Peter R. Harris, Collectively, this work suggests that if self-affirmation can reduce stress, it may also promote problem-solving performance under high stress conditions, although no previous studies have tested the effects of self-affirmation manipulations on actual problem-solving performance [12][16]. . Events that threaten self-integrity arouse stress and self-protective defenses that can hamper performance and growth. Culture, dissonance, and self-affirmation. Following the speech, participants must complete a mental arithmetic task, in which they count backwards from 2,083 in increments of 13 while being told by the judges to go faster. The sample thus consisted of 73 students (34 females; 39 males) who ranged in age from 18 to 34, with an average age of 21 (SD=2.4). Before Belief systems include the ideologies to which a person ascribes, such as religious or political beliefs. Yet, we are often able to look past these threats and still feel good about ourselves. In L. Berkowitz, (Ed. People have a basic need to maintain the integrity of the self, a global sense of personal adequacy. endstream endobj startxref Next, they wrote about their first ranked value and why it was important to them (self-affirmation condition) or their ninth ranked value and why it might be important to others (control condition) [12]. Self-affirmation interventions typically have people write about core personal values. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0062593, Editor: Jos Csar Perales, Universidad de Granada, Spain, Received: September 28, 2012; Accepted: March 26, 2013; Published: May 1, 2013. Performed the experiments: JMD. However, more research is needed to better understand why people are more open-minded after they have completed an affirmation task. Following the self-affirmation writing task, as a manipulation check, participants were asked to respond to two items assessing how important the value they wrote about was, using a 6-point response scale (1=Strongly Disagree to 6=Strongly Agree). Enhancing a brief writing intervention to combat stereotype threat among middle-school students. The psychology of self-affirmation: Sustaining the integrity of the self. In the first step of the mediation analysis, self-affirmation increased positive affect (as described above). [11] Half of participants completed two values essays in the two weeks leading up to their midterm examination. Then, say it to yourself using these guidelines: Finding ways to maintain our self-worth is a worthwhile endeavor. Simpson J. 846-851. The Psychology of Self-Defense: Self-Affirmation Theory by David Sherman & Geoffrey Cohen. Reconceptualizing Self-Affirmation With the Trigger and Channel Framework: Lessons From the Health Domain. Please enable it to take advantage of the complete set of features! 0000014641 00000 n The authors found reduced cognitive dissonance for participants from collectivist cultures who wrote about values important to them and their families, and found reduced cognitive dissonance for participants from individualist cultures who wrote about a value important to just them.[22]. Examination of how video games can also increase players' willingness to internalize important but threatening self-information suggests that while players who value video game success as part of their identity may reap benefits from video game play after a self-threat, those who do not value such success may experience more harmful effects. This research was approved by the Carnegie Mellon University Institutional Review Board. Poor phosphate control in this population can be dangerous and life-threatening. Although the affirmed state stemming from a self-affirmation may appear relatively brief, the changes in attributions and information processing it prompts can become self-reinforcing or self-sustaining over time. We had no reason to believe that chronic stress would influence choice of value. For full functionality of this site, please enable JavaScript. 1999, Sherman & Cohen . Error bars reflect standard errors of the mean. And why do they persist in maladaptive behavior even when persuasive information or personal experience recommends, Journal of personality and social psychology. In this paper, we update the field on research conducted using self-affirmation theory as a framework. Department of Psychology, University of Sheffield, Sheffield, United Kingdom, Affiliation: Adapted from an article published by The Berkeley Well-Being Institute. Findings suggest that self-affirmation buffered against the negative effects of stress on problem-solving performance. J Couns Psychol. 183-242. Similarly, values affirmation decreased the achievement gap for college students from low socioeconomic status[16] and for women in introductory physics courses. 5R01HD055342-04/HD/NICHD NIH HHS/United States. ,/fj*6*WN:0udYrB+$+Aa$"D+Nv#sRt::T3 j;2jcCPpAQoxOzeJGSC5HzZ2M.cXGwabcKHi=%GOnU^Z3ZO @&)h HR4;Wp/k^I0lF In sum, there was no evidence that self-affirmation condition or chronic stress level affected participants selection of their top-ranked value. Consistent with previous studies [28], approximately 50% of participants selected Relations with Friends and Family as their #1 ranked value. Annals of Behavioral Medicine, 1-7, Heine, S. J., & Lehman, D. R. (1997). Doing so is a form of rationalization and self-justification; it convinces the individual that his or her action was the right one. In M. P. Zanna (Ed.) Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 28, 836-846. endstream endobj 218 0 obj << /Type /Font /Subtype /Type1 /FirstChar 1 /LastChar 1 /Widths [ 322 ] /Encoding 224 0 R /BaseFont /AdvTT97cacd14+20 /FontDescriptor 220 0 R /ToUnicode 217 0 R >> endobj 219 0 obj << /Type /Font /Subtype /Type1 /FirstChar 86 /LastChar 89 /Widths [ 604 0 0 822 ] /Encoding /WinAnsiEncoding /BaseFont /IJNKHK+AdvP40650 /FontDescriptor 225 0 R >> endobj 220 0 obj << /Type /FontDescriptor /Ascent 0 /CapHeight 0 /Descent 0 /Flags 4 /FontBBox [ -291 -197 1343 968 ] /FontName /AdvTT97cacd14+20 /ItalicAngle 0 /StemV 0 /FontFile3 223 0 R >> endobj 221 0 obj << /Type /FontDescriptor /Ascent 687 /CapHeight 687 /Descent -209 /Flags 32 /FontBBox [ -187 -218 1062 718 ] /FontName /IJNKGH+AdvP4041A /ItalicAngle 0 /StemV 0 /CharSet (/K/g/i/s/P/H/M/t/d/Y/O/colon/E/u/l/A/k/C/Q/m/v/b/R/D/c/o/w/S/G/N/n/y/a/e\ /period/F/T/I/p/f/U/V/r/h/L) /FontFile3 232 0 R >> endobj 222 0 obj << /Type /Font /Subtype /Type1 /FirstChar 46 /LastChar 121 /Widths [ 270 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 270 0 0 0 0 0 0 718 0 718 770 666 604 770 822 385 0 718 666 989 770 822 666 822 718 604 666 770 718 0 0 718 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 500 500 437 500 437 333 500 500 270 0 552 270 770 500 500 500 0 385 385 333 500 437 666 0 500 ] /Encoding /WinAnsiEncoding /BaseFont /IJNKGH+AdvP4041A /FontDescriptor 221 0 R >> endobj 223 0 obj << /Filter /FlateDecode /Length 205 /Subtype /Type1C >> stream Steele, C. M. (1988). Participants were randomly assigned either to the self-affirmation or control condition. Division of Cancer Control and Population Sciences, NCI, Bethesda, Maryland, United States of America, Affiliation: PLOS ONE promises fair, rigorous peer review, Self-affirmation theory purports that when individuals are faced with information that threatens their self-integrity, the response to this information is often defensive in nature. 0000002186 00000 n Analyzed the data: JDC JMD. In her article on the stereotype inoculation model, Nilanjana Dasgupta (this issue) makes a powerful case that numbers shape the psychology of women and minorities in fields related to science, A persistent puzzle emerges from a review of the psychological research literature on how people defend the self from potentially threatening information and events: People can be adamantly, Smith, J. Allegra (B. Adapted with permission. (2014). National Library of Medicine (2006). Self-affirmation will reduce the relationship between feelings of shame and financial withdrawal. [2] Promoting one's values can affirm the individual and reduce the perceived threat. Some studies have observed increases in self-esteem following self-affirmation,[27] whereas other have found no effect on self-esteem. Salivary cortisol as a function of time and aYrmation status. Specifically, we show that chronically stressed individuals have impaired problem-solving performance and that self-affirmation can boost problem-solving performance under pressure. Although self-affirmation condition participants wrote somewhat longer essays on average (M=68.79 words, SD=25.9) than did control condition participants (M=60.34, SD=26.9), this difference was not statistically significant (F(1,72)=1.63, p=.21). In M. P. Zanna, (Ed. Future studies using other measures for assessing chronic stress (e.g., selecting chronically stressed vs. matched control groups) [4] would therefore be useful. [24][25] In contrast, several studies fail to detect any effect of self-affirmation on mood, suggesting self-affirmation does not operate via increases in positive mood. Research and theorizing inspired by self-affirmation theory has led to theoretical advances in social psychology, with wide-ranging implications for many instances of human functioning and frailty. Why do people resist evidence that challenges the validity of longheld beliefs? People view themselves as able to control outcomes that they objectively cannot. Despite this evidence, we know little about protective factors for mitigating the deleterious effects of stress on problem-solving. Cohen, G. L., Garcia, J., Purdie-Vaughns, V., Apfel, N., & Brzustoski, P. (2009). We also diminish the importance of things we have failed at or things we're not very good at. As a result, participants in the self-affirmation condition have an opportunity to affirm a valued self-domain or characteristic [6], [8]. [4], One of the most common ways to induce self-affirmation is to have participants write about a personally relevant value. Participants then completed a state mood adjective checklist assessing state positive mood (5 items: proud, content, joyful, love, and grateful; study =.84) and state negative mood (3 items: sad, angry, scared; study =.65) (PANAS-X; [22], [23]). Participants who completed the values list had significantly lower stress response than individuals in the control condition, as indicated by a lower cortisol response in affirmed participants compared to participants who did not complete the self-affirmation condition. Yet the other 70% of the time, this player would have failed. PostedApril 4, 2022 The Allport-Vernon-Lindzey Values Scale[7] is another measures that is administered to participants to induce self-affirmation in the laboratory. A more likely possibility, to be tested by future research, is that self-affirmation facilitates a more open and flexible attentional stance (e.g., [16]), which increases working memory availability [37], [38] for problem-solving in evaluative contexts. Rather, individuals are motivated to maintain global self-integrity, a general perception of their goodness, virtue, and efficacy. AYrmation of personal values buVers neuroendocrine, By clicking accept or continuing to use the site, you agree to the terms outlined in our, The Psychology of Selfdefense: SelfAffirmation Theory. }]}*~SOQKl=)9PCqPA035^{xXu)f/v[K4B0 [3] This change in perspective shifts attention away from the threat in one domain of the self toward a larger context of who they are. [8] This allows researchers to see where an individual's personal interests and values lie. Hbd`ad`ddtL) 4ONLN1462 a!CG2bX0v/b`fdH**4204p/,L(QX`hii_Z VVPZZTXZ`dacbd rRR0,E^` rD When a person becomes attached to something, it's often not about the item, but their sense of self, or ego, in relation to it. There was also no interaction between self-affirmation condition and chronic stress level on number of words written (F(1,72)=1.30, p=.26). Study of values: A scale for measuring the dominant interests in personality. Lannin DG, Vogel DL, Guyll M, Seidman AJ. Cook JE, Purdie-Vaughns V, Garcia J, Cohen GL. The second step in testing mediation consists of evaluating whether the mediating variable (positive affect) predicts the outcome variable (problem-solving performance) when entered simultaneously with the predictor variable (self-affirmation condition). Google Scholar. Previous studies indicate that positive affect boosts problem-solving performance [29], [30], so we tested the possibility that the self-affirmation activity was a positive affect induction, and that positive affect engendered by self-affirmation explained the problem-solving effects. Annual Review of Psychology, 65, 333-371, Allport, G. W., Vernon, P. E., & Lindzey, G. E. (1960). Despite many studies showing that acute and chronic stressors can impair problem-solving [1], [2], [4], we know little about stress management and coping approaches for buffering stress during problem-solving [36]. When some aspect of this self-view is challenged, people experience psychological discomfort. It is thought that answering questions about a value domain that they find important will make that value more salient to them, resulting in self-affirmation. I am strong and can overcome challenges that come my way. For some, this has been a positive experience in which the values, customs and institutions they believe in are the, A theorybased intervention known as selfaffirmation provides people with the opportunity to affirm a sense of selfintegrity, a global image of moral and adaptive adequacy, at moments of, Current Directions in Psychological Science, The question of the antecedents of prejudicial responses has a long history that includes contributions of historical, structural, cultural, and psychological factors. The study tracked the students' grades for three years. Indeed, these protective adaptations may lead to rationalizations and even distortions of reality. And, we tend to be overly optimistic about our chances of success, our knowledge, and our competence (Sherman & Cohen, 2006). Threats against a person's self-integrity are events or messages that imply an individual is not good or adequate in a personally relevant domain. This dataset is available upon request (creswell@cmu.edu). Participants then completed individual difference measures, including the 10-item Perceived Stress Scale [26] to assess perceived stress over the last month (all items were summed to form a composite index of chronic stress, study =.87). They are overoptimistic in their predictions of future success and are blind to their own incompetence. Eighty undergraduates indicated their perceived chronic stress over the previous month and were randomly assigned to either a self-affirmation or control condition. (1997). Explore techniques to work through sadness. sharing sensitive information, make sure youre on a federal [3] That is, if someone perceives threat to one domain, he or she can accommodate this threat by upholding a value in another domain. An absolute gem that seems not to be much talked about, self-affirmation theory gives us both practical approaches to dealing with problems, and a fresh and surprising theoretical viewpoint on various issues in cognitive science. Discover a faster, simpler path to publishing in a high-quality journal. official website and that any information you provide is encrypted Self-affirmation improves problem-solving under stress. 0000003179 00000 n People, it seems, can use a negative stereotype as a cognitively justifiable way of putting other people down, to make themselves feel good. Although this body of research provides supportive evidence indicating that acute and chronic stressors can impair problem solving, little is currently known about stress management approaches for mitigating the effects of stress on problem solving. The research reported in this article illustrates how self-affirmation affects not only people's cognitive responses to threatening information and events, but also their physiological adaptations and actual behavior. Specifically, we used a well-known measure of problem-solving and creativity (the Remote Associates Task (RAT)) [17][20] to test three hypotheses. (1989). The social psychologist Daniel Gilbert and his colleagues have suggested that people have a psychological immune system that initiates psychological adaptations to threats to self-regard. Science. To try it, just choose a statement that represents how you want to think. Affirmed yet unaware: exploring the role of awareness in the process of self-affirmation. Socially Optimized Learning in a Virtual Environment: Reducing Risky S. Do messages about health risks threaten the self? Thus, our findings identify a potential mechanism by which a self-affirmation intervention at the beginning of a school term can improve at-risk students academic achievement, reducing achievement disparities between African Americans and European Americans and between women and men in science [12][15]. Do you struggle to feel sure of yourself? 2009 Nov;97(5):745-64. doi: 10.1037/a0015451. [9], In a different experiment, undergraduate students completed difficult problem solving puzzles in the presence of an evaluator. Competing interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist. We thus selected 30 challenging RAT items ranging in difficulty from moderately to extremely difficult (the items are available in Table S1). ), Advances in experimental social psychology (Vol. Concern with weight has similar effects of stress in that it can cause psychological distress, poor eating, and weight gain. Our work suggests that self-affirmation may be a relatively easy-to-use strategy for mitigating stress and improving problem-solving performance in evaluative settings. x2j "6g7U{;"$cdZ99@PpKq}h1m'Wa'2XVm8]Z Yk Instead of having one self-concept (e.g., I am a good parent), self-affirmation theory posits that individuals flexibly define who they are using various roles (e.g., I am a good parent, child, and worker). David Creswell and colleagues had participants complete a self-affirmation procedure before engaging in the stressful experience of public speaking and mental arithmetic in front of a hostile audience. HUoLg\j10PVb (M]n&eYTu~i&R\u`e-e;={ 2 5 pq B@`:DvTV##s-{JkqHm.w|M6h?! ), Encyclopedia of Social Psychology (pp. Defense mechanisms are fountain documented in psychology, and though there are more than 15, we consider 13 of the most common defending mechanisms. 'D7%XD G@^0e^e^`6o?a_? The psychology of self-defense: Self-affirmation theory. San Diego, CA: Academic . Why Do People Believe in Conspiracy Theories? First, we tested whether chronic stress is related to poorer problem-solving performance. Go to citation Crossref Google Scholar. trailer << /Size 239 /Info 205 0 R /Root 214 0 R /Prev 501480 /ID[<25b6ff0975f36615fc50a5b813e1f2e2><25b6ff0975f36615fc50a5b813e1f2e2>] >> startxref 0 %%EOF 214 0 obj << /Type /Catalog /Pages 207 0 R /PageLabels 204 0 R >> endobj 237 0 obj << /S 1621 /L 1714 /Filter /FlateDecode /Length 238 0 R >> stream Although participants showed an overall significant heart rate increase from baseline (M=68.50, SE=1.03) to the RAT problem solving period (M=76.44, SE=1.31) (paired-samples t(69)=9.26, p=<.001), there were no significant main effect or interactive effects of conditions on heart rate change. The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. As noted earlier, previous research suggests that heart rate is a useful indirect marker for task engagement [24], [25]. Chronic threat and contingent belonging: protective benefits of values affirmation on identity development. Having self-integrity means that one perceives oneself as living up to a culturally specified conception of goodness, virtue, and agency. Future studies should therefore experimentally test whether social evaluation is a necessary condition for self-affirmation problem-solving effects. In social, 1 to many Americans reevaluating the kind of country they thought they lived in. Collectively, these findings do not provide support for a differential task engagement explanation of our performance findings. [3] Self-Affirmations can occur by both reflecting on a personally relevant value, belief, or role, as well as engaging in an activity that might evoke a personally relevant value, such as spending time with family if that is personally relevant. A major insight of this theory involves the notion that although people try to maintain specific self-images (such as being a good student or being a good family member), that is not their primary motivation. self-affirmation theory. Sherman, D. K., & Cohen, G. L. (2006). Studies using this experimental approach have found that self-affirmation can buffer threats to the self in variety of domains [6], with several recent studies showing that self-affirmation can buffer stress responses to laboratory stressors [9], [10] and naturalistic academic stressors [11]. New York: Norton. Or does negative feedback rattle your sense of self or well-being? Cohen, G. L., Garcia, J., Apfel, N., & Master, A. 0000008176 00000 n High levels of acute and chronic stress are known to impair problem-solving and creativity on a broad range of tasks. 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