Research Paper The International Journal of Indian Psychology ISSN 2348-5396 (e) | ISSN: 2349-3429 (p) Volume 7, Issue 1, DIP: 18.01.021/20190701 DOI: 10.25215/0701.021 http://www.ijip.in | January- March, 2019 © 2019, A Maria, L Raj., V. Premanand; licensee IJIP. This is an Open Access Research distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any Medium, provided the original work is properly cited. The Role of Personal Growth Initiative in the Relationship between Self-Compassion and Self Esteem among College Students Athena Maria Aranha 1 *, Leeba Raj. E.B 2 , V. Premanand 3 ABSTRACT Self Compassion can be regarded as looking with kindness and being mindful of one’s aspects. Self Esteem is the personal value attributed to self. Personal Growth Initiative is defined as one’s active and intentional involvement in changing as a person and is a meta- cognitive construct that describes an orientation towards engaging in the growth seeking process. Literature reviewed show that Personal Growth Initiative, Self Compassion and Self Esteem are interconnected. As there were no studies which revealed about how these variables influence each other, this study aims to explore the role of Personal Growth Initiative in the relationship between Self Compassion and Self Esteem among College Students. The study was conducted on 120 Undergraduate and Postgraduate students in Mangalore city using convenient sampling method. The tools used for data collection were Rosenberg Self Esteem Scale, Neff’s Self Compassion Scale (short form) and Personal Growth Initiative Scale. Mediation analysis was used for statistical analysis. Results show that Personal Growth Initiative partially mediates the relationship between Self Compassion and Self Esteem. Keywords: Personal Growth Initiative, Self-Compassion, Self Esteem, College Students Individuals who are enrolled in any college or university are called College Students. As evident in the current world, it is at this vulnerable age that they are challenged by a number of factors such as social comparison, reflected appraisal, and identification which affects Self-Esteem (Goethals, 1999). A low level of Self Esteem is associated with poor mental wellbeing (Ditto, & Griffin, 1993; Malle & Horowitz, 1995; Furegato et al, 2006; Saleh, 2013). Most researchers have recognized the important role played by high levels of Self- Esteem in one’s performance and perceptions about academic achievement, as well as 1 Research Student, Department of Psychology, St. Agnes Centre for Post Graduate Studies and Research, Mangaluru, Karnataka, India 2 Research Student, Department of Psychology, St. Agnes Centre for Post Graduate Studies and Research, Mangaluru, Karnataka, India 3 Associate Professor, Research Scholar, Department of Psychology, St. Agnes Centre for Post Graduate Studies and Research, Mangaluru, Karnataka, India *Responding Author Received: January 25, 2019; Revision Received: February 5, 2019; Accepted: February 10, 2019