The relationship between perceptions of racism and self-compassion in Greek university students

Abstract

OBJECTIVE To investigate the relationship between perceptions of racism, socio-demographic characteristics and levels of self-compassion in Greek university students. METHOD A cross-sectional, online study was conducted with 251 students of two departments of the University of the Peloponnese in Tripolis. The questionnaire included sociodemographic characteristics, the Self-Compassion Scale (SCS) and the Perceived Impact of Racism scale. Data analysis was conducted with the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (IBM SPSS), version 20.0. RESULTS A total of 251 students completed the questionnaire, with an average age of 23.9±6.6 years, 173 of whom were women (68.9%). On the SCS, the participants scored the highest on the mindfulness subscale (3.11±0.90), followed by the self-criticism (2.88±0.89) and over identification (2.86±0.93) subscales. On the scale Perceived Impact of Racism scale, the highest score was recorded on the subscale of “racism” as a major problem, but with a mean score lower than the median, indicating that the participants did not recognize racism as a major problem. Regarding socio-demographic characteristics, statistically significant correlation was demonstrated between racist perceptions and gender, age, and religious beliefs. CONCLUSIONS These results confirm the findings of the current literature, showing correlation of selfcompassion with non-manifestation of racist perceptions. © Athens Medical Society.