We’re excited to announce a recent publication with Dr. Booker and grad student Chloe Johnson. This paper, titled, “Personal strengths in a jarring time: Self-compassion and hope before and during COVID disruptions” is in press at the journal Emerging Adulthood. This manuscript involves a multi-cohort look at how individual differences in college adults’ hopefulness and self-compassion are important for psychological well-being.
- Hope is a measure of character focused on holding positive feelings and thoughts (i.e., views of oneself as able to accomplish things) about upcoming goals and opportunities.
- Self-compassion involves the common ways people think about themselves during times of setback and challenge–how they might show themselves forgiveness and understanding even when things don’t go their way.
Both hope and self-compassion are recognized as psychological assets or resources related to greater well-being day-to-day. Further, both hope and self-compassion reflect personality. They are stable over shorter spans of time. Yet, personality can be shaped by changes in the environment. We were interested in whether major environmental changes, like those related to different phases of the COVID-19 pandemic, would be related to differences in endorsements of hope and self-compassion, or in the ways hope and self-compassion are important for well-being.
We looked at how reports of hope and self-compassion might look different among different college groups studied 1) before the impacts of the COVID-19 pandmeic; 2) during major COVID-related shutdowns and remote living; and 3) in the years following major COVID-related shutdowns.
We used survey responses from approximately 1,430 college adults at the University of Missouri, who had been studied between the years of Fall 2019 and Spring 2022. Students completed measures about hope, self-compassion, psychological well-being, and (once COVID began impacting daily life) depressive and anxious problems.
We found that reports of hopefulness did decline across groups of young adults, especially as COVID disruptions, like lockdowns and remote learning, were in place. However, the benefits of hope and self-compassion for psychological well-being were consistent across different points of time. In fact, self-compassion showed even stronger benefits for greater well-being and fewer depressive problems during different stages of COVID impacts.
Overall, our work reinforced that personality can be influenced by what is going on in the environment; that differences in people’s personalities remain important for well-being across both typical and unpredictable periods of time; and that the idea that people’s personality differences might be especially beneficial in certain environmental contexts.
References and Additional Readings:
Booker, J. A., Brakke, K., & Pierre, N. (2022). It’s time to make more goals so I can keep pushing: Hope, growth, and well-being among young Black women. Emerging Adulthood, 10(4), 21676968221089179. https://doi.org/10.1177/21676968221089179
Booker, J. A., & Johnson, C. L. (2024). Personality and resilience in a jarring time: Self-compassion and hope before and during COVID disruptions. Emerging Adulthood, 21676968241257000. https://doi.org/10.1177/21676968241257000
Booker, J. A., & Perlin, J. D. (2021). Using multiple character strengths to inform young adults’ self-compassion: The potential of hope and forgiveness. The Journal of Positive Psychology, 16(3), 379–389. https://doi.org/10/ggkdgj
The Milestones Lab at Mizzou 