Experimental manipulations of self-affirmation: A systematic review

The objective of this systematic review of studies using self-affirmation manipulations was to identify research gaps and provide information to guide future research. We describe study characteristics, categories of manipulations, and report effects on various dependent variables. Our search strategies yielded 47 eligible articles (69 studies). Manipulations varied by affirmation domain (values or personal characteristics), attainment (participant- or investigator-identified), and procedure (scale, essay, feedback, etc.). Most dependent variables were cognitive. Strong effects of self-affirmation were found for attitudes and persuasion/bias, but future work is needed for variables with mixed results including risk cognitions, intentions, and behavior. Suggestions and considerations for future research involving self-affirmation manipulations are discussed.

[1]  C. Steele.  The Psychology of Self-Affirmation: Sustaining the Integrity of the Self , 1988 .

[2]  S. A. Schwinghammer,et al.  Different Selves Have Different Effects: Self-Activation and Defensive Social Comparison , 2006, Personality & social psychology bulletin.

[3]  A. Tesser,et al.  On the confluence of self processes , 1991 .

[4]  M. Rosenberg.  Society and the adolescent self-image , 1966 .

[5]  Shelley E. Taylor,et al.  Theory and Research Concerning Social Comparisons of Personal Attributes , 2001 .

[6]  S. Spencer,et al.  Prejudice as self-image maintenance: Affirming the self through derogating others , 1997 .

[7]  Claude M. Steele,et al.  DISSONANCE PROCESSES AS SELF-AFFIRMATION , 1983 .

[8]  J. Greenberg,et al.  The Intrinsic Self and Defensiveness: Evidence that Activating the Intrinsic Self Reduces Self-Handicapping and Conformity , 2002 .

[9]  L. Festinger,et al.  A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance , 2017 .

[10]  Michael Johns,et al.  Combating stereotype threat: The effect of self-affirmation on women's intellectual performance. , 2006 .

[11]  Heejung S. Kim,et al.  Is there an "I" in "team"? The role of the self in group-serving judgments. , 2005, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[12]  Joshua Aronson,et al.  When Bad Things Happen to Good Feedback: Exacerbating the Need for Self-Justification with Self-Affirmations , 1997 .

[13]  K. Mccaul,et al.  Why Is Such a Smart Person Like You Smoking? Using Self‐Affirmation to Reduce Defensiveness to Cigarette Warning Labels1 , 2007 .

[14]  R. L. Rosnow,et al.  Effect sizes for experimenting psychologists. , 2003, Canadian journal of experimental psychology = Revue canadienne de psychologie experimentale.

[15]  Alison Cook,et al.  Not all self-affirmations were created equal: The cognitive and social benefits of affirming the intrinsic (vs. extrinsic) self , 2004 .

[16]  Amy J. C. Cuddy,et al.  Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin a Threat in the Computer: the Race Implicit Association Test as a Stereotype Threat Experience , 2022 .

[17]  J. G. Holmes,et al.  Through the looking glass darkly? When self-doubts turn into relationship insecurities. , 1998, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[18]  Claude M. Steele,et al.  When Beliefs Yield to Evidence: Reducing Biased Evaluation by Affirming the Self , 2000 .

[19]  J. Bargh,et al.  The psychology of action : linking cognition and motivation to behavior , 1999 .

[20]  M. Alicke.  Global self-evaluation as determined by the desirability and controllability of trait adjectives. , 1985 .

[21]  Sander L. Koole,et al.  The Cessation of Rumination Through Self-Affirmation , 1999 .

[22]  Adam D. Galinsky,et al.  The reinstatement of dissonance and psychological discomfort following failed affirmations , 2000 .

[23]  Leif D. Nelson,et al.  Do Messages about Health Risks Threaten the Self? Increasing the Acceptance of Threatening Health Messages Via Self-Affirmation , 2000 .

[24]  Shinobu Kitayama,et al.  On the cultural guises of cognitive dissonance: the case of easterners and westerners. , 2005, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[25]  J. G. Holmes,et al.  Compensatory conviction in the face of personal uncertainty: going to extremes and being oneself. , 2001, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[26]  W. Mcguire,et al.  Enhancing self-esteem by directed-thinking tasks: cognitive and affective positivity asymmetries. , 1996, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[27]  Shelley E. Taylor,et al.  Effects of mindset on positive illusions. , 1995, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[28]  Richard D. Harvey,et al.  Collective Guilt and Shame as Motivation for White Support of Black Programs1 , 2000 .

[29]  A. Tesser.  Reproductions Supplied by Edrs Are the Best That Can Be Made * * from the Original Document. toward a Self-evaluation Maintenance Model of Social Behavior* , 2007 .

[30]  K. Harber.  Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin Self-esteem and Affect as Information , 2022 .

[31]  J. Cooper,et al.  A Self-Standards Model of Cognitive Dissonance , 2001 .

[32]  S. E. Taylor,et al.  Effects of social comparison direction, threat, and self-esteem on affect, self-evaluation, and expected success. , 1993, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[33]  S. Spencer,et al.  Maintaining One's Self-Image Vis-à-Vis Others: The Role of Self-Affirmation in the Social Evaluation of the Self , 2001 .

[34]  Steven Prentice-Dunn,et al.  Effects of Coping Information and Value Affirmation on Responses to a Perceived Health Threat , 2005, Health communication.

[35]  J. G. Holmes,et al.  The Contingencies of Interpersonal Acceptance: When Romantic Relationships Function as a Self-Affirmational Resource , 2001 .

[36]  L. Hedges,et al.  The Handbook of Research Synthesis , 1995 .

[37]  Geoffrey L. Cohen,et al.  The Psychology of Self‐defense: Self‐Affirmation Theory , 2006 .

[38]  Geoffrey L. Cohen,et al.  Self-affirmation theory: An update and appraisal. , 2019, Cognitive dissonance: Reexamining a pivotal theory in psychology (2nd ed.)..

[39]  B. Schmeichel,et al.  Self-Affirmation and Mortality Salience: Affirming Values Reduces Worldview Defense and Death-Thought Accessibility , 2005, Personality & social psychology bulletin.

[40]  E. Aronson,et al.  When exemplification fails: hypocrisy and the motive for self-integrity. , 1997, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[41]  O T Ben-Ari,et al.  The impact of mortality salience on reckless driving: a test of terror management mechanisms. , 1999, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[42]  D. R. Lehman,et al.  Culture, Dissonance, and Self-Affirmation , 1997 .

[43]  Jacob Cohen.  Statistical Power Analysis for the Behavioral Sciences , 1969, The SAGE Encyclopedia of Research Design.

[44]  J. Greenberg,et al.  Compensatory self-inflation: A response to the threat to self-regard of public failure. , 1985 .

[45]  Leonard L. Martin,et al.  Stereotyping, Self-Affirmation, and the Cerebral Hemispheres , 2005, Personality & social psychology bulletin.

[46]  D T Gilbert,et al.  When comparisons arise. , 1995, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[47]  D. Moher,et al.  The CONSORT statement: revised recommendations for improving the quality of reports of parallel-group randomized trials. , 2001, Journal of the American Podiatric Medical Association.

[48]  Robert Rosenthal,et al.  Computing Contrasts, Effect Sizes, and Counternulls on Other People's Published Data: General Procedures for Research Consumers , 1996 .

[49]  Kees van den Bos.  Reactions to perceived fairness: The impact of mortality salience and self-esteem on ratings of negative affect. , 2001 .

[50]  R. Hanka.  The Handbook of Research Synthesis , 1994 .

[51]  P. Siegel,et al.  Reducing the tendency to self-handicap: The effect of self-affirmation , 2005 .

[52]  Joel Brockner,et al.  A Self-Affirmation Analysis of Survivors' Reactions to Unfair Organizational Downsizings , 1999 .

[53]  Mark W. Lipsey,et al.  Practical Meta-Analysis , 2000 .

[54]  F. Gibbons,et al.  Self-Esteem, Compensatory Self-Enhancement, and the Consideration of Health Risk , 1999 .

[55]  Joel Cooper,et al.  The effect of self-attribute relevance on how self-esteem moderates attitude change in dissonance processes ☆ , 2003 .

[56]  Xiao-Hua Zhou,et al.  Statistical Methods for Meta‐Analysis , 2008 .

[57]  C. Steele,et al.  Attributional analysis as self-affirmation. , 1986 .

[58]  Radha Iyengar,et al.  Is There an , 2008 .

[59]  S. Beach,et al.  Confluence of Self-Esteem Regulation Mechanisms: On Integrating the Self-Zoo , 2000 .

[60]  Douglas L. Weed,et al.  Methodologic Guidelines for Review Papers , 1997 .

[61]  Peter R. Harris,et al.  Self-Affirmation and the Biased Processing of Threatening Health-Risk Information , 2005, Personality & social psychology bulletin.

[62]  K. White,et al.  Looking on the Bright Side: Downward Counterfactual Thinking in Response to Negative Life Events , 2005, Personality & social psychology bulletin.

[63]  J. V. Wood,et al.  Compensating for Failure through Social Comparison , 1999 .

[64]  Geoffrey L. Cohen,et al.  Accepting Threatening Information: Self–Affirmation and the Reduction of Defensive Biases , 2002 .

[65]  Traci Mann,et al.  Affirmation of Personal Values Buffers Neuroendocrine and Psychological Stress Responses , 2005, Psychological science.

[66]  P. Lockwood,et al.  Feeling better about doing worse: social comparisons within romantic relationships. , 2004, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[67]  M. Zanna,et al.  An affirmed self and an open mind: Self-affirmation and sensitivity to argument strength. , 2004 .

[68]  W. Wood,et al.  Cognitive dissonance in groups: the consequences of disagreement. , 2005, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[69]  W. Klein,et al.  Maintaining Positive Self-Evaluations: Reducing Attention to Diagnostic but Unfavorable Social Comparison Information When General Self-Regard Is Salient , 2001 .

[70]  J. Fleming,et al.  The dimensionality of self-esteem. II: Hierarchical facet model for revised measurement scales , 1984 .

[71]  B. Pelham,et al.  Overconfidence as Dissonance Reduction , 2001 .

[72]  D. Cremer,et al.  Self-uncertainty and responsiveness to procedural justice , 2005 .

[73]  Michael W. Bridges,et al.  Distinguishing optimism from neuroticism (and trait anxiety, self-mastery, and self-esteem): a reevaluation of the Life Orientation Test. , 1994, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[74]  G. Āllport,et al.  Study Of Values , 1931 .

[75]  Jennifer S Lerner,et al.  Portrait of the self-enhancer: well adjusted and well liked or maladjusted and friendless? , 2003, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[76]  D. J. Lee.  Society and the Adolescent Self-Image , 1969 .

[77]  C M Steele,et al.  Self-image resilience and dissonance: the role of affirmational resources. , 1993, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[78]  Claude M. Steele,et al.  Making the Dissonant Act Unreflective of Self , 1981 .

[79]  T. Wills,et al.  Stress, social support, and the buffering hypothesis. , 1985, Psychological bulletin.

[80]  Don C Des Jarlais,et al.  Improving the reporting quality of nonrandomized evaluations of behavioral and public health interventions: the TREND statement. , 2004, American journal of public health.

[81]  M. Zárate,et al.  In-Group Distinctiveness and Self-Affirmation as Dual Components of Prejudice Reduction , 2002 .

[82]  C. Kimble,et al.  Development of self-handicapping tendencies. , 1998, The Journal of social psychology.

[83]  G. Adams,et al.  The effect of self-affirmation on perception of racism☆ , 2006 .

[84]  A. Tesser,et al.  On the substitutability of self-protective mechanisms , 1996 .

[85]  R. Gramzow,et al.  Self-esteem and favoritism toward novel in-groups: the self as an evaluative base. , 2005, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[86]  P. Lachenbruch.  Statistical Power Analysis for the Behavioral Sciences (2nd ed.) , 1989 .

[87]  Linda Simon,et al.  Trivialization: the forgotten mode of dissonance reduction. , 1995 .

[88]  Mark P. Zanna,et al.  Investigating attitudes cross-culturally: a case of cognitive dissonance among East Asians and North Americans , 2004 .

[89]  Lisa G. Aspinwall,et al.  Self-Affirmation Reduces Biased Processing of Health-Risk Information , 1998 .

[90]  R. Rosenthal.  Parametric measures of effect size. , 1994 .

[91]  David Dunning,et al.  Turning up the contrast: self-enhancement motives prompt egocentric contrast effects in social judgments. , 1998, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[92]  J. Brockner,et al.  Stress and coping among layoff survivors: A self-affirmation analysis , 2001 .