Research on self-affirmation has shown that simple reminders of self-integrity reduce people’s tendency to respond defensively to threat. Recent research has suggested it is irrelevant whether the self-affirmation exercise takes place before or after the threat or the individual’s defensive response to it, supposedly because the meaning of threats is continuously reprocessed. However, four experiments revealed that affirmations may be effective only when introduced prior to the initiation of a defensive response. Affirmations introduced before threatening feedback reduced defensive responding; affirming after a threat was effective in reducing defensiveness only if the defensive conclusion had yet to be reached. Even though threats may activate a defensive motivation, the authors’ results suggest that defensive responses may not be spontaneous and may be prompted only when suggested by the dependent measures themselves. This explains why some affirmations positioned after threats are effective in reducing defensiveness. Implications for self-affirmation theory are discussed.
Alicke, M.D., Klotz, M.L., Breitenbecher, D.L., Yurak, T.J., & Vredenburg, D.S. (1995). Personal contact, individuation, and the better-than-average effect. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 68, 804-825.
2.
Armitage, C.J., Harris, P.R., Hepton, G., & Napper, L. ( 2008). Self-affirmation increases acceptance of health risk information among UK adult smokers with low socioeconomic status. Psychology of Addictive Behaviors, 22, 88-95.
3.
Aronson, J., Blanton, H., & Cooper, J. ( 1995). From dissonance to disidentification: Selectivity on the self-affirmation process. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 6, 986-996.
4.
Aspinwall, L.G. ( 1997). Future-oriented aspects of social comparisons: A framework for studying health-related comparison activity. In B. P. Bunk & F. X. Gibbons (Eds.), Health, coping, and well-being: Perspectives from social comparison theory (pp. 125-165). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
5.
Baumeister, R.F., & Leary, M.R. ( 1995). The need to belong: Desire for interpersonal attachments as a fundamental human motivation. Psychological Bulletin , 117, 497-529.
6.
Beauregard, K.S., & Dunning, D. ( 2001). Defining self-worth: Trait self-esteem moderates the use of self-serving trait definitions in social judgment. Motivation and Emotion, 25, 135-161.
7.
Blanton, H., Cooper, J., Skurnik, I., & Aronson, J. ( 1997). When bad things happen to good feedback: Exacerbating the need for self-justification with self-affirmations. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 23, 684-692.
8.
Bransford, J.D., & Johnson, M.K. ( 1973). Considerations of some problems of comprehension. In W. G. Chase (Ed.), Visual information processing (pp. 383-438). New York, NY: Academic Press.
9.
Brown, J.D., & Smart, S.A. ( 1991). The self and social conduct: Linking self-representations to prosocial behavior. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology , 60, 368-375.
10.
Campbell, J.D. ( 1986). Similarity and uniqueness: The effects of attribute, type, relevance, and individual differences in self-esteem and depression . Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 50, 281-294.
11.
Cohen, G., Aronson, J., & Steele, C.M. ( 2000). When beliefs yield to evidence: Reducing biased evaluation by affirming the self. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin , 26, 1151-1164.
12.
Costanzo, M., & Archer, D. ( 1989). Interpreting the expressive behavior of others: The Interpersonal Perception Task. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior, 13, 225-245.
13.
Creswell, J.D., Lam, S., Stanton, A.S., Taylor, S.E., Bower, J.E., & Sherman, D.K. ( 2007). Does self-affirmation, cognitive processing, or discovery of meaning explain the cancer-related health benefits of expressive writing?Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 33, 238-250.
14.
Critcher, C.R., & Dunning, D. ( 2009). How chronic self-views influence (and mislead) self-assessments of performance: Self-views shape bottom-up experiences with the task. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 97, 931-945.
15.
Critcher, C.R., Helzer, E., & Dunning, D. (in press). Self-enhancement via redefinition: Defining social concepts to ensure positive views of self. In M. Alicke & C. Sedikides (Eds.), Handbook of self-enhancement. New York: Guilford Press.
16.
Dunning, D. ( 2003). The zealous self-affirmer: How and why the self lurks so pervasively behind social judgment. In S. J. Spencer, S. Fein, M. P. Zanna, & J. M. Olson (Eds.), The Ontario symposium (Vol. 9, pp. 45-72). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum .
17.
Dunning, D. ( 2005). Self-insight. Roadblocks and detours on the path to knowing thyself. New York, NY: Psychology Press.
18.
Dunning, D., Heath, C., & Suls, J. ( 2004). Flawed self-assessment: Implications for health, education, and the workplace. Psychological Science in the Public Interest , 5, 69-106.
19.
Epton, T., & Harris, P.R. ( 2008). Self-affirmation promotes health behavior change. Health Psychology, 27, 746-752.
20.
Harris, P.R., & Napper, L. ( 2005). Self-affirmation and the biased processing of threatening health-risk information. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 31, 1250-1263.
21.
Hart, J., Shaver, P.R., & Goldenberg, J.L. (2005). Attachment, self-esteem, worldviews, and terror management: Evidence for a tripartite security system . Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 88, 999-1013.
22.
Klein, W.M., & Kunda, Z. ( 1989, March). Motivated person perception: Justifying desired conclusions. Paper presented at the meeting of the Eastern Psychological Association, Boston, MA.
23.
Marks, G. ( 1984). Thinking one’s abilities are unique and one’s opinions common. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin , 10, 203-208.
24.
Markus, H.R., & Wurf, E. ( 1987). The dynamic self-concept: A social psychological perspective . Annual Review of Psychology, 38, 299-337.
25.
McQueen, A., & Klein, W.M.P. ( 2006). Experimental manipulations of self-affirmation: A systematic review. Self and Identity, 5, 289-354.
26.
Mednick, S.A. ( 1962). The associative basis of the creative process. Psychological Review, 26, 220-232.
27.
Radcliffe, N.M., & Klein, W.M.P. ( 2002). Dispositional, unrealistic, and comparative optimism: Differential relations with the knowledge and processing of risk information and beliefs about personal risk. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 28, 836-846.
28.
Reed, M.B., & Aspinwall, L.G. (1998). Self-affirmation reduces biased processing of health-risk information. Motivation and Emotion, 22, 99-132.
29.
Sedikides, C., Green, J.D., & Pinter, B. ( 2004). Self-protective memory. In D. R. Beike, J. M. Lampinen, & D. A. Behrend (Eds.), The self and memory (pp. 161-179). Philadelphia, PA: Psychology Press.
30.
Sherman, D.K., & Cohen, G.L. ( 2006). The psychology of self-defense: Self-affirmation theory . In M. P. Zanna (Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology (Vol. 38, pp. 183-242). San Diego, CA: Academic Press.
31.
Sherman, D.K., Cohen, G.L., Nelson, L.D., Nussbaum, A.D., Bunyan, D.P., & Garcia, J. ( 2009). Affirmed yet unaware: Exploring the role of awareness in self-affirmation. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology , 97, 745-764.
32.
Sherman, D.A.K., Nelson, L.D., & Steele, C.M. ( 2000). Do messages about health risks threaten the self: Increasing the acceptance of threatening health messages via self-affirmation. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 26, 1046-1058.
33.
Shira, I., & Martin, L.L. ( 2005). Stereotyping, self-affirmation, and the cerebral hemispheres . Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 31, 846-856.
34.
Sivanthan, N., Molden, D.C., Galinsky, A.D., & Ku, G. ( 2008). The promise and peril of self-affirmation in de-escalation of commitment. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 107, 1-14.
35.
Spencer, S.J., Fein, S., & Lomore, C.D. ( 2001). Maintaining one’s self-image vis-à-vis others: The role of self-affirmation in the social evaluation of the self. Motivation and Emotion, 25, 41-65.
36.
Spencer, S.J., Josephs, R.A., & Steele, C.M. ( 1993). Low self-esteem: The uphill struggle for self-integrity . In R. F. Baumeister (Ed.), Self-esteem and the puzzle of low self-regard (pp. 21-36). New York, NY: Wiley.
37.
Srull, T.K., & Wyer, R.S. ( 1980). Category accessibility and social perception: Some implications for the study of person memory and interpersonal judgments. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 38, 841-856.
38.
Steele, C.M. ( 1988). The psychology of self-affirmation: Sustaining the integrity of the self. In L. Berkowitz (Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology (Vol. 21, pp. 261-302). San Diego, CA: Academic Press.
39.
Steele, C.M., & Liu, T.J. ( 1983). Dissonance processes as self-affirmation. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 45, 5-19.
40.
Taylor, S.E., & Brown, J.D. ( 1988). Illusion and well-being: A social psychological perspective on mental health. Psychological Bulletin, 103, 193-210.
41.
Taylor, S.E., & Lobel, M. ( 1989). Social comparison activity under threat: Downward evaluation and upward contacts. Psychological Review, 96, 569-575.
42.
Tesser, A. ( 1988). Toward a self-evaluation maintenance model of social behavior. In L. Berkowitz (Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology (Vol. 21, pp. 181-227). San Diego, CA: Academic Press.
43.
Tesser, A. ( 2000). On the confluence of self-esteem maintenance mechanisms . Personality and Social Psychology Review, 4, 290-299.
44.
Tesser, A., Martin, L.L., & Cornell, D.P. ( 1996). On the substitutability of self-protective mechanisms . In P. M. Golwitzer & J. A. Bargh (Eds.), The psychology of action: Linking cognition and motivation to behavior (pp. 48-68). New York, NY: Guilford.
45.
Trope, Y., & Pomerantz, E.M. (1998). Resolving conflicts among self-evaluative motives: Positive experiences as a resource for overcoming defensiveness. Motivation and Emotion, 22, 53-72.
46.
Von Hippel, W., Sekaquaptewa, D., & Vargas, P. ( 1995). On the role of encoding processes in stereotype maintenance . Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 27, 177-254.
47.
Wentura, D., & Greve, W. ( 2003). Who wants to be . . . erudite? Everyone! Evidence for automatic adaptation of trait definitions. Social Cognition , 22, 30-53.
