Self-affirmation theory is a psychological theory that focuses on how individuals adapt to information or experiences that are threatening to their self-concept. Claude Steele originally popularized self-affirmation theory in the late 1980s, and it remains a well-studied theory in social psychological research.
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.
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.
Overview
There are four main principles of self-affirmation theory.
People try to protect their self-integrity
Self-affirmation theory proposes that individuals are driven to protect their self-integrity. According to self-affirmation theory, self-integrity is one's concept of oneself as a good, moral person, who acts in ways that are in accord with cultural and social norms. Steele purported that the self is made up of different domains: roles, values, and belief systems. Roles include responsibilities a person has, such as being a parent, friend, student, or professional. Values are aspirations people live in accordance to, including things like living healthfully and treating others with respect. Belief systems include the ideologies to which a person ascribes, such as religious or political beliefs. Self-integrity can take many forms. For example, self-integrity can take the form of being independent, intelligent, a helpful member of a society, part of a family, and/or part of a group. Threats against a person's self-integrity are events or messages that imply an individual is not good or adequate in a personally relevant domain. Self-affirmation theory suggests that when individuals face threat to one of these domains, they are motivated to maintain a positive global image of themselves.
Drives to protect the sense of self are often defensive
Self-affirmation theory purports that when individuals are faced with information that threatens their self-integrity, the response to this information is often defensive in nature. Defensive reactions attempt to minimize the threat in order to preserve the sense of self. Examples of defensive reactions include denial, avoiding the threat, and changing one's appraisal of the event in order to make it less threatening.
Self-integrity is flexible
Instead of having one self-concept (e.g., I am a good parent), self-affirmation theory posits that individuals flexibly define who they are using various roles (e.g., I am a good parent, child, and worker). Having a flexible sense of self allows individual to offset weaknesses in one domain, by highlighting the strengths in another domain. That is, if someone perceives threat to one domain, he or she can accommodate this threat by upholding a value in another domain. Self-affirmations can come from many sources. Having a flexible self-concept allows people to adapt in the face of threat.
Actions that promote one's values can reduce perceived threat
It is theorized that engaging in activities that promote the values, beliefs, and roles that are central to an individual's identity can promote self-integrity. Promoting one's values can affirm the individual and reduce the perceived threat. Engaging in such actions when facing threat serves to remind individuals of the broad, principal values by which they define themselves and their lives. This change in perspective shifts attention away from the threat in one domain of the self toward a larger context of who they are. It is thought that when people operate from this broader perspective, they react less defensively to the threat, which allows them to act more effectively. Self-Affirmations can occur by both reflecting on a personally relevant value, belief, or role, as well as engaging in an activity that might evoke a personally relevant value, such as spending time with family if that is personally relevant.