HOW THIS TEST WORKS
How How Self-Compassionate Am I? works
How version core-v1 is scored, and what it can and cannot tell you.
How it is scored
Self-compassion means treating yourself with the care you would give a good friend. Neff (2003) described three parts: being kind to yourself, remembering that struggle is part of being human, and noticing painful feelings with balanced awareness. Reviews find that self-compassion is linked with less anxiety and low mood (MacBeth and Gumley, 2012), that short training courses can lower stress for many people (Neff and Germer, 2013), and that people who respond to failure with self-compassion are more willing to try again (Breines and Chen, 2012). Self-compassion is also linked with caring for your health (Sirois and others, 2015).
This test looks at five areas: being kind to yourself, remembering you are not alone, noticing feelings without being swept away, facing mistakes with care, and looking after your own needs. Each area has eight sentences. Four describe a self-compassionate habit and four describe the opposite. Each answer gives 0 to 4 points. Each area score runs from 0 to 100, and your overall score is the average of the five.
PersonalitySite.com wrote all of these questions and descriptions. They are not copied from any other test.
What it cannot tell you
This test is for learning about yourself. It is not a diagnosis. It cannot tell you if you have depression, anxiety, or any other condition. Do not use it to hire, judge, rank, or label people.
A lower score does not mean something is wrong with you. A harsh inner voice often has roots in how you were treated, and it can be hard to change alone. Self-compassion is also understood differently across cultures.
This version has not yet been tested with a large group of people, so we do not yet know how accurate it is.