The Mediating Effect of Self-compassionin the Relationship between Adult Attachmentand Social Anxiety of College Students

The purpose of this study was to verify the mediating effect of self-compassion in the relationship between adult attachment and social anxiety among college students. This study conducted an offline survey on adult attachment, social anxiety, and self-compassion among university students located in Gwangju Metropolitan City, and a total of 297 responses were analyzed. To verify the mediating effect of self-compassion, the ‘psych’ package in the R Program was used. The main results of this study are as follows : First, adult attachment had a positive effect on social interaction anxiety. Second, self-compassion partially mediated the effect of adult attachment on social interaction anxiety. Third, adult attachment had a positive effect on performance anxiety. Fourth, self-compassion also partially mediated the effect of adult attachment on performance anxiety. Based on these findings, it was suggested that it is important to reduce social anxiety through the positive mediating variable of self-compassion, especially given that insecure adult attachment is relatively difficult to modify. The implications and limitations of this study were discussed, along with suggestions for future research.