Rumination, Optimism, and Psychological Well-Being among the Elderly: Self-Compassion as a Predictor

Different research paradigms advocate for different lines of doing scientific studies, among them emancipatory paradigm campaigns to bring in marginalized segments into mainstream research (Mertens, 2009). Elderly people are not researched as other age groups are studied. Though the field of gerontology has been shedding lights on the phenomenon of aging since 1990 in west but here in Pakistan this field is still in germination phase. The increased life expectancy through better medical and health care facilities (World Health Organization, 2011) has highlighted the research needs of elderly, so that they may also benefit from the services of social scientists.Mental health of elderly is of prime importance in the face of physical and social stresses (Gadit, 2010). Various mental health attributes are seen to have an impact on one's capability to deal with troublesome circumstances with other age groups (Conversano et al., 2010; Neff & Costigan, 2014; Nolen-Hoeksema, Wisco, & Lyubomirsky, 2008), here these are to be explored among elderly. Phenomenon of self-compassion has led to inculcate the positive psychological functioning among many of the individuals experiencing psychological disturbances (Neff, & Pommier, 2013; Neff & McGehee, 2010; Pinto-Gouveia, Duarte, Matos, & Fraguas, 2014; Terry, Leary, & Mehta, 2012). Therefore possible health propagating role of self-compassion is explored among the elderly.The phenomenon of self-compassion is a composite of three interacting components. Self-kindness refers to have a kind and understanding perspective of one's sufferings and failures that calls for using a soft and supportive language instead of criticizing, disapproving, and taking an attacking position where self-judgment is strengthened. Common humanity means failures are commonplace and happen to all human beings, one should not therefore think to be the only person moving through difficult circumstances. Mindfulness is having an optimal level of awareness about one's pain and sufferings i.e., a middle path is taken between suppression and exaggeration. Self-judgment, isolation, and over-identification represent the other extreme for each of respective component (Neff, 2003a; 2003b). Collectively a self-compassionate individual bear up the awful circumstances with an understanding of themselves, recognizing the universal sharing of those events by the mankind instead of adopting "why me" type thinking and finally a balanced awareness of sufferings is generated in place of exaggeration verses self-pity (Neff, 2003b). When self-views get poisoned in response to one's dire conditions self-compassion is thought to be a potential intervention that can generate fruitful results (Neff & McGehee, 2010) for instance lower tendencies for rumination and thought suppression (Neff, Kirkpatrick, & Rude, 2007). These individuals are supposed to feed their autonomy, competence, and relatedness needs (Neff, 2003a) thus heightened levels of psychological well-being might be experienced.Rumination is a maladaptive affect handling strategy where response to distress involves constant thinking about various indicators of distress, possible causes, and consequences of agony that one experience. Such responses are not action oriented and only comprise of persistent thoughts (Nolen-Hoeksema, 1991). Although many individuals report experiencing at least mild levels of rumination (Treynor, Gonzalez, & Nolen-Hoeksema, 2003), most people do not develop diagnosable depression. The ruminative thinking patterns are seen to amplify depressive moods, hinder problem solving, extract motivation and initiative, and thus one is withdrawn from constructive behaviors. They are therefore more inclined to experience social friction (NolenHoeksema et al., 2008). The concept of optimism deals with one's expectations about the future circumstances. When one believes to have more of good outcomes in comparison to bad outcomes in future, one is thought to be more optimistic (Scheier & Carver, 1985). …