, attitudes toward emotion, and spirituality in the development of self-compassion. Structural path analysis was used to explore the impact of emotionally validating or invalidating caregiver behavior on fear of emotion, spirituality and self-compassion. Initial analyses indicated that fear of emotion served as an important mediator between caregiver validation/invalidation and self-compassion. Although the initial model demonstrated excellent fit, exploratory analyses revealed distinct patterns of associations when accounting for participant and caregiver gender, with fear of emotion playing a stronger mediating role for females. Results suggest that caregiver interactions differentially influence self-compassion based on gender. Potential explanations and implications are discussed.