Using Compassionate Language: Faking It with Others or Directing It toward Oneself

Abstract

In two lines of work, I explore the effects of using compassionate language. In the first line, I examine how social support that is not backed by sincere emotion is perceived, and whether it can be effective for making people feel better. In a between-subjects online study (N = 200) and a lab study with dyads of strangers (N = 144), I show that provider sincerity is less important for effective support than support recipients believe. Since recipients' accuracy is limited and biased with regard to sincerity, being supportive without emotional motivation could in cases be just as effective as the 'real' thing. The second line of work asks whether self-distancing promotes self-compassion. In four online experiments (Ns = 209, 411, 224, 567) where subjects write about a problem for which they blame themselves, those who wrote from a distanced perspective consistently used more compassionate language to discuss it than those who wrote from an immersed perspective. There was evidence that this kind of compassionate language was associated with feeling more self-compassion. Basic science and clinical implications of both lines of work are discussed.