Self-affirmation Interventions Research Articles

Boosting Perceptions of the Benefits of Complication Prevention in Reproductive Age Diabetes Mellitus Patients via Self-Talk Affirmation Intervention

Diabetes mellitus is a chronic disease that lasts a long time and requires high adherence and self-discipline to carry out comprehensive self-care management to control blood glucose levels and prevent further complications. The practice of self-management requires knowledge or literacy and a positive mindset that is supported by good self-confidence for DM sufferers to be able to do it. Several studies have only examined aspects of physical intervention, such as providing physical activity (DM gymnastics) and education on medication adherence, but there are still few interventions that provide mindset strengthening in the form of self-talk affirmations in order to form a positive perspective on the perception of the benefits of preventing DM complications in sufferers. The study's objective was to ascertain whether using self-talk affirmations would improve DM patients' perceptions of the benefits of preventing complications in Pekalongan Regency, Central Java, Indonesia. 158 individuals with DM participated in this study using a cross-sectional quantitative research approach and a pre-post test sample design. A questionnaire was utilized for data collection, and a Paired T-test for data analysis, which assessed patients' perceptions of the benefits of preventing DM complications either before and after receiving affirmative self-talk therapies. Patients' perceptions of the benefits of preventing DM complications are influenced by the results of self-talk and self-affirmation interventions; there is a difference in the mean score of perceived benefits before and after the intervention. For patients with DM who are of working age, self-talk affirmations might be included to a list of self-management interventions.

Effects of a self-affirmation intervention on responses to bowel cancer screening information

Objective To investigate the effect of two brief self-affirmation interventions, immediately prior to reading standard information about bowel cancer screening, on state anxiety, message acceptance and behavioural intention to screen for bowel cancer. Methods 242 adults aged 49 were randomised to one of two self-affirmation interventions (health or values) or one of two control conditions, before reading an NHS England bowel cancer screening leaflet. Participant friend and family history of bowel cancer, state anxiety, message acceptance, behavioural intention to screen, trait self-esteem and spontaneous self-affirmation were measured. Data were analysed using between-participants analysis of variance, planned contrasts and moderated regression. Results No main effects of experimental condition on levels of state anxiety, message acceptance and behavioural intention were found. However, planned contrasts showed participants who self-affirmed about their health or values (conditions-collapsed) were significantly less anxious and reported significantly higher behavioural intentions compared to participants in the controls (conditions-collapsed). Irrespective of condition, higher levels of spontaneous self-affirmation and trait self-esteem were correlated with lower anxiety, higher intentions, and message acceptance. Conclusion There was some evidence of the effect of health-based self-affirmation on lowering anxiety; however, further research is needed to explore the effectiveness of different self-affirmation interventions in larger samples.

Effects of a self-affirmation intervention among Chinese adolescents during the COVID-19 pandemic: A large-scale randomized controlled trial.

The COVID-19 pandemic, characterized by its highly contagious nature and devastating death toll, posed a dual threat to both physical and psychological well-being. As a potential intervention to alleviate the psychological impact, values-affirmation involves individuals engaging in the activity of writing about their core values. While its effectiveness in non-WEIRD (i.e. Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, Democratic) populations, notably among Chinese adults, has been confirmed, it remains largely unexplored whether the intervention can promote mental health in Chinese adolescents, especially in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. The purpose of this study thus is to provide the first empirical evaluation of this intervention in promoting well-being and alleviating psychological distress among Chinese adolescents during the COVID-19 pandemic. A total of 2,234 students from 112 secondary schools in China were randomly assigned to an affirmation or control condition. The study found that self-affirmation intervention improved students' life satisfaction, mental health, and self-esteem, as well as buffered a decline of their purpose in life; however, no effects were found for clinical measures of depression, anxiety, and loneliness. The results suggest that self-affirmation interventions, while having limited effects on clinically relevant outcomes, can be an effective approach to boost well-being in adolescents during a major crisis, including in a more historically collectivist culture. Implications for self-affirmation theory and cultural psychology, as well as avenues for future research, are discussed.

Effectiveness of Self-Affirmation Interventions in Educational Settings: A Meta-Analysis.

School and university can be stressful contexts that can become an important source of identity threats when social prejudices or stereotypes come into play. Self-affirmation interventions are key strategies for mitigating the negative consequences of identity threat. This meta-analysis aims to provide an overview of the effectiveness of self-affirmation interventions in educational settings. A peer-reviewed article search was conducted in January 2023. A total of 144 experimental studies that tested the effect of self-affirmation interventions in educational contexts among high school and university students from different social and cultural backgrounds were considered. The average effect of self-affirmation interventions was of low magnitude (dIG+ = 0.41, z = 16.01, p < 0.00), with a 95% confidence interval whose values tended to lie between 0.36 and 0.45 (SE = 0.0253). In addition, moderators such as identity threat, participants' age, and intervention procedure were found. Through a meta-analysis of the impact of self-affirmation interventions in educational contexts, this study suggests that interventions are effective, resulting in a small mean effect size. Thus, self-affirmation interventions can be considered useful, brief, and inexpensive strategies to improve general well-being and performance in educational settings.

Men's Hostile Sexism Predicts Skepticism of Sexual Assault Science

Sexual assault statistics are both widely disseminated and routinely challenged. Two studies investigated reactions to sexual assault research through the lens of ideologically motivated science denial. In particular, hostile sexism was expected to positively predict skepticism of sexual assault research. In Study 1, adult men in the United States ( N = 316) reported their hostile sexism, then read one of three research summaries and reported their skepticism of the findings. Although there was no difference in skepticism across conditions, hostile sexism was a stronger predictor of skepticism regarding sexual assault research than of skepticism regarding breast cancer or alcohol abuse research. In Study 2 ( N = 254), a standard self-affirmation manipulation failed to alter the hostile sexism-skepticism relation. Given that people deny science when it contradicts their ideology, it was posited that the research substantiating sexual assault had clashed with hostilely sexist views of women. Strategies beyond standard self-affirmation interventions, such as scientific literacy psychoeducation, may thus be needed to effectively communicate sexual assault-relevant science to hostile audiences. Online slides for instructors who want to use this article for teaching are available on PWQ's website at http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/suppl/10.1177/03616843231215373 .

Work-Life Conflict during Covid-19 and Psychological Resilience Role of Self-Affirmation Interventions - A Study in Bangalore, India

The present research is an attempt to find out the impact of work-family conflict on employee resilience and the role of Self-affirmative interventions in building the resilience and mitigating the impact. A total of 55 interviews were conducted. This paper proposes that work-life conflict during Covid-19 had a negative impact on psychological resilience. Moreover, various self-affirmation strategies adopted by the respondents during Covid-19 helped them to combat the work-family conflict and stress created by it. A research need has been identified by the previous research to find out the role of self-affirmation interventions in aligning the values and needs with changed or unexpected environments to tackle the work-family conflict. Moreover, the relationship between the psychological resilience and self-affirmation interventions has not been explored previously, particularly in the Indian Context.

Can Self-affirmation Encourage HIV-Prevention? Evidence from Female Sex Workers in Senegal

We test an intervention aiming to increase condom usage and HIV testing in a stigmatized population at high risk of contracting HIV: female sex workers (FSWs) in Senegal. Some sex work is legal in Senegal, and condoms and HIV tests are freely available to registered FSWs—but FSWs may be reluctant to get tested and use condoms, in part because doing so would entail acknowledging their risk of contracting HIV and potentially expose them to stigma. Drawing on self-affirmation theory, we hypothesized that reflecting on a source of personal pride would help participants acknowledge their risk of HIV, intend to use condoms more frequently, and take an HIV test. Prior research suggests that similar self-affirmation interventions can help people acknowledge their health risks and improve their health behavior, especially when paired with information about effectively managing their health (i.e., self-efficacy information). However, such interventions have primarily been tested in the United States and United Kingdom, and their generalizability outside of these contexts is unclear. Our high-powered experiment randomly assigned participants (N = 592 FSWs; N = 563 in the final analysis) to a self-affirmation condition or a control condition and measured their risk perceptions, whether they took condoms offered to them, and whether (after randomly receiving or not receiving self-efficacy information) they took an HIV test. We found no support for any of our hypotheses. We discuss several explanations for these null results based on the stigma attached to sex work and HIV, cross-cultural generalizability of self-affirmation interventions, and robustness of previous findings.

The effects of group counseling and self-affirmation on stigma and group relationship development: A replication and extension.

The stigma of seeking counseling and negative attitudes about counseling are primary barriers to its use. In the only known study examining the utility of attending a group counseling session to ameliorate stigma (no control group), participation was associated with reductions in self-stigma (Wade et al., 2011). Self-affirmation interventions have shown promising results in reducing stigma and promoting positive expectations about counseling, but no research has examined its effects on a counseling session. In the present, two-part study, 172 college students who had previously completed an online screening survey, including measures of stigma, participated in a single session of group counseling at a mental health clinic. Upon arrival, participants completed a self-affirmation intervention before viewing psychoeducation (n = 66; 12 groups) or only viewed psychoeducation (n = 72; 14 groups); both groups then completed a session of group counseling. After, participants completed these same measures along with measures of group relationships. The remaining participants (n = 34; 7 groups) viewed psychoeducation and completed the same stigma measures before being informed of randomization to the wait-list control condition. Our results replicate and extend findings from Wade et al. (2011): Completing a single session of group counseling reduced self-stigma and promoted positive attitudes toward counseling. Further, completing self-affirmation reduced postsession perceptions of public stigma. Self-affirmation had no impact on group relationships. Overall, findings suggest the utility of offering a "try-out" session of group counseling as a stigma-reduction intervention; preceding with a brief self-affirmation intervention provides further benefits by reducing perceptions of public stigma. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

A Factorial Randomized Controlled Trial of Implementation-Intention-Based Self-Affirmation Interventions: Findings on Depression, Anxiety, and Well-being in Adults With Psoriasis.

This study builds on growing evidence on implementation-intention-based self-affirmation intervention effects on mental health. Using a factorial design, this pre-registered study aimed to further investigate whether (1) strengthening the element of specificity within body-related self-affirming implementation intention (BS-AII) intervention compared to general self-affirming implementation intention (S-AII) would provide greater improvements in mental health outcomes for adults with psoriasis, and (2) whether the addition of a booster component would result in enhancing effectiveness at follow-up. A total of 306 adults with psoriasis were assessed for eligibility and 222 (aged 18–71 years) were randomized and received S-AII, BS-AII, or MGI (mere goal intention—control condition). Within each group, participants were again randomized to booster (B) or no-booster condition in a 3 × 2 factorial design, resulting in six groups: S-AII; S-AII + B; BS-AII; BS-AII + B; MGI; and MGI + B. Data were collected over three-time points, at baseline, 2 weeks post-intervention, and at 1-month later. Three primary outcomes were defined as a reduction of anxiety and depressive symptoms and enhancement of well-being. In terms of secondary outcomes, positive other- and self-directed feelings and also an emotional attitude toward the body were evaluated. To fully estimate intervention effects through intention-to-treat analysis, linear mixed models were used. A significant effect of time was observed, but no evidence of time-by-group interactions and no three-way interactions were detected. Exploratory analyses revealed two significant moderating effects of age and self-esteem, pointing to boundary conditions of the interventions. These findings offer to gain deeper insights on null (or negative) effects also reported in past works and highlight that self-affirmation interventions should be more thoroughly investigated and optimized before they can be broadly implemented in real-life contexts, especially to prevent backfiring and negative-enhancing effects.

Investigating the Potential of Inoculation Messages and Self-Affirmation in Reducing the Effects of Health Misinformation

We investigated the effectiveness of inoculation and self-affirmation interventions in neutralizing effects of health misinformation. Women ( N=854) recruited via Prolific were randomly assigned to self-affirm (or not) and read an inoculation (versus control) message detailing five common attributes of misinformation. All participants read an article with misinformation about breast cancer screening and reported their reactions to the article. The inoculation (vs control) message reduced the negative effects of misinformation, as assessed by resistance-related measures, attitudes, and intentions. Experimentally induced self-affirmation did not show protective effects against misinformation, but the inoculation intervention was stronger among participants higher in self-reported spontaneous self-affirmation.

Comparing self-affirmation manipulations to reduce alcohol consumption in university students

Objective: Self-affirmation theory proposes that defensive processing prevents people from accepting health-risk messages, which may explain university students’ dismissal of risk-information about binge drinking. SA-interventions may encourage non-biased processing of such information through impacting on interpersonal feelings and self-esteem. This study compared two self-affirmation manipulations on interpersonal feelings, self-esteem, message processing, message acceptance and subsequent alcohol consumption. Participants: UK university students (N = 454). Methods: Participants were randomly allocated to one of three conditions (Self-affirmation Implementation Intention, Kindness Questionnaire, Control) before reading health-risk information about binge drinking. This was followed by measures of interpersonal feelings, self-esteem, message processing, acceptance and behavioral intentions. Alcohol consumption was assessed one week later. Results: The self-affirmation manipulations had non-significant effects on all outcome variables. Conclusion: Consistent with previous research, the results indicate that self-affirmation interventions are not effective for reducing alcohol consumption in university students.

Association of Spontaneous and Induced Self-Affirmation With Smoking Cessation in Users of a Mobile App: Randomized Controlled Trial.

BackgroundMost smokers attempt to stop using cigarettes numerous times before successfully quitting. Cigarette cravings may undermine perceived competence to quit and thus constitute psychological threats to the individual’s self-concept. Self-affirmation may promote smoking cessation by offsetting these threats.ObjectiveThis study examines whether self-affirmation is associated with smoking cessation in the context of a cessation app. Two types of self-affirmation are examined: tendency to spontaneously self-affirm, and self-affirmation inductions added to a publicly available smoking cessation app (Smoke-Free Quit Smoking Now). In addition, this study explores whether optimism and emotional states (happiness, anger, anxiousness, hopefulness, sadness) predict smoking cessation.MethodsAll users who met the inclusion criteria, provided consent to participate, and completed a baseline assessment, including all individual difference measures, were randomized to 1 of 4 conditions. Half of the participants were randomly assigned to complete a self-affirmation induction upon study entry. Orthogonally, half of the participants were randomly assigned to receive self-affirming text notifications during their quit attempt or to receive conventional notifications. The induction and the text notifications were fully automated, and all data were collected through self-assessments in the app. Self-reported smoking cessation was assessed 1 month and 3 months following study entry.ResultsThe study enrolled 7899 participants; 647 completed the 1-month follow-up. Using an intent-to-treat analysis at the 1-month follow-up, 7.2% (569/7899) of participants self-reported not smoking in the previous week and 6.4% (503/7899) self-reported not smoking in the previous month. Greater tendency to spontaneously self-affirm predicted a greater likelihood of cessation (P<.001) at 1 month after controlling for smoking-related variables. Neither self-affirmation induction influenced cessation. In addition, spontaneous self-affirmation did not moderate the relationship between self-affirmation inductions and cessation. Greater baseline sadness was associated with a lower likelihood of reporting successful cessation. Optimism predicted past-week cessation at the 1-month follow-up, and both happiness and anger predicted past-month cessation at the 1-month follow-up; however, none of these potential predictors moderated the relationship between self-affirmation conditions and successful cessation.ConclusionsSpontaneous self-affirmation may be an important psychological resource for managing threats to self-concept during the smoking cessation process. Sadness may hinder quit attempts. Future research can explicate how spontaneous versus induced self-affirmation can promote smoking cessation and examine boundary conditions for the effectiveness of disseminated self-affirmation interventions.Trial RegistrationISRCTN Registry 56646695; https://www.isrctn.com/ISRCTN56646695

Understanding self-affirmation effects: The moderating role of self-esteem.

Whether people benefit from self-affirmation in overcoming resistance to health messages may depend on their level of self-esteem. However, extant theories offer rival hypotheses about the role of self-esteem. We pitted these hypotheses against each other, building on the argument that how self-esteem shapes self-affirmation effects may depend on how and when people self-affirm. A 3 (Self-affirmation type: value essay, attribute scale, control task) by 2 (Timing: pre-message, post-message) plus 1 (message-only) experimental, between-subjects design. Participants (N=422) completed a value essay, an attribute scale, a control task, or no task, either before or after reading a message about health risks of excessive drinking. Participants then completed defensiveness and message acceptance measures. Self-esteem moderated self-affirmation effects across different types and timing of self-affirmation. While participants with relatively high self-esteem consistently benefited from self-affirmation, participants with relatively low self-esteem experienced adverse effects from self-affirmation. Self-affirmed participants with high self-esteem showed lower psychological discomfort, lower personal risk discounting, and higher message acceptance than unaffirmed participants, while self-affirmed participants with low self-esteem showed higher psychological discomfort, higher personal risk discounting, and lower message acceptance than unaffirmed participants. These findings support the proposition that self-esteem serves as affirmational resources, which implies that self-affirmation interventions to reduce defensiveness to health messages may be beneficial for people with high self-esteem but less so for people with lower self-esteem. Similar to much other self-esteem research, self-esteem was negatively skewed, which warrants caution in generalization of the findings across all levels of self-esteem.

Self-Affirmation and Identity-Driven Political Behavior

AbstractPsychological attachment to political parties can bias people’s attitudes, beliefs, and group evaluations. Studies from psychology suggest that self-affirmation theory may ameliorate this problem in the domain of politics on a variety of outcome measures. We report a series of studies conducted by separate research teams that examine whether a self-affirmation intervention affects a variety of outcomes, including political or policy attitudes, factual beliefs, conspiracy beliefs, affective polarization, and evaluations of news sources. The different research teams use a variety of self-affirmation interventions, research designs, and outcomes. Despite these differences, the research teams consistently find that self-affirmation treatments have little effect. These findings suggest considerable caution is warranted for researchers who wish to apply the self-affirmation framework to studies that investigate political attitudes and beliefs. By presenting the “null results” of separate research teams, we hope to spark a discussion about whether and how the self-affirmation paradigm should be applied to political topics.

Can Short Psychological Interventions Affect Educational Performance? Revisiting the Effect of Self-Affirmation Interventions

Large amounts of resources are spent annually to improve educational achievement and to close the gender gap in sciences with typically very modest effects. In 2010, a 15-min self-affirmation intervention showed a dramatic reduction in this gender gap. We reanalyzed the original data and found several critical problems. First, the self-affirmation hypothesis stated that women’s performance would improve. However, the data showed no improvement for women. There was an interaction effect between self-affirmation and gender caused by a negative effect on men’s performance. Second, the findings were based on covariate-adjusted interaction effects, which imply that self-affirmation reduced the gender gap only for the small sample of men and women who did not differ in the covariates. Third, specification-curve analyses with more than 1,500 possible specifications showed that less than one quarter yielded significant interaction effects and less than 3% showed significant improvements among women.

Affirmation and Majority Students: Does Affirmation Impair Academic Performance in White Males?

Self-affirmation is a promising brief intervention for reducing the academic achievement gap between majority and stigmatized groups (e.g., underrepresented minorities, women in STEM fields). Affirmations are thought to improve academic performance among stigmatized groups by expanding one’s sense of self, buffering social belonging, and reducing social identity threat. Despite encouraging results, some studies suggest that affirmations may inadvertently decrease the academic performance of nonthreatened White students. We conducted experimental studies to evaluate whether an affirmation focused on the theme of social belonging (i.e., belonging-affirmation) decreased the math performance of White males. We hypothesized that the belonging-affirmation would enhance performance for female participants but diminish math performance for White male participants. Two studies were conducted to evaluate these hypotheses: (1) a lab-based study involving 122 White male and mixed-ethnicity female undergraduates, and (2) an online study involving 197 young adult White males and females. Results failed to support study hypotheses, with no substantive differences in math performance found between male and female participants randomized to a belonging-affirmation versus neutral writing control. These findings are consistent with recent large-scale field replication failures of self-affirmation interventions, indicating that the phenomena may be more nuanced and fragile than suggested by early research findings.

Providing Freshmen with a Good “Starting-Block”

Abstract. Grounded in social-psychological literature, this experimental study assessed the effects of two so-called “wise” interventions implemented in a student study program. The interventions took place during the very first week at university, a presumed pivotal phase of transition. A group of 375 freshmen in psychology were randomly assigned to three conditions: control, social belonging, and self-affirmation. Following the intervention, students in the social-belonging condition expressed less social apprehension, a higher social integration, and a stronger intention to persist one month later than the other participants. They also relied more on peers as a source of support when confronted with a study task. Students in the self-affirmation condition felt more self-affirmed at the end of the intervention but didn’t benefit from other lasting effects. The results suggest that some well-timed and well-targeted “wise” interventions could provide lasting positive consequences for student adjustment. The respective merits of social-belonging and self-affirmation interventions are also discussed.

Reducing threat responses to help-seeking information: Influences of self-affirmations and reassuring information.

This research was an examination of the effects of two types of self-affirmation interventions in reducing threat responses associated with receiving help-seeking information. Help-seeking information can be threatening to one's positive self-perceptions and people may avoid seeking such information to protect themselves. There is evidence that reflecting on personal values (values affirmation) may bolster self-integrity and mitigate this avoidance, and it is possible that reflecting on safe, close social relationships (social affirmation) could exhibit similar effects. To experimentally examine this theoretical idea, we applied a 2 × 2 × 2 factorial design in the present study on 384 participants and experimentally manipulated their values affirmations (values affirmation vs. no values affirmation) and social affirmations (social affirmation vs. no social affirmation). In addition, because there is no consensus as to the most effective presentation of help-seeking information, the type of help-seeking information presented to potential help-seekers was also manipulated (reassuring help-seeking information vs. nonreassuring help-seeking information). Results indicated that values affirmation and reassuring information were linked to lower threat responses, but social affirmation was not. Values affirmation and reassuring information might be effective strategies for reducing threat responses associated with the presentation of psychological help-seeking information. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

Adapting a self-affirmation intervention for use in a mobile application for smokers

Self-affirmation interventions can reduce defensive responses to threats to the self, but have had limited reach to the general population. We sought to create an effective and feasible version of the Kindness Questionnaire self-affirmation intervention for use on a mobile device outside the traditional university laboratory setting and by non-student participants. In an online experiment, 603 cigarette smokers (Mage= 37.5 years, SD = 10.2) were randomly assigned to one of six conditions in a 2 (Self-Affirmation: Self-Affirmation, No Self-Affirmation Control) × 3 (Example Type: Written, Imagined, No Examples) fully-crossed design. Participants read a message about the health harms of smoking. None of the self-affirmation variations were effective or feasible: the self-affirmation showed null effects on the primary outcomes of message acceptance, perceived message effectiveness, and reactance. It also backfired by reducing intentions to quit smoking and risk perceptions. Participants spent little time reading the health message, and those in the written self-affirmation condition infrequently provided detailed responses. Translating interventions developed and tested for efficacy in laboratory settings to “real-world” settings is necessary but challenging.

Promoting science motivation in American Indian middle school students: an intervention

U.S. national data show that American Indians earn lower math and science scores than other ethnic/racial groups. In the current study, a brief, self-affirmation intervention was aimed at increasing science motivational beliefs in American Indian middle school students (n = 212, Mage = 12.7 years). Students, each read a biography of a successful scientist who was matched to them on both ethnicity and gender; ethnicity but not gender; gender but not ethnicity; or no match. Students then wrote a short essay describing traits they shared with the scientist. Pre- and post-intervention science self-efficacy, individual interest, and goal orientations were measured to assess intervention efficacy immediately following the intervention and one week later. Results revealed no benefits of the intervention in increasing motivational beliefs for students in any experimental condition. We discuss the fragile fidelity of self-affirmation interventions and conditions that might be necessary for intervention success.