If you have walked through a cancer diagnosis, or stood beside someone who has, you already know how much compassion matters. You have probably noticed something else, too. Many of the most caring people I meet are the ones who drive a neighbor to chemotherapy, worry more about their children than about their own scans, and never forget to feed the dog. And many of those same people are remarkably hard on themselves. They hand out comfort freely and keep very little for themselves.
A study published in April 2026 in the journal Personality and Individual Differences puts real numbers to that pattern. Researchers Bassam Khoury of McGill University and Rodrigo Vergara of Chile asked a question that has rarely been studied: when we look at compassion toward yourself, toward other people, and toward animals all at once, what kinds of people show up, and how are they doing emotionally? Their answer has practical meaning for anyone trying to heal, and for everyone caring for someone who is.
How the Study Was Done
The research team recruited 1,286 Canadian adults online. Participants averaged 45 years of age, and 77% were women. Most had very little meditation experience; the typical participant had logged fewer than two hours of meditation in their entire life, so this was not a group of seasoned contemplatives.
Everyone completed three questionnaires the team had developed and tested in earlier work, one each for compassion toward the self, toward other people, and toward animals. Each questionnaire looks at compassion from several angles: thinking and feeling compassionately, acting (or intending to act) with compassion, and feeling connected to the suffering of others. Participants also answered well-established questionnaires on stress, anxiety, depression, positive and negative mood, emotion regulation skills, social connectedness, feeling safe with other people, connection with nature, life satisfaction, and overall psychological well-being.
The researchers then used a method called latent profile analysis on the 861 people who had complete compassion answers. In plain terms, this approach lets the data sort people into groups that share a similar overall pattern, rather than lining everyone up on a single scale from “less compassionate” to “more compassionate.” Three months later, 213 participants took the same questionnaires again, which allowed the team to see how stable these patterns were over time.
Six Kinds of Compassionate People
Six distinct profiles emerged, and the names the researchers gave them are worth knowing.
The Others-Oriented group (158 people) scored high in compassion toward both people and animals, yet low in compassion toward themselves. The Animals-Oriented group (96 people) showed strong compassion for animals but low compassion for other humans and for themselves. The Behaviorally-Oriented group (239 people, the largest) stood out for acting on compassion, or intending to, toward both people and animals, with moderate scores everywhere else, including self-compassion.
The Human-Oriented group (126 people) had moderate compassion for themselves and for other people, but low compassion for animals. The Restricted group (131 people) was nearly the mirror image of the Others-Oriented group: moderate self-compassion, but low compassion toward other humans and toward animals. Finally, the Integral, or Highly Compassionate, group (111 people) scored high across every direction and every dimension, toward self, people, and animals alike.
Interestingly, no group was low in all three directions. The authors suggest this probably reflects who signs up for a study about compassion in the first place; most volunteers already carried at least some compassion in one direction or another.
The Most Striking Finding: Caring for Everyone but Yourself
Here is the result that should give every devoted caregiver pause. The Others-Oriented and Animals-Oriented groups, the two groups whose compassion flowed outward while their self-compassion stayed low, carried a heavier emotional load than most of the others. They reported more perceived stress, anxiety, and depression, more negative mood, and less positive mood. They also scored lower on emotion regulation skills, life satisfaction, psychological well-being, social connectedness, and feeling safe around other people.
In other words, pouring compassion outward did not protect these individuals when it was paired with a harsh inner voice. The authors put it plainly: compassion directed only toward others may not be psychologically beneficial without self-compassion.
The Restricted group, low in compassion for people and animals, also reported elevated symptoms. Yet their moderate self-compassion appeared to cushion them somewhat. Compared with the two self-critical groups, they reported more positive mood, greater social connectedness and social safety, better life satisfaction, and somewhat better emotion regulation. Kindness toward oneself seemed to partially buffer these effects, though it was not enough on its own.
At the other end, the Integral group, high in compassion in every direction, showed the healthiest picture of all. They had the lowest levels of stress, anxiety, depression, and negative mood, along with the highest positive mood, emotion regulation, well-being, and sense of connection to people and to nature. The Behaviorally-Oriented and Human-Oriented groups generally fell in between.
This fits a larger body of research. A meta-analysis by MacBeth and Gumley found a consistent link between higher self-compassion and fewer symptoms of psychological distress. In a study of people treated for depression, Krieger and colleagues found that low self-compassion predicted later depressive symptoms over 12 months, while depression did not predict later self-compassion. And in people living with cancer, Zhu and colleagues found that self-compassion helped predict later symptoms of depression, anxiety, and fatigue.
None of this should surprise us. The great commandment tells us to love our neighbor as ourselves (Mark 12:31). That short phrase assumes a healthy regard for the self as the measure and the starting point. Self-compassion is not selfishness. It is part of wise stewardship of the life you have been given, and it may be the very thing that keeps your care for others from running dry.
Why Animals Belong in the Conversation
Most compassion research has looked only at how we treat ourselves and other people. This study deliberately widened the circle to include animals, and the authors explain why that matters.
We are designed with a deep capacity for caregiving, a built-in drive to protect the vulnerable and to soothe distress. We can direct that capacity toward ourselves, toward other people, and toward the creatures around us. Animals often draw out our tenderness without any of the complications that come with people. A dog does not judge you, gossip about you, or reject you. The authors propose that compassion for animals may therefore be a lower-threat doorway into caregiving, one that stays open even for people who find it hard to be kind to themselves or to trust other people.
That doorway has real value. Still, in this study, compassion for animals alone did not lead to emotional health. The Animals-Oriented group showed the weakest connections between their emotion regulation skills and how they actually felt, as though the coping tools they reported were not quite linking up with their daily emotional lives. The best outcomes belonged to the group whose compassion reached in all three directions at once. For those of us who see caring for animals and for the natural world as part of our calling to steward creation, it is encouraging to see that this wider circle of care travels together with inner peace and well-being.
Who Tends to Land Where
Age and gender differed across the profiles. The Integral group was the oldest, averaging about 55 years, while the Restricted group was the youngest, averaging about 36. Men made up 15% of the overall sample but 27.5% of the Restricted group. The authors caution against reading too much into the gender difference. It may reflect how many men are raised to express, or not express, tender emotions, and how comfortable they feel reporting them, rather than any real difference in their capacity for compassion.
People in the Integral and Behaviorally-Oriented groups were somewhat more likely to say that meditation held an important place in their daily life, although total lifetime meditation hours did not differ between groups. With so little meditation practice across the whole sample, that is not surprising.
Compassion Holds Steady, but It Needs Tending
Over the three-month follow-up, compassion scores stayed largely stable in every group. The authors read this as a sign that compassion behaves somewhat like a settled trait, one that does not shift much on its own without practice or a structured program.
There was one telling exception. The Integral group showed small declines in compassionate action toward other people and toward animals, and the Others-Oriented group showed smaller declines as well. The authors suggest that acting on compassion takes more time, energy, and opportunity than thinking or feeling compassionately does. When life gets busy or hard, the actions tend to slip first, even for the kindest among us.
The encouraging part is that compassion can be cultivated. A meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials by Ferrari and colleagues found that self-compassion programs reduced stress, anxiety, depression, and rumination while improving positive mood and life satisfaction. The Mindful Self-Compassion program studied by Neff and Germer is one well-known example. Like a garden, compassion grows best when it is tended regularly.
Emotion Regulation May Work Differently From One Person to the Next
The researchers also explored how emotion regulation skills related to symptoms and mood within each group, both at the start and three months later. The patterns differed in interesting ways.
In the Integral group, emotion regulation was strongly tied to symptoms and mood at the same moment, but those links largely faded by the three-month mark, while symptoms stayed low. The authors suggest these people may call on their coping skills flexibly, as needed, and then set them down when life is calm. The Restricted group showed nearly the opposite pattern, with fewer links at the start and stronger ones three months later, along with steadier regulation reports. That could point to a less flexible style in which stress quietly accumulates. The Behaviorally-Oriented group showed the most consistent pattern, with their regulation skills steadily tied to how they felt at both time points.
Because the follow-up groups were small, treat these findings as early clues rather than firm conclusions. Still, they raise a helpful idea: the coping strategies that serve one person well may not serve another in the same way, and a person’s pattern of compassion may be part of the reason.
What This Means for You
If you recognize yourself as the one who gives and gives while speaking to yourself with criticism, this study is a gentle invitation to redirect some of that kindness. Self-compassion is a skill, and you can learn it. A simple place to begin is to notice how you talk to yourself on a hard day and ask whether you would ever speak that way to a frightened friend. If the answer is no, try offering yourself the words you would offer them.
Some people find that self-kindness feels uncomfortable or even undeserved. Researchers have a name for this: fears of compassion, and a meta-analysis by Kirby and colleagues found that these fears are tied to poorer psychological functioning. If receiving kindness, even your own, feels threatening, that is worth exploring gently, perhaps with a counselor, pastor, or trusted friend.
If you are a caregiver for someone with cancer, please hear this clearly. Caring for yourself is not a betrayal of the person you love. The research suggests that compassion flowing only outward, with nothing coming back in, is linked with more stress, anxiety, and depression. Rest, a kind word to yourself, and accepting help help you keep showing up.
If you are a patient, the same principle applies. In integrative oncology, we pay close attention to the body’s whole terrain, and chronic stress is part of that terrain. How you treat yourself through the hard days of diagnosis, treatment, and recovery is worth your attention.
Finally, remember that compassionate action is the part most likely to slip when life gets demanding. Small, regular acts of kindness toward people, animals, and yourself help keep that capacity alive. Time with a pet or time in nature can be a welcome doorway, especially for anyone who finds kindness toward people or toward the self difficult. Just do not let it be the only door you walk through.
Keeping the Findings in Perspective
Like every study, this one has limits, and the authors are candid about them. Most participants were women and English-speaking Canadians who volunteered online, so the results may not apply equally to everyone. Many participants did not finish every questionnaire, which reduced the main analysis from 1,286 people to 861, and only 213 returned at three months, leaving some profile groups quite small. The questionnaires were given in a fixed order, which can affect how carefully people answer, although the measures showed very good internal reliability. The compassion questionnaires are also newer tools that have performed well in validation studies but are not yet widely used.
Most importantly, this was an observational study. It shows how compassion patterns relate to emotional health, but it cannot prove that one causes the other. Earlier long-term research, such as a study of more than 1,000 adults by Lee and colleagues, found that compassion toward self and others predicted better mental well-being and less loneliness over time, which lends some support to the idea that compassion comes first. The authors call for future studies that follow people longer and test whether changing a person’s compassion profile changes how they feel.
A Closing Thought
This study reminds us that compassion is not one thing but a flow that can move in several directions. The people who seemed to fare best were those whose kindness reached outward to others and to the creatures around them, and inward to themselves as well. That picture sounds a great deal like the life we are called to live. Love your neighbor, care for creation, and do not forget that you, too, are worthy of the gentleness you give so freely to everyone else.
References
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