ABSTRACT

Students have always associated higher secondary examination with stress, fear and confusion, mainly due to two reasons-firstly, the approaching board exams, leading to the pressure to excel at academics in order to ensure admission in good colleges. Secondly, due to the inevitable decision of choosing a possible career path, that might determine their destiny. During such stressful times, the ability to look at oneself with kindness and concern is expected to play a huge role in ensuring one’s well-being. Gilbert (2005) suggests that self-compassion enhances well-being because it helps individuals to feel cared for, connected, and emotionally calm.Self-compassion involves being caring and compassionate towards oneself in the face of hardship or perceived inadequacy (KornWeld, 1993; Hanh, 1997; Salzberg, 1997; Bennett-Goleman, 2001; Brach, 2003). Therefore, it would be interesting to find out whether students scoring high on self-compassion are indeed able to cope better with stress and are high on career aspiration. This study also seeks to examine the differences on self-compassion, perceived stress and career aspiration among students studying in class 12. A sample of 120 students, 60 from sciences and 60 from humanities, (comprising of 30 males and 30 females from each faculty), was taken and the differences between the two groups were analysed using t-test. The differences were seen in light of gender and faculty- sciences and humanities, in the context of the present study. The results of the study have suggested that self-compassion indeed negatively correlates with perceived stress and positively correlates with educational aspirations. Results and implications have further been discussed in detail.