Date of Award
Spring 2017
Rights
Access is available to all users
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Science (MS) in Psychology: Clinical
Department
Psychology
Abstract
To date, there is a great deal of research supporting the correlation between experiences of shame and struggles with clinical anger. What has received less attention is the nature of this relationship. The current study sought to explore the nature of shame’s correlation to clinical anger by analyzing fears of compassion—the reluctance or inability to experience compassion for others, to accept compassion from others, and fear of directing compassion to the self. It was hypothesized that fears of compassion would function as a mediating variable between shame and anger. Participants were administered self-report questionnaires measuring levels of anger, shame, fear of compassion for others, fear of compassion from others, and fear of compassion for the self. The results revealed that the fears of compassion, although significantly related to both shame and anger, did not significantly reduce the correlation between shame and anger, and therefore, did not function as a mediator. Future research regarding the nature of the shame-anger relationship might benefit from exploring other related areas such as attachment, trust, and resisting self-attacks as possible mediator.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.
Recommended Citation
Whetsel, Tiffany, "EXAMINING FEARS OF COMPASSION AS A POTENTIAL MEDIATOR BETWEEN SHAME AND ANGER" (2017). EWU Masters Thesis Collection. 422.
https://dc.ewu.edu/theses/422
