Self-compassion, psychological resilience and social media use in Thai and British higher education students

Boonlue, Thanyalak (2017) Self-compassion, psychological resilience and social media use in Thai and British higher education students. Doctoral thesis, Northumbria University.

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Abstract

Young people face a number of important changes as they embark on their university studies and previous research has suggested that self-compassion and psychological resilience are likely to be the protective factors for young people during this transition point. To date, no research has focused on self-compassion, psychological resilience among Thai and British students. Furthermore we are yet to develop an understanding of how social media amongst other factors affects self-compassion and psychological resilience, in particular how social media use might help students to better deal with potential difficulties in their lives.

The aim of this thesis was to explore the factors that affect self-compassion and psychological resilience among Thai and British university students and to explore the role that social media use has on these constructs.

Using a mixed methods approach, a total of 767 University students (482 Thai and 285 British undergraduate students) completed a questionnaire examining the predictors of self- compassion and psychological resilience and this was then followed up with 42 in-depth semi structured interviews (21 Thai and 21 British undergraduate students). The results of the questionnaire showed that personal factors and social media factors were predictors of self-compassion in both Thai and British students. In addition, social support and perceived success influenced psychological resilience among Thai and British students. The qualitative data showed that Thai and British students had experienced similar kinds of problems, for example, academic problems and relationship difficulties. The findings highlighted the importance of family and friends for helping Thai and British students to deal with difficulties in life while teachers and social media also had a small but important role to play. Finally, the findings highlighted that the different cultural dimensions had a vital effect on understanding self-compassion, psychological resilience and social media use in Thai and British students.

These findings provide insights for Thai and British university lecturers as to how to use social media to enhance self-compassion and psychological resilience in their students. They also provide beneficial information for Thai and British university lecturers and psychologists to develop programs to enhance Thai and British students’ self-compassion, psychological resilience and effective social media use. Finally, the findings of this thesis will help Thai and British university lecturers, counsellors or psychologists to assist vulnerable students in dealing with the difficulties they face in an appropriate manner.

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