The Impact of Self‐Affirmation on Health‐Related Cognition and Health Behaviour: Issues and Prospects

Abstract

In a recent paper (Harris & Epton, 2009) we reviewed the evidence showing that selfaffirming Ð the act of reflecting upon cherished values or attributes Ð can reduce resistance to health-risk information. In this companion paper we extend the discussion of issues arising from that review and describe key questions for future research. Overall, we regard the picture emerging from this nascent literature as encouraging. Nevertheless, more needs to be discovered about how self-affirming achieves its effects and their limits. Despite lowering an important barrier to health behaviour change by reducing message resistance, there is currently only limited evidence that self-affirming changes subsequent health behaviour. We consider why.We also discuss issues to address in interventions involving self-affirmation and examine evidence that self-affirming alters relationships between variables. There is also scope for extending the range of samples, health information, and health behaviours examined and for assessing more spontaneous self-affirmation.

The moderating impact of self‐esteem on self‐affirmation effects

“…Research has not, however, systematically explored the role of individual difference variables in moderating the effectiveness of selfaffirmation manipulations in health-related contexts. As observed by Harris & Epton (2010), this would seem to be a notable omission to research in this area, since selfaffirmation manipulations may influence certain types of individuals more than others. Therefore, they propose that self-affirmation research in health-related domains might benefit from considering potential dispositional moderators such as self-esteem.…”

“…In particular, at the time the programme of research presented in this thesis was started, no published studies had explored the potential moderating impact of global self-esteem on the capacity of self-affirmation at promoting open processing of personally relevant health-risk information. As pointed out in a review by Harris & Epton (2010), this seems to be a notable omission to the research in this field.…”

“…Encouragingly, however, there is much evidence to support the prediction that self-affirmation can promote openness to such information (Harris & Epton, 2010;Harris, 2011). Research findings have, for example, shown that selfaffirmed individuals report more positive intentions and greater perceptions of behavioural control with regard to reducing the number of cigarettes smoked (Armitage, Harris, Hepton, & Napper, 2008;Harris, Mayle, Mabbott & Napper, 2007) and greater intentions to reduce their alcohol intake (Harris & Napper, 2005).…”

“…As self-affirmation manipulations may potentially be more effective for certain types of individuals, this is an area that merits further investigation (Harris & Epton, 2010). It has been suggested that variables relating to self-regard may be of particular relevance to explore when considering dispositional moderators of selfaffirmation effects (Harris & Epton, 2010). One such key variable is self-esteem.…”

“…It seems plausible that self-affirmation manipulations may not produce consistent results across different types of individuals (Harris & Epton, 2010). One set of dispositional variables that may be of particular relevance to explore as moderators of self-affirmation effects in health-related domains are variables related to self-regard (Harris & Epton, 2010). Specifically, one such key aspect is global self-esteem.…”