Can Self-Affirmation Reduce Backlash?

Self-affirmation can enable goal disengagement.

Much research has shown that after being self-affirmed, people respond to challenges in healthy, productive ways, including better task performance. The current research demonstrates that self-affirmation can also deflate motivation and performance, a pattern consistent with goal disengagement. We posited that being self-affirmed and then attempting but failing at a task would lead people to re...

What drives self-affirmation effects? On the importance of differentiating value affirmation and attribute affirmation.

In a series of studies, it is demonstrated that different types of self-affirmation procedures produce different effects. Affirming personally important values (value affirmation) increases self-clarity but not self-esteem. Affirming positive qualities of the self (attribute affirmation) increases self-esteem but not self-clarity (Study 1). As a consequence, attribute affirmation (which increas...

Self-Affirmation: Understanding the Effects

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. In social psychology research, this has been examined in studies where people affirm important values in the context of self-threatening events or information. This paper reviews the literature demonstrating the e...

Thanks for asking: Self-affirming questions reduce backlash when stigmatized targets confront prejudice

Self-Affirmation Activates the Ventral Striatum: A Possible Reward-Related Mechanism for Self-Affirmation.

Self-affirmation (reflecting on important personal values) has been shown to have a range of positive effects; however, the neural basis of self-affirmation is not known. Building on studies showing that thinking about self-preferences activates neural reward pathways, we hypothesized that self-affirmation would activate brain reward circuitry during functional MRI (fMRI) studies. In Study 1, w...