Being Compassionate with Yourself May Help Bridge Political Divides
Updated: Jan 6
Gina M. Masullo Associate Director, Knight Faculty FellowNewsletter
SUMMARY Being able to form relationships with people you disagree with or viewing them with compassion is not easy. In this study, the Center for Media Engagement wanted to find out what types of personal self-compassion are more common among people who are better at doing this. We found that:
The more sense of common humanity – a type of self-compassion where people recognize that feeling down or that their own failings are common human experiences – people felt, the more likely they were to feel they had the skills to develop relationships with those they disagree with.
However, counter to our expectations, the more self-kindness – a type of self-compassion where people are patient with their own flaws – people felt, the more they favored those who share their political beliefs over those who do not.
Neither type of self-compassion showed any relationship with perceptions that society is politically divided.
Our findings show that fostering a sense of common humanity with others may be helpful in bridging some types of societal divides and may enable people to navigate societal differences more effectively.
THE PROBLEM Americans increasingly dislike or have animosity toward people they disagree with politically, and they often do not want to talk through those differences.1 This can be harmful in a democracy because it can hamper people’s ability to work together to solve problems or to see issues from a different viewpoint.2
A Center for Media Engagement study3 recently found that some Americans have adopted strategies for talking with those who disagree with them, such as advocating for their own viewpoint, rather than criticizing others’ beliefs. Another CME study4 found that particular habits people have – such as wanting to talk about political differences – made it more likely that they would have more balanced views toward their political out-group and in-group.
This project expands on these ideas by examining whether people who have a lot of compassion for themselves might extend this compassion to others5 and whether, as a result, they may be more likely to feel competent to form relationships with those they disagree with or be more likely to perceive their political opponents or society through a less divisive lens. This research is part of our connective democracy initiative, funded by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. Connective democracy seeks to find practical solutions to the problem of divisiveness.
KEY FINDINGS
The more sense of common humanity – a type of self-compassion where people recognize that feeling down or that their own failings are common human experiences – people felt, the more likely they were to feel they had the skills to develop relationships with those they disagree with.
However, counter to our expectations, the more self-kindness – a type of self-compassion where people are patient with their own flaws – people felt, the more they favored those who share their political beliefs over those who do not.
Neither type of self-compassion showed any relationship with perceptions that society is politically divided.
IMPLICATIONS Our findings show that at least one type of self-compassion – a sense of common humanity with others – may be helpful to people seeking to form relationships with those they disagree with. Fostering this type of self-compassion may enable people to navigate societal differences more effectively. However, another type of self-compassion – self-kindness – may have unintended negative consequences for how people view their political out-groups in comparison to their in-groups. More efforts should be taken to balance the benefits of self-kindness with the potential unintended negative consequences.
FULL FINDINGS We surveyed 1,010 people representative of the U.S. adult population about their attitudes regarding political disagreement. We looked at three items:
Relationship skills – having a sense they could form relationships with those they disagree with.6
Affective polarization – having negative views of those with different political beliefs while favoring those who share their political beliefs.7
Perception of polarization – how divided people perceive that Democrats and Republicans are.8
We also surveyed participants about their sense of compassion toward themselves.9 Specifically, we looked at two kinds of self-compassion:10
Self-kindness – being patient with one’s own flaws.
Sense of common humanity – recognizing that feeling down or their own failings are common human experiences.
Then we performed statistical tests to see which types of self-compassion were more likely among people who felt more competent to form relationships with those they disagree with or among those with more balanced views about their political in-group and out-group or about how divided political parties are. Our results showed the following:
People high in a sense of common humanity were more likely to feel competent to form relationships with those they disagree with, but self-kindness showed no significant relationship.11
People high in self-kindness were more likely to be affectively polarized (have negative views of those with different political beliefs while favoring those who share their own political beliefs), but sense of common humanity showed no significant relationship.12
People high in either self-kindness or sense of common of humanity were no more or less likely to view political parties as more divided.13