Average self-compassion score: Self-Compassion Scale averages from Korea and the US

The Self-Compassion Scale (SCS) was developed by the US psychologist Kristin Neff. On a 1 to 5 scale, it asks how often you are kind to yourself in hard moments, see difficulties as part of being human and hold your feelings in balance, and how often you do the opposite: judge yourself harshly, feel you are the only one going through it, or get swept up in your feelings. The items on the opposite side are reverse-scored before averaging, so a higher score means more self-compassion. The mind.io self-compassion test uses the scale’s 12-item short form.

In 500 Korean adults, 100 from each age group from the 20s to 60 and over, the average was 3.35. In the study that built the short form, 415 US students averaged 3.00, and 3.01 on the full 26-item scale.

This guide sets out the figures from the two sources, differences by age and gender, how the score relates to mental health, how to compare your own score, and what to keep in mind when reading the numbers.

Lim, Li and Seo (2026) gave the 26-item Korean version of the Self-Compassion Scale (K-SCS) to 500 Korean adults registered with an online survey panel. They recruited 100 people each in their 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s and 60 and over, half men and half women in every age group; the average age was 44.8.

As a 1 to 5 item mean, self-compassion averaged 3.35 (standard deviation 0.54). On the rough ranges from Neff that mind.io uses, that is in the upper part of “moderate” (2.50 to 3.50). With a standard deviation of 0.54, a score between roughly 2.8 and 3.9 is not far from the average.

Raes and colleagues (2011) picked 12 items from the full scale to build the short form (SCS-SF) and checked the English version with 415 students at the University of Texas at Austin (272 women, average age 20.6). Their short-form total was 36.00 (standard deviation 7.33), an average of 3.00 once divided by the 12 items.

The same students’ total on the full 26-item scale was 78.33, an item mean of 3.01. In all three samples the authors examined, short-form and full-scale totals correlated at .97 or more, so the two forms measure nearly the same thing. The table below sets the three figures side by side.

In the data on 500 Korean adults, age and self-compassion correlated at .28: older people tended to score a little higher. But age explains only a small part, and people of the same age still differ widely.

Gender differences are small. A meta-analysis pooling many studies (Yarnell and colleagues, 2015) found men slightly higher than women, by a small margin. In the study that validated the 26-item Korean version with university students (Kim and colleagues, 2008), one of two samples showed no gender difference, and only the other had male students slightly higher.

In the same Korean adult data, people with more self-compassion reported less depression (correlation −.60), stress (−.58) and loneliness (−.61), and more subjective happiness (.64), resilience (.60) and life satisfaction (.50).

These are correlations from a single survey, so they do not show that self-compassion causes the differences. Feeling better can also make it easier to go easy on yourself, so the influence may run both ways. Still, in a meta-analysis of 27 randomized controlled trials (Ferrari and colleagues, 2019), people who took self-compassion training rose in self-compassion by a moderate amount compared with control groups. So it helps to read the score as a current habit of treating yourself rather than a fixed trait.

The mind.io self-compassion test asks the 12 short-form items on a 1 to 5 scale, reverse-scores the 6 items on the self-judgment, isolation and over-identification side, and averages all 12. That is the same 1 to 5 item mean as in the studies above, so the numbers can be set side by side.

For example, a score around 3.35 is close to the Korean adult average, and one around 3.00 close to the US student average. Neff, who developed the scale, notes in her guidance for researchers that there are no formal norms, and her public self-test page says overall averages tend to be around 3.0. mind.io’s three result ranges (1.00 to 2.49 low, 2.50 to 3.50 moderate, 3.51 to 5.00 high) follow the rough ranges she suggests; they are not diagnostic criteria.

A score below 2.50 may mean that being hard on yourself in difficult moments comes more easily than comforting yourself. That is not a flaw but a skill you have had little chance to practise yet, so start with one of the exercises on the result page.

The Korean data use the 26-item Korean version, while mind.io uses the 12-item short form. In the same US students the two forms averaged almost the same (3.00 and 3.01), but different item counts and translations can shift an average a little. mind.io’s English items follow the published wording; its other languages are its own translations.

The Korean sample is 500 people drawn from an online panel to balance age and gender, not a random sample of all Koreans. The US data come from students at one university, and the Dutch samples used to build the short form answered on a 7-point scale, so they are not compared here. Rather than reading small decimal differences as better or worse, use the comparison to see roughly where your score falls.

A self-compassion score is not a diagnosis. But if being hard on yourself has gone on for weeks, or daily life feels too heavy to manage, do not carry it alone: talk to someone close or a professional. See also self-compassion versus self-esteem and how to build self-esteem.

Q. What is the average self-compassion score? A. In a study of 500 Korean adults on the 26-item Korean version of the Self-Compassion Scale, the average was 3.35 out of 5. US students in the study that built the 12-item short form averaged 3.00.

Q. Is a self-compassion score of 3 low? A. No. On the rough ranges from Neff that mind.io follows, 2.50 to 3.50 is “moderate,” and the US student average was 3.00. It is a little below the Korean adult average (3.35).

Q. Can a self-compassion score go up? A. It can. In a meta-analysis of 27 randomized controlled trials, people who took self-compassion training rose by a moderate amount. Start by talking to yourself in hard moments the way you would to someone you care about, then take the test again in a few weeks to see what has changed.

References: Lim, J. J., Li, Y., & Seo, Y. S. (2026), Cluster typologies of self-compassion and compassion for others: Associations with mental health and well-being in Korean adults (in Korean), The Korean Journal of Counseling and Psychotherapy 38(1), 187-216, https://doi.org/10.23844/kjcp.2026.02.38.1.187; Raes, F., Pommier, E., Neff, K. D., & Van Gucht, D. (2011), Construction and factorial validation of a short form of the Self-Compassion Scale, Clinical Psychology & Psychotherapy 18(3), 250-255, https://doi.org/10.1002/cpp.702; Neff, K. D. (2003), The development and validation of a scale to measure self-compassion, Self and Identity 2(3), 223-250, https://doi.org/10.1080/15298860309027; Kim, K. E., Yi, G. D., Cho, Y. R., Chai, S. H., & Lee, W. K. (2008), The validation study of the Korean version of the Self-Compassion Scale (in Korean), The Korean Journal of Health Psychology 13(4), 1023-1044, https://doi.org/10.17315/kjhp.2008.13.4.012; Yarnell, L. M., Stafford, R. E., Neff, K. D., Reilly, E. D., Knox, M. C., & Mullarkey, M. (2015), Meta-analysis of gender differences in self-compassion, Self and Identity 14(5), 499-520, https://doi.org/10.1080/15298868.2015.1029966; Ferrari, M., Hunt, C., Harrysunker, A., Abbott, M. J., Beath, A. P., & Einstein, D. A. (2019), Self-compassion interventions and psychosocial outcomes: A meta-analysis of RCTs, Mindfulness 10(8), 1455-1473, https://doi.org/10.1007/s12671-019-01134-6; Neff, K. D., FAQs for researchers, https://self-compassion.org/faqs-for-researchers/; Neff, K. D., Test how self-compassionate you are, https://self-compassion.org/self-compassion-test/.