The relationship between parental attachment and self-compassion of university students

The aim of this study is to determine the predictive role of parental attachment on the self-compassion levels in university students, and whether they differed according to gender, faculty, caregiver at childhood, mother's working status, mother's education level, father's education level. The universe of this study is university students who are studying at Akdeniz University. The research group of the study includes 374 (263 female and 111 male) university students selected from the Faculty of Education, the Faculty of Literature and the Faculty of Law. The data were collected by the researcher in March-April 2018. Data collection was performed using the Self-compassion Scale and Inventory of Parent Attachment and the Personal Information Form. The independent variable of the study is the parent attachment. The independent variables of the study is self-compassion and sub-dimensions (self-kindness, self-judgement, common humanity, isolation, mindfulness and over-identification). The results of the t-tests showed that male university students had significantly higher scores than female students on mindfulness subscale and self-judgement scores of the student whose caregiver was mother and father together at childhood were lower than the other groups. ANOVA results showed that the Law Faculty students had significantly higher scores on the self-judgement scale; students whose father had higher education had significantly higher scores on the self-kindness and awareness scales and students whose mother had higher education had significantly higher scores on the awareness scale compared to other groups. Multiple linear regression analysis showed that attachment to the mother was the significant positive predictor of the self-compassion and all the sub-dimensions; attachment to the father was the positive predictor of self-kindness, common humanity and mindfulness dimensions of self-compassion.