Mediating Effect of Perseverative Coping on the Association Between Self‐Compassion and Depressive Symptoms in College Students: A Longitudinal Study

Perseverative coping refers to the continued use of an ineffective strategy or reimplementation of a strategy that had been abandoned. Self-compassion refers to being supportive of oneself when experiencing suffering. However, little is known about the mechanisms underlying the association between self-compassion and depressive symptoms. In stress research, self-compassion can be regarded as a coping resource that influences coping strategy selection, while coping affects depressive symptoms (i.e., stress response). This study aimed to examine the hypothesis that perseverative coping mediates the relationship between self-compassion and depressive symptoms. The participants were 303 Japanese college students who completed questionnaires on self-compassion, perseverative coping and depressive symptoms. Eight months later, they completed a questionnaire exclusively on depressive symptoms. Structural equation modelling analyses revealed that higher levels of perseverative coping mediated the association between lower levels of self-compassion and greater depressive symptoms. This result was consistent with the predictions of a typical psychological stress model (i.e., transactional stress model). Our findings suggest that the stress model contributes to our understanding of the role of higher levels of self-compassion in decreasing depressive symptoms.