Details of research

The aim of this study is to develop a new self-report measure which will focus on people’s experiences of receiving compassion. In 2017, our research team, including two international collaborating research groups, published the Compassion Engagement and Action Scales (CEAS) which consists of three orientations to compassion. These are: 1. self-compassion; 2. showing compassion to others; and 3. responsiveness to receiving compassion from others. This study will add to the three already existing and well validated CEAS measures with a better measure of openness to compassion from others.

One of the reasons for developing an additional subscale is to improve the wording of the compassion from others scale so that it more accurately reflects the intention of the researchers. This is in response to feedback received post publication by colleagues, who pointed out that the wording of the scale is actually linked more to the availability of compassionate other(s) rather than measuring the person’s responsiveness to receiving compassion. To be more precise, the instructions ask about the degree to which one feels that important people in their life can be compassionate to their distress. In our new scale the wording has been revised to enhance clarity and there will also be a slight compensatory change to the wording of the actual response items.

The revised CEAS, will consist of four subscales which are: 

  • Self-compassion, 
  • compassion to others, 
  • the availability of compassion from others and 
  • responsiveness to compassion from others. 

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Availability of compassion from others is probably closer to social support whereas the responsiveness to compassion is more linked to attachment dynamics.

We will also explore several factors that are linked to openness for compassion: 

  • Memories of warmth and safeness, 
  • current feelings of social safeness, 
  • external shame, social comparison, 
  • attachment style and 
  • striving to avoid inferiority.