Introduction
Sometimes, individuals experience a state called self-affirmation. That is, they perceive themselves as generally people of integrity and value—as people who pursue valuable and meaningful lives. These individuals recognise they are imperfect in many facets of their life but feel they are moral and capable overall (Steele, 1988). Because they recognise their flaws, but feel valuable overall, they are resilient to criticisms, feedback, or other information that underscores their faults. This resilience enables these individuals to acknowledge their limitations, question their beliefs, and embrace perspectives that diverge from their assumptions: the hallmarks of humility.
Self-affirmation, therefore, should foster humility. Consistent with this premise, as Hanel et al. (2023) revealed, after individuals complete exercises that purportedly foster self-affirmation—such as contemplate how they pursue their values—they demonstrate signs of intellectual humility. As this finding implies, experiences or activities that promote self-affirmation should increase humility as well.
Measures of self-affirmation
Some researchers have devised measures that assess self-affirmation. These measures offer some insight into the defining features of self-affirmation. To illustrate, Sherman et al. (2009) devised a measure that comprises eight items. Participants indicate the degree to which they agree or disagree with the following eight statement:
- I have the ability and skills to deal with whatever comes my way.
- I feel that I’m basically a moral person.
- On the whole, I am a capable person.
- I am a good person.
- When I think about the future, I’m confident that I can meet the challenges that I will face.
- I try to do the right thing.
- Even though there is always room for self-improvement, I feel a sense of completeness about who I fundamentally am.
- I am comfortable with who I am.
As evidence of validity, activities that purportedly foster self-affirmation—such as reading sentences that overlap with their values—increase scores on this measure (Sherman et al., 2009). Furthermore, this measure differs from scales that assess self-esteem or self-efficacy. To illustrate
- measures of self-esteem and self-efficacy do not tend to gauge whether individuals perceive themselves as moral,
- measures of self-esteem and self-efficacy do not tend to gauge whether experience a sense of completeness,
- measures of self-esteem do not tend to gauge self-efficacy—the degree to which individuals feel they can withstand challenges.
Writing about values
Researchers have introduced a range of exercises that promote self-affirmation (McQueen et al., 2006) and, thus, should foster humility. One of the most common exercises revolves around writing about personal values (e.g., Sherman & Cohen, 2006; Sherman et al., 2007). For example
- participants receive a set of 10 words or phrases that represent values, such as relationships with friends, social skills, money, religion, politics, creativity, music, beauty, and sense of humour,
- these individuals then rank these values from most important to least important,
- next, these individuals write about their most important value—such as three reasons this value is most important and an example to demonstrate the significance of this value.
As evidence of validity, this procedure tends to enhance the degree to which individuals can withstand challenges. For example, this procedure or at least comparable activities
- diminishes the likelihood these individuals will ruminate or worry excessively in response to unfavourable feedback (Koole et al., 2006),
- decreases the degree to which these individuals exhibit prejudice or resentment—as measured by tests that assess their mental associations with other ethnicities—in response to rejections from peers (Rudman et al., 2007),
- diminishes the degree to which they feel stressed, as measured by levels of cortisol in their saliva, before presenting a speech (Cresswell et al., 2005).
Researchers have introduced many variations of this procedure. Indeed, even in 2006, McQueen et al. (2006) revealed that
- studies vary on the number and list of values they present to participants,
- studies differ on the questions they need to answer in the essay—such as “Write about a time this value was especially important to you”, “How have you acted consistently with this value before?”, and “How does this value affect your everyday activities?”
Writing about other qualities
Occasionally, to foster self-affirmation, participants write essays that do not revolve around their values. To illustrate,
- participants may be asked to write about an event at work that evoked a sense of pride, improving their perception or understanding of themselves (e.g., Wiesenfeld et al., 2001),
- alternatively, participants might be encouraged to write about a time in which they felt intelligent, kind, honest, persistent, friendly, caring, or compassionate (Dillard et al., 2005).
To evoke memories of these occasions, participants might first be prompted to answer questions about themselves. For instance, Armitage and Rowe (2011) instructed participants to answer 10 questions about times in which they had acted kindly, such as
- Have you ever been considerate of another person’s feelings?
- Have you ever been concerned with the happiness of another person?
- Have you ever been generous or selfless to another person?
Participants merely needed to answer yes or no. If they answered yes, these individuals were then invited to enter an example. This procedure increased the degree to which participants felt positively about themselves.
Other procedures to foster self-affirmation
Rather than write essays, some researchers have deployed other methods to foster self-affirmation (for a review, see affirmation McQueen et al., 2006). To illustrate
- in some studies, participants completed a personality test and received contrived feedback, such as feedback that indicates they are perceptive or skilled in social environments,
- in other studies, participants visualised a person in their life who likes who they are unconditionally.
Some researchers have combined self-affirmation with implementation intentions—a procedure in which people imagine the precise circumstances in which they will initiate some change. For example, in one study, conducted by Armitage and Arden (2016), university students who consume wine regularly were instructed to read the instructions on a wine bottle. On some of these wine bottles was a message that read “If I feel threatened or anxious, then I will think about the things that are important to me”. This message blends self-affirmation with an implementation intention. That is
- the message “think about the things that are important to me” epitomises self-affirmation,
- prompting individuals to complete this task “If I feel threatened or anxious” is an example of an implementation intention.
Next, these individuals were granted the opportunity to pour some wine into a glass and to consume this wine. If the wine bottle conveyed the message that combines self-affirmation and an implementation intention, participants tended to consume less alcohol.
Which procedures are most effective?
Researchers have shown that diverse procedures all foster self-affirmation to similar degrees (see also Vogt et al., 2023). For instance, according to two academics at the University of Sheffield, Armitage and Rowe (2011),
- participants who write about the value they cherish the most and participants who write about the importance of kindness were equally likely to feel positively about themselves,
- participants who answered questions that were designed to prime memories of times in which they acted with kindness and participants who wrote an essay about their most cherished value were also equally likely to feel positively about themselves.
Oblique or subtle manipulations
Some researchers, such as Sherman et al. (2009), have discussed a limitation in procedures that are designed to foster self-affirmation. According to this rationale,
- when participants complete these procedures, they most likely assume these activities should improve their mood or resilience,
- hence, they may ascribe improvements in their mood or resilience to these activities,
- consequently, they may not feel their mood or resilience has improved sustainably—and thus may still feel somewhat fragile.
This concern is consistent with the notion of a psychological immune system. That is, according to Gilbert et al. (1998), when individuals are exposed to threats, such as criticisms, a variety of defensive responses are evoked, all of which maintain the emotional state of individuals. Individuals, for example, might denigrate the criticism or direct attention to their strengths.
Yet, when individuals become aware of these defensive reactions, the benefits of these responses dissipate. For example, when individuals strive to experience positive mood states, they are more likely to experience unpleasant emotions (Schooler et al., 2003). Likewise, when individuals attempt to enhance their self-esteem, they actually experience less positive attitudes towards themselves (see Crocker & Park, 2004).
To circumvent this problem, Sherman et al. (2009) proposed a technique that can foster self-affirmation while diminishing the degree to which participants are aware of the purpose or intent of this exercise. In one study, for example, participants first ranked a series of five values: art, science, social issues, politics, and religion. That is, the individuals ranked these five values from most important to least important. Next, they completed an exercise called the sentence unscrambling task. That is, sets of five words appeared on a screen. Participants were instructed to form sentences from four of these five words. To induce self-affirmation, words that correspond to the most important value of each participant, such as the word colour if art was designated as their key priority, were often embedded in this task.
These words elicited many of the benefits and responses to self-affirmation. To illustrate, after participants were exposed to these words, their performance on a mathematics test was undeterred by previous failures. In contrast, if individuals had not been exposed to these words, their performance diminished if they had completed a previous test inadequately.
Similarly, in another study, published by Gal and Rucker (2010), participants were instead asked to specify their favourite food, book, city, movie, song, or hobby to prime self-affirmation. This procedure was also effective.
Specifically, in this study, participants expressed their attitudes towards testing animals to improve the safety of products. They were then asked to transcribe this attitude with either their preferred hand or non-preferred hand. When individuals write with their non-preferred hand, they become more likely to doubt their assumptions. Finally, these individuals were asked to write a message that was designed to persuade someone else to adopt their attitudes.
If participants wrote their attitude with their non-preferred hand, and thus doubted their beliefs, they devoted more effort to their attempts to persuade someone else. That is, they wrote more words to convince this person, as a means to reinforce their beliefs and overcome their uncertainty. Interestingly, however, if these participants had previously been granted an opportunity to consider their favourite food, book, city, movie, song, or hobby, this effect diminished. Accordingly, if their perception of themselves had been bolstered, these participants did not feel they needed to reinforce their challenged beliefs.
