the psychology of self defense: self affirmation theory

Extant empirical research demonstrates that self-affirmations can be beneficial in reducing individuals' stress response as well as their defensiveness toward threats. Bookshelf Reducing the racial achievement gap: A social-psychological intervention. .Science, 313, 1251-1252. Notably, we also did not observe a significant self-affirmation condition time interaction (F(2, 67)=.43 p=.65, 2=.01) or a condition time chronic stress interaction (F(2, 67)=1.15 p=.32, 2=.03) (Figure 2), indicating that there were no differential effects of self-affirmation (or the self-affirmation chronic stress interaction) on heart rate. 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]. Despite this evidence, we know little about protective factors for mitigating the deleterious effects of stress on problem-solving. San Diego: Academic. 0000003179 00000 n They are overoptimistic in their predictions of future success and are blind to their own incompetence. Annals of Behavioral Medicine, 1-7, Heine, S. J., & Lehman, D. R. (1997). Events that threaten self-integrity arouse stress and self-protective defenses that can hamper performance and growth. Given that self-affirmation increased state positive affect, we conducted mediation analyses (following procedure described in [31]) testing whether state positive affect mediated the impact of self-affirmation on problem-solving. Epub 2011 Nov 14. PLOS is a nonprofit 501(c)(3) corporation, #C2354500, based in San Francisco, California, US. Google Scholar Reed, M.B., & Aspinwall, L.G. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology. In L. Berkowitz (Ed. Performed the experiments: JMD. The psychology of self-defense: Self-affirmation theory. Having self-integrity means that one perceives oneself as living up to a culturally specified conception of goodness, virtue, and agency. Self and Identity, 5(4), 289-354, Cohen, G. L., & Sherman, D. K. (2014). Self-affirmation theory contends that if individuals reflect on values that are personally relevant to them, they are less likely to experience distress and react defensively when confronted with information that contradicts or threatens their sense of self. [3], Studies have examined the effects of self-affirmation on the academic performance of historically marginalized groups such as African American and Latino American students, who face a multitude of daily threats in the school environment. Future studies should therefore experimentally test whether social evaluation is a necessary condition for self-affirmation problem-solving effects. As a result, participants in the self-affirmation condition have an opportunity to affirm a valued self-domain or characteristic [6], [8]. J. David Creswell, Benefits from self-affirmation are thought to primarily occur when the perceived threat is in an area of importance to the individual. Importantly, the changes in heart rate and blood pressure reaffirm that the RAT task was stressful for participants. One primary aim of my research is the development of theory-driven, rigorously tested intervention strategies that further our understanding of the processes underpinning social problems and that offer solutions to alleviate them. As we anticipated, self-affirmation elicited greater error responsiveness than did nonaffirmation, as indexed by the error-related negativity, a neural signal of error monitoring. Research reveals why some of us rush to new partners and others don't. We provide an overview of self-afrmation theory and review research in three areas where the theory has yielded impactful self-afrmation interventions: education, health, and interpersonal and intergroup relationships. In M. P. Zanna (Ed. 2009 Nov;97(5):745-64. doi: 10.1037/a0015451. Catecholamines and stress. Tchiki Davis, Ph.D., is a consultant, writer, and expert on well-being technology. The present study provides the first evidence that self-affirmation can protect against the deleterious effects of stress on problem-solving performance. Cohen, G. L., Garcia, J., Purdie-Vaughns, V., Apfel, N., & Brzustoski, P. (2009). 0000009348 00000 n Women concerned with their weight were recruited for a study. In the Trier Social Stress task, participants are asked to give a short speech in front of a panel of judges who do not give any comments or positive feedback to the participant. However, Steele and colleagues demonstrated that these effects arise, in part, from the motivation to maintain self-integrity. Self-affirmation theory is based on the idea that we are motivated to maintain our self-worth in the face of threats (Sherman & Cohen, 2006). The list typically includes the following value domains: aesthetic, social, political, religious, economic, and theoretical values. 0000014002 00000 n government site. Concern with weight has similar effects of stress in that it can cause psychological distress, poor eating, and weight gain. 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. [3] That is, if someone perceives threat to one domain, he or she can accommodate this threat by upholding a value in another domain. 0000004430 00000 n THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SELFDEFENSE: SELFAFFIRMATION THEORY David K. Sherman GeoVrey L. Cohen I. Experimental investigations of self-affirmation theory suggest that self-affirmation can help individuals cope with threat or stress and that it might be beneficial for improving academic performance, health, and reducing defensiveness.[5]. 787-789). We measured self-affirmed and nonaffirmed participants' electrophysiological responses to making errors on a task. Evidence That Self-Affirmation Improves Phosphate Control in Hemodialysis Patients: A Pilot Cluster Randomized Controlled Trial. Simpson J. Psychological vulnerability and stress: the effects of self-affirmation on sympathetic nervous system responses to naturalistic stressors. The present research examines how a motivational process triggered by a, View 6 excerpts, cites background and methods. Choose the statements that are most meaningful to you.. They then completed 30 difficult remote associate problem-solving items under time pressure in front of an evaluator. Bethesda, MD 20894, Web Policies 0000000871 00000 n 0000004133 00000 n 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. There was a significant improvement in serum phosphate levels for the affirmed patients compared to the group of non-affirmed patients, suggesting better adherence to phosphate binders. Self-affirmation theory proposes that individuals possess a flexible self-system, such that they can respond to threats in one domain of life by affirming self-worth in other domains. Advances in experimental social psychology, 38, pp. Enhancing a brief writing intervention to combat stereotype threat among middle-school students. Similarly, the self-affirmation condition time (F(2, 64)=.13, p=.88, 2=.004) and condition time chronic stress (F(2, 64)=1.53 p=.23, 2=.05) interactions were not significant (Figure 3). In a classic cognitive dissonance study, people are shown to change their attitudes to bring them in line with their past behavior. To try it, just choose a statement that represents how you want to think. The interpretation of the religious scale of the Allport-Vernon-Lindzey study of values. The Feeling Self: Self-Esteem Define self-esteem and explain how it is measured by social psychologists. 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). Please enable it to take advantage of the complete set of features! Examples of defensive reactions include denial, avoiding the threat, and changing one's appraisal of the event in order to make it less threatening. 0000013411 00000 n Acute and chronic stress have been shown to disrupt problem-solving and creativity [1]. The present study builds on previous research showing that self-affirmation has stress protective effects in performance settings [9], [12], [13], [15], providing an initial indication that self-affirmation can buffer the effects of chronic stress on actual problem-solving in performance settings. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 73(1), 31, Schmeichel, B. J., & Martens, A. Catecholamine levels are thought to be high when individuals are experiencing higher stress. tefi{'" m 2ZVftYXE?gB Careers. the concept that people are motivated to maintain views of themselves as well adapted, moral, competent, stable, and able to control important outcomes. 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. 3. New York, NY: Guildford Press. Chronic threat and contingent belonging: protective benefits of values affirmation on identity development. This study uses self-affirmation theory to draw predictions about the effect of Facebook profile self-presentation on two psychological outcomes: users' state self-esteem and their performance in a cognitive task. Hbd`ad`ddtL) 4ONLN1462 a!CG2bX0v/b`fdH**4204p/,L(QX`hii_Z VVPZZTXZ`dacbd rRR0,E^` rD A great deal of money could be earned and fame accrued. Low and high stress groups (as measured by the Perceived Stress Scale) were determined by median split for visual presentation. 10 Empowering Self-Affirmations for the Family Caregiver. self-affirmation theory. 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). 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Department of Psychology, University of California Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California, United States of America, Affiliation: ), Contemporary perspectives on the psychology of attitudes (pp. In virtually all cultures and historical periods, there are socially shared conceptions of what it means to be a person of self-integrity. The psychology of self-defense: Self-affirmation theory. Self-affirmation was used successfully to mitigate the psychological threat associated with being the target of a negative stereotype in school. Rumination is when people cannot stop fixating on a particular thought. 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. Disclaimer. Because chronic stress is linked to physical illness, this finding also suggests that affirming the self could have positive effects on health outcomes. Social-psychological research, A key question about achievement motivation is how to maintain it over time and in the face of stress and adversity. PostedApril 4, 2022 Moreover, we observed a significant main effect for self-affirmation condition, (=.31, t(72)=2.88, p=.005), such that affirmed participants performed significantly better on the RAT task than control participants (Figure 1). It is important to note that the task used in the present study (RAT) is a common measure of creativity performance and insight [18], [33], and hence our study suggests that self-affirmation may increase creativity and insight in stressed individuals [16], [34]. A particularly well-known example of the former is self-affirmation theory (e.g., Steele, 1988) whereas an especially influential example of the latter is ego depletion theory (e.g., Baumeister et al., 1998). Cohen, G. L., Garcia, J., Apfel, N., & Master, A. and catalysts to change. In R. Baumeister and K. Vohs (Eds. 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. Loch et al. Status competition and performance in work groups Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization (2000) Explore techniques to work through sadness. Accessibility 38, pp. If individuals feel relatively positive about themselves in one domain, they are willing and able to tolerate a threat to their self-integrity in another domain. Our experimental manipulation of self-affirmation was dummy coded (self-affirmation=1, control=0). hb```@( O@'c"{%I8p!Yk5Y KDB9a\kveKL9TpV27;)P#aUTf+N0# q *7CUf suP[6May"/#LeCWARDq+EB]o^&YIXE_H,6sA&{!"+k"R&t?$1F@c@K. ISI. Remote Associate items used in the present study. #1 Ranked Value selected by participants according to self-affirmation condition and chronic stress level (as determined by median split). Self-affirmed participants had lost more weight, had lower body mass index, and smaller waist circumference than non-affirmed women. (2002). Self-affirmation theory is a psychological theory that focuses on how individuals adapt to information or experiences that are threatening to their self-concept. And why do they persist in maladaptive behavior even when persuasive information or personal experience recommends, Journal of personality and social psychology.

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