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When Beliefs Yield to Evidence: Reducing Biased Evaluation by Affirming the Self
Abstract
People often cling to beliefs even in the face of disconfirming evidence and interpret ambiguous information in a manner that bolsters strongly held attitudes. The authors tested a motivational account suggesting that these defensive reactions would be ameliorated by an affirmation of an alternative source of self-worth. Consistent with this interpretation, participants were more persuaded by evidence impugning their views toward capital punishment when they were self-affirmed than when they were not (Studies 1 and 2). Affirmed participants also proved more critical of an advocate whose arguments confirmed their views on abortion and less confident in their own attitudes regarding that issue than did unaffirmed participants (Study 3). Results suggest that assimilation bias and resistance to persuasion are mediated, in part, by identity-maintenance motivations.
... Positive effects of self-affirmation interventions benefiting the individual have been demonstrated in various domains, such as increased performance in academic settings (Cohen et al., , 2009, positive health behavior change (Cooke et al., 2014;Epton & Harris, 2008;Logel & Cohen, 2012;Sherman & Cohen, 2006), openness to opposing political views (Cohen et al., 2000), enhanced selfcontrol (Schmeichel & Vohs, 2009), improved quality of an apology (Schumann, 2014), and increased well-being (Nelson et al., 2014;Ryan & Deci, 2001). ...
... Participants in the control conditions wrote about what they had eaten or drunk in the past 48 hr for the Intention Study (Cohen et al., 2000;van Prooijen et al., 2012) and described the layout and product placement of their most frequented grocery store for the Behavior Study (see Schnall & Roper, 2012 for a similar control task). We decided to change the control group writing task from the Intention Study to the Behavior Study, because: (a) we felt that describing a grocery store layout would be an even more emotionally neutral and hence more conservative control task and (b) because we wanted to ensure that our effects would not depend on one particular control task, but be robust across different tasks. ...
... These findings point to a promising potential application of the investigated intervention to foster prosociality. We extend research on the positive effects of values affirmation on behavior benefiting the individual, such as in the well-studied domains of academic performance (Cohen et al., , 2009, health behavior (Cooke et al., 2014;Epton & Harris, 2008;Logel & Cohen, 2012;Sherman & Cohen, 2006), self-control (Schmeichel & Vohs, 2009), or openness to opposing views (Cohen et al., 2000), to show that a values affirmation intervention can be effective in the prosocial domain benefiting unknown and distant others. While prior research in this domain has largely focused on pro-environmental motivation and attitudes (van Prooijen et al., 2012;Sparks et al., 2010), as well as prosocial behavioral intentions (Lindsay & Creswell, 2014), we show that a values affirmation intervention has the potential to shift real prosocial behavior. ...
Prosocial behavior is critical to address global social, environmental, and economic challenges. Yet humans often do not act with the benefit of others in mind, especially when those others are distant and unknown. We suggest that a failure to act prosocially may stem in part from cognitive and emotional capacity limitations. Hence an intervention that reduces worry about the self and thereby increases available resources may foster prosociality. Starting from self‐affirmation theory which posits that affirming the self can establish self‐integrity, we propose that a values affirmation intervention can motivate prosociality through fostering positive self‐regard. Across two studies we find that, compared to control participants, affirmed participants display greater willingness to volunteer time and exhibit increased actual prosocial behavior by completing an unpaid study and donating real money to charity. As hypothesized, increases in positive self‐regard mediate the effect of values affirmation on prosocial behavioral intentions as well as behavior.
... Among these, some models have also included bounded confidence and biased assimilation, each of which can be viewed as a type of confirmation bias, as an individual's characteristics in the dynamics [15][16][17]. While antagonistic interactions/relationships can contribute to and justify the tendency toward more extreme beliefs in a divided population, such as that of the United States with respect to political ideology (see Fig. 1, extracted from [18]), extreme beliefs have also been observed to form in fully collaborative environments [19]. Furthermore, the pre-existence of extreme tendencies is often required at the onset of evolution of opinions for these models to explain how such tendencies become mainstream. ...
... Let us start with the reason why (19) only imposes an upper bound on the discounting function instead of assuming an exact formulation. We believe that any exact formulation is too restrictive and unrealistic in a social network setting. ...
... We now discuss the properties of the upper bound function in (19), that is ...
Models of opinion dynamics play a major role in various disciplines, including economics, political science, psychology, and social science, as they provide a framework for analysis and intervention. In spite of the numerous mathematical models of social learning proposed in the literature, only a few models have focused on or allow for the possibility of popular extreme beliefs' formation in a population. This paper closes this gap by introducing the Partisan Confidence (PC) model inspired by the foundations of the well-established socio-psychological theory of groupthink. The model hints at the existence of a tipping point, passing which the opinions of the individuals within a so-called "social bubble" are exaggerated towards an extreme position, no matter how the general population is united or divided. The results are also justified through numerical experiments, which provide new insights into the evolution of opinions and the groupthink phenomenon.
... Remarkable variations have also included bounded confidence and biased assimilation, each of which can be viewed as a type of confirmation bias, as an individual's characteristics in the dynamics [29]- [32]. While antagonistic interactions/relationships can contribute to and justify the tendency toward more extreme beliefs in a divided population, such as that of the United States with respect to political ideology (see Fig. 1, extracted from [33]), extreme beliefs have also been observed to form in fully collaborative environments [34]. Furthermore, these models often need the pre-existence of extreme tendencies at the onset of the opinion evolution to explain how such tendencies become mainstream. ...
... There is a slight abuse of notation in (34), in that w ij is in general a function of time, while f does not seem to be treated as one. This will not cause a problem since the time index will be fixed whenever f i will show up in future arguments. ...
Models of opinion dynamics play a major role in various disciplines, including economics, political science, psychology, and social science, as they provide a framework for analysis and intervention. In spite of the numerous mathematical models of social learning proposed in the literature, only a few models have focused on or allow for the possibility of popular extreme beliefs' formation in a population. This paper closes this gap by introducing the Partisan Confidence (PC) model inspired by the foundations of the well-established socio-psychological theory of groupthink. The model hints at the existence of a tipping point, passing which the opinions of the individuals within a so-called “social bubble” are exaggerated towards an extreme position, no matter how the general population is united or divided. The results are also justified through numerical experiments, which provide new insights into the evolution of opinions and the groupthink phenomenon.
... Open Sci. 10: 220958 sense of self-integrity [25,28,52]. In theory, self-affirmation increases people's subjective sense of selfintegrity, which frees them to be less wary of threats to their self-views and more open-minded. ...
... It would be interesting to test the effect of self-affirmation on a more heated topic of high personal relevance, and with people who are more controversial than our mildly provocative confederate. In general, selfaffirmation makes people relatively more open to information and ideas that would otherwise prove threatening to their identity [52], and online dialogue is an important context in which to examine this process. Such a study would further address calls for interventions to engage more with or be more receptive towards opposing views [61]. ...
Intellectual humility, which entails openness to other views and a willingness to listen and engage with them, is crucial for facilitating civil dialogue and progress in debate between opposing sides. In the present research, we tested whether intellectual humility can be reliably detected in discourse and experimentally increased by a prior self-affirmation task. Three-hundred and three participants took part in 116 audio and video-recorded group discussions. Blind to condition, linguists coded participants’ discourse to create an intellectual humility score. As expected, the self-affirmation task increased the coded intellectual humility, as well as participants’ self-rated prosocial affect (e.g., empathy). Unexpectedly, the effect on prosocial affect did not mediate the link between experimental condition and intellectual humility in debate. Self-reported intellectual humility and other personality variables were uncorrelated with expert-coded intellectual humility. Implications of these findings for understanding the social psychological mechanisms underpinning intellectual humility are considered.
... A large body of empirical work has demonstrated that SA lowers defensiveness in connection with a diverse range of threatening information, which in turn reduces bias in assimilating such information (e.g., Cohen et al., 2000;Cohen et al., 2005;Correll et al., 2004). These effects have been demonstrated in the domains of threatening health information (e.g., Harris & Napper, 2005;Reed & Aspinwall, 1998;Sherman et al., 2000), evaluative stress (e.g., Creswell et al., 2005;Taylor et al., 2003), and cognitive dissonance (e.g., Blanton et al., 2001;Matz & Wood, 2005). ...
... The current study provides evidence that IH can be increased via a self-affirmation induction. This finding is broadly consistent with previous research, which has shown that SA lowers defensiveness in the face of a range of threats to the self that appear in the form of counter-attitudinal information (Cohen et al., 2000;Cohen et al., 2005;Correll et al., 2004). Our findings serve to extend this literature by suggesting that this lowered defensiveness can result in heightened IH. ...
The dispositional trait of intellectual humility (IH) refers to the degree to which people recognize their beliefs might be fallible. For the most part, it has been conceptualized as a “trait” variable that reflects a stable individual difference, however, in the current study, we examined whether IH also has “state”-like characteristics by testing whether it is susceptible to modification via a self-affirmation (SA) induction, which in previous research has been shown to reduce defensiveness in the face of information that threatens the self. To test this hypothesis, we first threatened participants by having them read a counter-attitudinal essay that contradicted their belief in God and then allowed half of the participants to affirm the self by writing about an important value that they hold. Following this SA induction, all participants completed a brief IH measure. Consistent with our hypothesis, statistical analyses revealed that participants in the SA condition reported significantly higher IH than participants in the control (no affirmation) condition. These findings suggest that in addition to having features associated with relatively fixed personality traits, IH is also amenable to change on the basis of a simple situational manipulation under conditions of self-threat.
... In three experiments by Cohen et al. (2000), participants first self-affirmed either by writing a short essay about experiences that had made them feel good about themselves (Studies 1 and 3), or by getting positive feedback on a bogus test of their ability to interpret other people's thoughts and feelings (Study 2). In Study 1 and 2, participants, who were either proponents or opponents to capital punishment, were assigned to the affirmation or no-affirmation condition before reading a scientific report on capital punishment. ...
... Three of the reviewed studies used self-affirmation, making people feel good about themselves, before trying to make them accept potentially threatening information. Two of these suggest that self-affirmed participants are less biased in their evaluation of counter-attitudinal information, or showed more acceptance of threatening health information (Cohen et al., 2000;Sherman et al., 2000). However, a rather alarming drawback with this technique is that it seems to make people more accepting of any type of information, which would be highly problematic in cases where the target information is erroneous (Munro & Stansbury, 2009). ...
... In three experiments by Cohen et al. (2000), participants rst self-af rmed either by writing a short essay about experiences that had made them feel good about themselves (Studies 1 and 3), or by getting positive feedback on a bogus test of their ability to interpret other people's thoughts and feelings (Study 2). In Study 1 and 2, participants, who were either proponents or opponents to capital punishment, were assigned to the af rmation or no-af rmation condition before reading a scienti c report on capital punishment. ...
... Three of the reviewed studies used self-af rmation, making people feel good about themselves, before trying to make them accept potentially threatening information. Two of these suggest that self-af rmed participants are less biased in their evaluation of counter-attitudinal information, or showed more acceptance of threatening health information (Cohen et al., 2000;Sherman et al., 2000). However, a rather alarming drawback with this technique is that it seems to make people more accepting of any type of information, which would be highly problematic in cases where the target information is erroneous (Munro & Stansbury, 2009). ...
... Arguments consistent with attitudes are accepted uncritically, while the inconsistent ones are prone to critical scrutiny and, as a result, are evaluated as weaker than consistent ones (disconfirmation bias; Edwards & Smith, 1996;Taber et al., 2009). This biased elaboration (biased assimilation; Lord et al. 1979;or biased evaluation;Cohen et al., 2000) leads to the perception of incoming evidence as supporting one's previous attitude, which in turn allows leaving this attitude unchanged or even to bolster it (Kuhn & Lao, 1996;Lord et al., 1979). ...
... Both the tendency to concentrate on the negatives, as well as the tendency for a biased elaboration of evidence, may be moderated by individual-related factors, for example, by the strength of initial attitude (e.g., Pomerantz et al., 1995;Taber et al., 2009). What from our study perspective is more interestingthe aforementioned effects can be also moderated by situational or external factors (e.g., Cohen et al., 2000;Lord et al., 1984). Simple and seemingly unimportant variations in framing the question or task can change the way the object-related information is processed or weighted. ...
Previous research showed that responses to questions about forbidding something differed from those to the seemingly equivalent questions about allowing the same object (forbid/allow asymmetry). We postulate that the effect of the forbid vs. allow framing may be also consequential for the processing of attitude related information and attitude change. The forbid frame (compared with the allow frame) may increase the impact of negative (vs. positive) arguments and/or reduce the impact of initial attitudes on the elaboration the presented information. To test these predictions we conducted three experiments (one preregistered, total N = 655). Participants were reading both pro and con arguments, differing in consistency with their initial attitudes, and concerning three different attitude objects: genetically modified organisms (GMOs), euthanasia, and barbecuing in public places. The results show that the forbid (vs. allow) frame decreases the tendency for generating thoughts prevailingly consistent with participants' initial attitudes (Experiment 2). It also reduces bias in the evaluation and interpretation of the presented arguments and yields more similar assessments of arguments that are consistent and inconsistent with initial attitudes (Experiment 3). As a result, the attitudes are more susceptible to change within the forbid frame (they move more in the direction opposite to the initial attitude) than within the allow frame (Experiments 1-3). The results for the first time show the existence of forbid vs. allow asymmetry in persuasion. This effect has practical consequences, e.g., when designing referenda.
... Following prior personal values affirmation interventions (e.g., Cohen et al., 2006;Kinias & Sim, 2016;McQueen & Klein, 2006), all participants were presented with a list of 11 values (e.g., sense of humor, musical ability/appreciation, social skills; see Appendix 1) and asked to rank order them from most to least important. These values have been used in prior values affirmation tasks and represent values that people weigh differently (Cohen et al., 2000). ...
... Increasing education and awareness about other forms of affirmation is prudent. For instance, leaders can jump start the self-affirmation process by directly asking employees about their important values (Stone et al., 2011) or giving positive feedback on a skill they know is important to the employee (Cohen et al., 2000). Organizations can encourage self-affirmations through more indirect means, too. ...
Pressure to perform is ubiquitous in organizations. Although performance pressure produces beneficial outcomes, it can also encourage cheating behavior. However, removing performance pressure altogether to reduce cheating is not only impractical but also eliminates pressure's benefits. Therefore, the purpose of this research is to test an intervention to counteract some of the most harmful effects of performance pressure. Specifically, I integrate the self-protection model of workplace cheating (Mitchell et al., 2018) with self-affirmation theory (Steele, 1988) to demonstrate the utility of a personal values affirmation intervention to short-circuit the direct and indirect effects of performance pressure on cheating through anger and self-serving cognitions. Two experiments were used to test these predictions. In a lab experiment, when people affirmed core personal values, the effect of performance pressure on cheating was neutralized; as was pressure's direct effect on anger and indirect effect on cheating via anger. A field experiment replicated the intervention's ability to mitigate performance pressure's direct effect on anger and indirect effect on cheating through anger. Altogether, this work provides a useful approach for combating the harmful effects of performance pressure and offers several theoretical and practical implications. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).
... celebrity is viewed as an idol, with a strong sense of distance" ( Table 1). The items were adapted from scales by Hess (2003); Stever and Lawson (2013), and Cohen et al. (2016). In the second part, participants were asked to evaluate their purchase intention to purchase the product under the three conditions. ...
... We also conducted an experiment to examine the psychological mechanism by which celebrity endorsements and online star endorsements influence purchasing behavior. We replicated all the materials (except the product) and steps used in the previous study and added a new step in which the participants were asked to score their ideal and actual selves using a 4-item scale developed by Cohen et al. (2016). This step was taken after completion of the first two steps of the experiment. ...
Despite the fact that companies increasingly value online star endorsements as Internet celebrity economy booms, scientific knowledge on the effect of online star endorsements on consumers’ purchase intention is limited. Based on the theories of self and construal level theory, this study investigates the impact of online star vs. celebrity endorsements on purchase intention and explores the underlying mechanism as well as boundary conditions. The results of four studies reveal the following: (1) Compared with no endorsement, both celebrity endorsements and online star endorsements lead to increases in consumers’ purchase intention, with no significant difference between the two. (2) Self-concept mediates these relationships; specifically, celebrity and online star endorsements activate the ideal and actual self respectively, and enhance consumers’ willingness to purchase. (3) The effect of endorsements on consumers’ purchase intention is moderated by advertising appeals. That is, celebrity endorsements enhance purchase intention when consumers are exposed to symbolic appeals in advertisements, and online star endorsements enhance purchase intention when it is matched with functional advertising appeals.
... Following the administration of the aforementioned measures, participants were randomized to either the control or intervention (self-affirmation) condition using a random number generator. Participants completed a standard self-affirmation or control task (Cohen et al., 2000;Epton et al., 2015): they first ranked 11 values from most to least important and were subsequently asked to write about the personal importance of the value that they rated as most important (self-affirmation condition) or the importance of their lowest rated value for the average college student (control condition). Next, participants were told that they would be completing an objective memory test in which they would read scientific facts and try to remember as much of the content as possible. ...
... Second, although self-affirmation has been shown to be effective across ethnicities, past meta-analyses have shown that it is not as effective for White individuals, which the present sample was largely composed of (Epton et al., 2015). Third, previous research conducted using college students has had the control groups think about their least important value in terms of someone else (e.g., Cohen et al., 2000;Good et al., 2015). It is possible that this manipulation is flawed as it may inherently lead to self-other comparisons and, in turn, a self-enhancement effect (e.g., see Suls et al., 2002). ...
Recruitment of insufficiently active individuals into exercise interventions is difficult due to many different barriers, including motivational barriers and negative body image. The present study provided an initial conceptual test of whether self‐affirmation can help increase recruitment of insufficiently active women to an exercise intervention. Emerging adult women were randomly assigned to complete a self‐affirmation or control task prior to reading the same message concerning the consequences of inactivity. In addition to completing demographic and body image measures at baseline, U.S. undergraduate participants (N = 254) indicated their interest in registering for an intervention and their intention to exercise after the experimental manipulation. Data did not support hypotheses that (1) self‐affirmed women would find the message less threatening and less manipulative, (2) self‐affirmed women would have higher intentions to exercise, (3) self‐affirmed women would be more likely to register interest for a future exercise intervention, and (4) condition and body dissatisfaction would interact such that the intervention would be particularly beneficial for women with high body dissatisfaction. Results revealed that 70% of participants were unwilling to register for an exercise intervention, which indicates that other novel exercise intervention recruitment techniques need to be tested.
... When one's identity is threatened, individuals often activate defense mechanisms to restore their image, without significantly impacting their integrity (Sherman & Cohen, 2006). Self-affirmation can be used to enhance an individual's self-adequacy (Steele, 1988), such as highlighting one's strengths through positive feedback (Cohen et al., 2000). Self-affirmations aid individuals in feeling less consumed with failure on performance-based assessments, and thus may serve a critical self-protective role when the self is threatened (Creswell, et al., 2013;Koole et al., 1999). ...
Research demonstrates that when math-based gender stereotypes are activated (e.g., men are better at math than women), women display comparatively poorer math performance than men, a phenomenon referred to as stereotype threat. We evaluated the effectiveness of two forms of self-affirmation in reducing the effects of stereotype threat on women’s math performance. Participants completed a math test under one of four conditions: control (no explicit stereotype activation), stereotype threat (activation of gender performance stereotype), or stereotype threat combined with one of two self-affirmation manipulations. Women in the affirmation conditions either read about women’s greater verbal or relational ability and were asked to write about why the trait is important to their self-concept. No omnibus effect of condition emerged though follow-up analyses revealed several notable findings. While we were unable to replicate stereotype threat effects, contrast analyses revealed that the combined performance of women in the two affirmation conditions was greater than the combined performance of women in the two no-affirmation conditions. Women in the relational affirmation condition performed descriptively greater than the combined performance of women in the other three conditions. These findings demonstrate how self-affirmation, particularly relational affirmation, may facilitate women’s mathematics problem-solving, independent of stereotype threat activation.
... To demonstrate that this greater hardship-claiming was indeed a defensive response, the same manipulation was implemented in a third study but a self-affirmation condition designed to decrease defensiveness was added (Phillips & Lowery, 2015). In the affirmation condition, participants were asked to rank 12 values provided in the survey and then to write why their 1 st ranked value was most important to them, a procedure loosely based on one initially validated to decrease dismissiveness toward disconfirming evidence (Cohen et al., 2000). To measure decreased defensiveness, both hardship claiming and support for affirmative action were measured. ...
Racial inequality pervades American society, yet this reality is largely denied or misattributed by many White people (Bonilla-Silva & Dietrich, 2011). Why are White Americans so resistant to acknowledging their privilege as unearned and therefore illegitimate? While some research suggests nominal benefit of raising awareness of White privilege (e.g., decreases in modern racist beliefs), other work indicates outright defensive reactions (e.g., increased hardship claiming). System Justification Theory conceptualizes these defenses as attempts to legitimize the current social order and resist change. In this dissertation, I sought to address the inconsistencies in the literature by identifying factors that affect the type of reactions White people have to being reminded of White privilege. Using an experimental paradigm comparing a condition in which participants read a paragraph about White privilege to a control paragraph about chairs, in a sample of 500 White Mechanical Turk participants, we investigated the degree to which White racial identity, social dominance orientation, and self-regard affected defensive or non-defensive reactions, as measured by racial system justification, colorblind racism, and affirmative action attitudes. We found significant condition x White racial self-regard interactive effects on racial system justification, colorblind racism and affirmative action attitudes. Individuals low in White racial self-regard defended the racial status quo in response to evidence of White privilege, whereas those who were racially secure were able to incorporate information about White privilege and acknowledge systemic racism. Thus, interventions geared toward maintaining racial self-regard while interrogating the ways White people perpetuate racial inequality may be necessary to sustain White engagement in dismantling racism.
... Thus, consumers are inclined, in terms of risk perception of novel technologies, to hold opinions that mirror their cultural disposition toward technological risks. Cohen et al. (2000), Cohen et al. (2007) and Kahan (2010) added that personal and cultural values should underpin communication strategies, because individuals tend to react more openmindedly when they are shown risk information that individuals associate with a conclusion supporting their cultural values instead of threatening it. Overall, Frewer et al. (2003) calls for trustworthy information, whilst Kahan et al. (2011) suggests information that aligns with values of the individual. ...
... Statistik yang dihitung dari sampel jarang akan sama persis dengan parameter populasi karena variasi acak, tetapi biasanya cukup dekat (dengan asumsi bahwa pemilihan acak digunakan dan sampel memiliki ukuran sampel yang memadai). Perbedaan antara statistik dan parameter disebut kesalahan sampling (Cohen et al., 2000). Oleh karenanya, peneliti harus memberikan perhatian khusus untuk menyajikan informasi tentang karakteristik sampel termasuk rincian tentang strategi pengambilan sampel yang memungkinkan orang lain untuk mengulangi penelitian (Henn et al., 2005:238). ...
Artikel ini bertujuan untuk mengetahui teknik sampling umum dalam metode penelitian berdasarkan beberapa artikel internasional bereputasi. Untuk memenuhi tujuan tersebut, peneliti melakukan penelitian di tiga jurnal yang membahas tentang teknik pengambilan sampel. Metode yang digunakan dalam penelitian ini adalah jenis penelitian kepustakaan dengan pendekatan deskriptif kualitatif, dengan menggunakan metode analisis isi. Temuan penelitian menunjukkan bahwa ketiga artikel tersebut membahas dan menjelaskan teknik sampling umum dalam metodologi penelitian. Secara khusus perbedaannya terletak pada penjelasan poin-poin penting pemahaman atau beberapa tahapan yang dapat dilalui dalam teknik sampling. Selain itu juga, masing-masing isi naskah ke-3 artikel menjelaskan kelebihan dan kekrungan dari masing-masing teknik samping berhubungan dengan bias dari keterwakilan populasi dari teknik sampling yang dipilih. Sementara satu naskah lebih jelas dilengkapi dengan alternatif solusi mengurangi bahkan meningkatkan keterwakilan populasi atas sampel yang ambil dengan metode yang dipilih.
... Following experimental manipulations that implicitly or subliminally remind people of their own mortality (e.g., questionnaires about death, exposure to death-related stimuli), people become even more favorably inclined toward those who share their political beliefs but more hostile toward those having dissimilar attitudes, who they become more prone to negatively stereotype (MacGregor et al., 1998). Studies also show that challenges to people's worldview lower self-esteem, whereas validation of one's worldview bolsters self-esteem (Cohen et al., 2000). That political worldviews serve a psychological function similar to religious beliefs (Green et al., 2002) is suggested by the fact that parallel findings are obtained with respect to religious views (Greenberg et al., 1990); experimentally induced threats heighten participants' belief in a god as well as their own political attitudes (Kay et al., 2008). ...
Although the consideration of client and therapist values is thought to represent a core component of culturally-competent psychotherapy, sociopolitical attitudes and values (SPAVs) have been almost entirely neglected in the cultural competence literature. Based on research over the last several decades in behavior genetics, neuroscience, and personality and social psychology, we argue that SPAVs often play a substantial a role in people’s self-concept, behaviors, relationships, and life choices. Thus, cultural competence requires that therapists consider the ways in which the SPAVs of the client and therapist, and the interaction between them, can affect therapeutic processes and outcomes. We provide recommendations for taking SPAVs into account in clinical practice, training, and research.
... Thus, people may rationalize the spread of misinformation through the biased use of information about 'what might have been' . In terms of research interventions, reducing ego defensiveness by encouraging people to affirm positive things about themselves sometimes helps to reduce information processing biases 129,130 . Other intervention strategies focus on correcting misper ceptions, encouraging more complex thinking, and reducing anger and competitive feelings 26,131,132 . ...
Healthy democratic polities feature competing visions of a good society but also require some level of cooperation and institutional trust. Democracy is at risk when citizens become so polarized that an ‘us versus them’ mentality dominates. Despite a vast multidisciplinary literature, no coherent conceptual framework of the microlevel dynamics that increase or decrease polarization has been presented. In this Review, we provide a conceptual framework to integrate scientific knowledge about cognitive–motivational mechanisms that influence political polarization and the social-communicative contexts in which they are enacted. Ego-justifying and group-justifying motives lead individuals to defend their own pre-existing beliefs and those of their in-group, respectively. However, a distinct class of system-justifying motives contributes to asymmetric forms of polarization. Whereas conservative-rightist ideology is associated with valuing tradition, social order and maintenance of the status quo, liberal-leftist ideology is associated with a push for egalitarian social change. These cognitive–motivational mechanisms interact with social influence processes linked to communication source, message and channel factors, all of which might contribute to increased or decreased polarization. We conclude with a discussion of unanswered questions and ways in which our framework can be extended to the study of culture and institutions. Democracy is at risk when citizens become so polarized that an ‘us versus them’ mentality dominates. In this Review, Jost et al. provide a conceptual framework that integrates scientific knowledge about cognitive–motivational mechanisms that influence political polarization and the social-communicative contexts in which they are enacted.
... In addition to these effects of transcendent-value-focus on the motivational buoyancy aspect of magnanimity, effects on the freedom from defensive belligerence aspect are similarly impressive. Value-focus tunes people more closely to the truth about unpleasant realities and reduces defensive bias (Cohen, Aronson, & Steele, 2000;Correll, Spencer, & Zanna, 2004;Sherman & Cohen, 2002). This makes them more willing to acknowledge and try to change unhealthy habits (e.g., Kang et al., 2018;Sherman, Nelson, & Steele, 2000; for reviews see Cohen & Sherman, 2014;Epton, Harris, Kane, van Koningsbruggen, & Sheeran, 2015;Sherman, 2013). ...
Fidelity with self-transcendent values is hailed as a hallmark of mature and magnanimous character by classic psychological and philosophical theories. Dozens of contemporary experiments inspired by self-affirmation theory have also found that when people are under threat, focus on self-transcendent values can confer magnanimity by improving psychological buoyancy (less anxious and more courageous, determined, and effective) and decreasing belligerence (less defensive, extreme, and hostile). The present research was guided by the postulate that both aspects of magnanimity—its buoyancy and its freedom from belligerence—arise from the approach motivated states that self-transcendent foci can inspire. Experimental manipulations of self-transcendent foci (values, spirituality, compassion) heightened state approach motivation as assessed by electroencephalography (Study 1, n = 187) and self-report (Study 2, n = 490). Further, even though the heightened approach motivation was transient, it mediated a longer-lasting freedom from moral (Study 1) and religious (Study 2) belligerence. Importantly, self-transcendent-focus effects on approach motivation and belligerence occurred only among participants with high trait meaning search scores. Results support an interpretation of meaningful values and spiritual ideals as self-transcendent priorities that operate according to basic motivational mechanics of abstract-goal pursuit. The transient, approach-motivated state aroused by transcendence-focus causes longer lasting relief from preoccupation with threat, leaving people feeling buoyant and generous. Relevance of results for self-affirmation theory and the psychology of spirituality are discussed.
... Ein möglicher Ansatz besteht darin, die Werte und die Identität der Studierenden nicht herauszufordern, sondern zu stärken (G. L. Cohen et al. 2000). Besonders geeignet erscheint dafür das didaktische Instrument des "evidence-laden narrative" (ELN, siehe z. ...
Die Förderung epistemischer Überzeugungen gilt als wichtige Aufgabe in der Lehrerbildung. Insbesondere im bildungswissenschaftlichen Begleitstudium tendieren Studierende jedoch zu ungünstigen Überzeugungen: Bildungswissenschaftliches Wissen wird im Vergleich zu fachwissenschaftlichem Wissen als wenig systematisiert, subjektiv und kaum praxisrelevant beurteilt. Wie Studierende dabei unterstützt werden können, angemessene Überzeugungen zum Wissen in den Bildungswissenschaften zu entwickeln, ist empirisch noch unzureichend untersucht. Aus diesem Grund wurden literaturgestützt drei Kurzinterventionen entwickelt, die auf je spezifischen Förderstrategien gründen: (1) Direkt-explizite Adressierung von epistemischen Überzeugungen, (2) indirekt-implizite Adressierung und (3) Kombination aus direkten und indirekten Förderansätzen. Die Eignung der drei Interventionen wurde in einem quasi-experimentellen Mixed-Methods-Design in zwei Teilstudien untersucht. Die quantitative Teilstudie umfasste eine Veränderungsmessung. Es konnte gezeigt werden, dass sich die Studierenden aus der direkten und der kombinierten Intervention tendenziell in Richtung reflektierter Überzeugungen weiterentwickelt haben. Die indirekte Intervention blieb dagegen wirkungslos. Die qualitative Teilstudie umfasste die Analyse von Follow-Up-Interviews, die im Nachgang der Interventionen mit teilnehmenden Studierenden geführt wurden. Die Ergebnisse stützten erstens die Befunde aus der quantitativen Teilstudie, wobei ein besonderes Veränderungspotenzial für die kombinierte Intervention deutlich wurde. Zweitens konnten die zugrunde liegenden Wirkweisen der verschiedenen Interventionen herausgearbeitet werden. Drittens konnten weiterführende Erkenntnisse zu den grundlegenden Veränderungsmechanismen epistemischer Überzeugungen erzielt werden. Das bestehende Veränderungsmodell epistemischer Überzeugungen konnte weiterentwickelt und um individuelle Faktoren ergänzt werden.
... Even if they are processed, a process of motivated skepticism may result in corrective claims being counterargued or derided (Prasad et al., 2009;Taber & Lodge, 2006). One way to circumvent this problem is to frame the corrective information in such a way that it affirms the target audience's prior beliefs rather than refuting them (e.g., Cohen et al., 2000;Kahan, 2010). For example, politicians who oppose vaccine mandates because they believe it is an infringement of freedom may be more open to them when they are presented as a way to keep the economy open. ...
Stanley et al. (2022) underscore four fundamental cognitive principles that underlie the human belief system. These include the truth bias (a predisposition to believe incoming information as true), bias to extract meaning from information (use of prior expectations to make sense of new information), bias to rely on the source of information to judge truth (using judgments of source credibility to rate veracity), and bias to rely on fluency to judge truth (perceptions of ease of processing information affect truth judgments). I suggest that understanding these principles can help us defer and deflect false beliefs from becoming entrenched in consumers’ minds and offer ways to leverage the four principles in the service of truth. I then propose that we broaden our focus in the study of false beliefs in three ways‐‐by focusing on prevention of false beliefs rather than correction, by diversifying the dependent measures we study, and by addressing the role of identity in false belief maintenance. I conclude with a discussion of some thorny issues and the need for regulation in this sphere. I seek to offer a research agenda to scholars interested in addressing the misinformation crisis that is ripping apart the fabric of our society.
... According to Hypothesis 5a of the SQT, matching/expressing a value cherished in one's social group/culture will result in feelings of significance and pride. In support of this hypothesis, research guided by the self-affirmation theory (Steele, 1988) showed that engagement in activities that enable one to express personally important values leads to increased self-esteem (e.g., Cohen et al., 2000;Fein & Spencer, 1997). Jasko et al. (2019, Study 4) compared radical and moderate actions on behalf of a cause. ...
Even though the motivation to feel worthy, to be respected, and to matter to others has been identified for centuries by scholars, the antecedents, consequences, and conditions of its activation have not been systematically analyzed or integrated. The purpose of this article is to offer such an integration. We feature a motivational construct, the quest for significance, defined as the need to have social worth. This need is typically fulfilled by a sense of measuring up to the values one shares with significant others. Our significance-quest theory (SQT) assumes that the need for significance is universal, whereas the means of satisfying it depend on the sociocultural context in which one’s values are embedded. Those means are identified in a narrative supported and validated by one’s network, or reference group. The quest for significance is activated by significance loss and/or the opportunity for significance gain. It motivates behavior that aims to affirm, realize, and/or show commitment to an important value. The SQT is consistent with large bodies of prior research and supported by novel studies in multiple laboratory and field settings. It transcends prior understandings and offers guidance for further study of this essential human motivation.
... Experimental manipulations of self-affirmation vary but center upon a valued aspect of the self. In most studies, participants are provided with a list of values (e.g., family, humor, etc.; see Cohen et al., 2000) and asked to rank them from most to least important, and then elaborate on why the selected value is important to them. Similar interventions include asking participants to list a few positive aspects of the self and spend a few minutes reflecting upon them (e.g., Van Den Bos, 2001) or providing participants with a list of affirmations (e.g., good-hearted, kind, intelligent) and asking them to indicate whether and when they have felt as such (e.g., Dillard et al., 2005). ...
Dealing with threat is a ubiquitous experience for people everywhere. The extent to which we experience threat, however, differs, as do the means employed to address it. For instance, focusing on unthreatened aspects of the self (i.e., self-affirmation) helps us cope with prejudice, discrimination, and stigma. Individuals differ substantially in their threat experience, as some groups are more discriminated against, which also differs per national context. We discuss previous findings on social identity threat and how salient it is for some groups. We then inspect how affirmation interventions addressing threat and investigated in Western contexts fare in non-Western contexts. We describe the need to move beyond relatively well-represented non-Western settings (e.g., Asia) and include contexts that are religiously more diverse. We therefore present data on the use of self-affirmation from the sectarian context of Lebanon and elaborate on how the larger cultural context may impact reactions to affirmation interventions.
... Consequently, confessions are often deemed credible and become highly and enduringly persuasive despite the existence of exculpatory evidence (Appleby et al., 2013;Garrett, 2010Garrett, , 2015. Paralleling the basic phenomenon of belief perseverance, whereby people maintain beliefs even after being presented with evidence that falsifies those beliefs (Cohen et al., 2000;Jennings et al., 1981), laypeople, despite being informed of the existence of exculpatory DNA evidence, maintained their belief in the veracity of a confession when the DNA evidence was explained away by a prosecutorial theory (Appleby & Kassin, 2016). Indeed, anecdotal examples demonstrate that prosecutors have created narratives to reconcile the discrepancies between the confession and any exculpatory evidence (Hinkel & Mills, 2015;Martin, 2011). ...
Objectives:
Little empirical research has examined postconviction processes associated with the unique legal events of release from incarceration and official exoneration. Across various models, we tested the influence of risk factors associated with wrongful convictions (false confessions, faulty or misleading forensic evidence, inadequate legal defense, mistaken eyewitness identifications, official misconduct, and perjury) and relevant alternative factors (e.g., presence of DNA, false guilty pleas, and race) on the exoneration process, with a particular focus on the role of false confessions.
Hypotheses:
We expected that all risk factors would be meaningfully associated with the duration between wrongful conviction and release but that false confessions would be associated with longer delays between release and exoneration and would remain a meaningful predictor of the delay even when accounting for alternative factors.
Method:
Using data from documented exonerations of murder, attempted murder, and accessory to murder in the National Registry of Exonerations (N = 1,074), we examined the association of risk factors and alternative predictors with the time between exonerees' wrongful conviction and release from incarceration and the time between release from incarceration and official exoneration.
Results:
Overall, five of the six risk factors predicted the time between wrongful conviction and release from incarceration, but of the risk factors, only false confessions predicted the time between release and exoneration (d = 0.28; 95% CI [0.13, 0.43]), even when we controlled for relevant alternative factors (d = 0.29; 95% CI [0.14, 0.43]).
Conclusions:
Exonerations that involve false confessions are associated with delays in the critical window between innocent people's release and official exoneration-a time during which these innocent people are precluded from accessing reintegration aids and may struggle to find housing and employment. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).
... In their seminal study, Lord, Ross, and Lepper found that proponents (opponents) of the death penalty perceived information questioning (confirming) the deterrent effect of the death penalty as inaccurate and flawed [4]. This research result was further replicated and extended with the finding that individuals reject belief-inconsistent information because it is threatening for their self-concept [11]. Recent research additionally suggests that individuals also reject information as flawed when it implies a threat to their social identity [12,13]. ...
Readers use prior knowledge to evaluate the validity of statements and detect false information without effort and strategic control. The present study expands this research by exploring whether people also non-strategically detect information that threatens their social identity. Participants ( N = 77) completed a task in which they had to respond to a “True” or “False” probe after reading true, false, identity-threatening, or non-threatening sentences. Replicating previous studies, participants reacted more slowly to a positive probe (“True”) after reading false (vs. true) sentences. Notably, participants also reacted more slowly to a positive probe after reading identity-threatening (vs. non-threatening) sentences. These results provide first evidence that identity-threatening information, just as false information, is detected at a very early stage of information processing and lends support to the notion of a routine, non-strategic identity-defense mechanism.
... Ignorance and misunderstanding of sex and reproduction and bad sexual hygiene habits are the consequences of the disconnect between education and the environment. Many unmarried women become pregnant because of the lack of sexual knowledge in a sexually open environment [27,28]. ...
Wearable devices are more and more widely used in the field of smart healthcare. The purpose of this study was to explore the effect of contraceptive counseling and education on contraceptive behavior of women after induced abortion. The investigators will explain the situation of this topic to the respondents and select the respondents in strict accordance with the framework requirements of sampling design. All the data are from the induced abortion women in the first-, second-, and third-level hospitals, which reduces the selection bias of the respondents. It is found that the proportion of induced abortion among college students is the highest, reaching 66.03%. This study is helpful to reduce the incidence of unwanted pregnancy, induced abortion, and repeated abortion and improve the reproductive health of women.
... As a consequence, those discussions become a monologue of self-reaffirmation instead of a constructive dialogue. This issue is not new (Cohen, Aronson, and Steele, 2000;Steele and Liu, 1983;Steele, 1988;Steele, Spencer, and Lynch, 1993). In this sense and after the foregoing, one of the procedures to be undertaken might be to check the dictionary. ...
Stakeholder theory is extensively explored. On the one hand, previously pointed issues are deepened and reconsidered; on the second, new research contexts emerge. When it comes to museums, due to the changing environmental situation, they have to modify their way of functioning by combining tradi-tional museum duties with managerial perspective and necessity to be effective. Although discussions about museum management include stakeholders, yet such exploration is quite general. Hence, the aim of this article is to look at the stakeholder salience model in the context of the specificity and the prac-tice of public museums' functioning. Through qualitative research with in-depth interviews, content analysis, and observations, stakeholder attributes were specified, with reference to connected activities and associated entities. The findings present what attributes are characteristics of a particular stake-holders' group, including how their diversity and overlapping look like. Moreover, findings showed that perceived stakeholder salience depends on the particular project and that not always salient stakehold-ers have been identified with all three attributes. Although stakeholders are noticed as a crucial element for the effective museums' functioning, their analysis remains at the general level. Hence, by taking one of the theoretical perspectives for the analysis, the study aims to fill in the existing gap. It is also impor-tant to consider the challenges standing in front of the museums, including the difficult situations that arise from the pandemic restrictions. Although in practice it is hard to omit the unpredictability, the recognition of stakeholders' characteristics might minimize the risk and uncertainty, even if a new stakeholder is not considered.
... al., 1960) in which they ranked 11 values and characteristics on personal importance. Those in the affirmation condition were directed to write about why their top-ranked value was important to them (Cohen et al,, 2000), to list the top two reasons for choosing that value and to describe to what extent it has influenced their life and is an important part of their self-image (Stinson et al., 2011). Those in the non-affirmed condition were asked to write about why their 11th ranked value might be important to someone else (McQueen & Klein, 2006). ...
Introduction: Persons with social anxiety disorder (SAD) often experience social interactions as threatening and commonly avoid them or perform poorly in them (Asher et al., 2017). Self-affirmation is an intervention shown to help individuals engage effectively in situations they perceive as threatening (Sherman & Hartson, 2011). We hypothesized that self-affirmation would allow socially anxious individuals to participate in more social activities, do so more effectively, and with less stress and anxiety. Methods: Following completion of baseline measures, 75 socially anxious university students were randomly assigned to complete a self-affirming or control writing task. They subsequently completed the Trier Social Stress Test for Groups (TSST-G), and received SAD psychoeducation designed to promote social engagement over the coming month, after which they were reassessed on baseline measures of social anxiety. Results Self-affirmation demonstrated no benefit at the time of engagement in the TSST-G. However, at follow-up, self-affirmed students reported significantly less discomfort, anxiety, and distress related to a variety of social behaviors as well as more engagement in those behaviors, relative to baseline, compared with non-affirmed students. Moreover, significantly more affirmed than non-affirmed participants reported clinically significant reductions in symptoms of SAD at follow-up. Discussion These results help to broaden our conceptualization of self-affirmation and provide support for its potential utility in treatment for those with SAD.
... For example, Geoffrey Cohen, Joshua Aronson, and Claude Steele found across three experiments that participants who engaged in self-affirmation were more willing that those who did not, to revise their beliefs when given evidence disconfirming their original beliefs. 70 Unlike the patterns noted during motivated reasoning, self-affirmed participants were more critical of arguments from those who agreed with them, and, importantly, they were more open to the possibility that their beliefs may be wrong. The affirmation of self-worth prior to the introduction of threatening information effectively diffused the threat of that information, reducing potential defensive reactions that lead to motivated reasoning. ...
Those interested in the intersection of science and Christianity, rightfully pay attention to specific issues in the landscape of science and religion. Despite progress made in science-religion scholarship, asking and answering thorny questions and unearthing new ones, it sometimes appears that these advances make little progress shifting the narrative in individuals or culture. In this article, I argue that for progress in difficult conversations, such as those between science and Christianity, we must acknowledge and account for the psychology of the individuals engaging in these conversations. This article discusses how normal psychological processes involved in reasoning may influence engagement with science-religion material. I conclude by offering several suggestions to increase the fruitfulness of these conversations.
... As such, a self-affirmation intervention that affirms a specific area of one's identity that is not currently being threatened should reduce the need for self-protective, defensive cognitions and enhance a person's ability to effectively face threats. Consistent with this, researchers have demonstrated self-affirmation's ability to reduce defensiveness when encountering threatening general health-related information (Cohen et al., 2000;Harris et al., 2007;Koningsbruggen et al., 2009;McQueen & Klein, 2006;Reed & Aspinwall, 1998). ...
... Once beliefs about conspiracies are formed, they can be extremely hard to change [28]. Believers may reject corrective information, particularly when it threatens their existing worldview and selfconcept [14] or if it might limit their behavioral freedoms [49]. Researchers have examined different ways to correct false information and counter beliefs in conspiracy theories [33,57]. ...
How do people come to believe conspiracy theories, and what role does the internet play in this process as a socio-technical system? We explore these questions by examining online participants in the "chemtrails" conspiracy, the idea that visible condensation trails behind airliners are deliberately sprayed for nefarious purposes. We apply Weick's theory of sensemaking to examine the role of people's frames (beliefs and worldviews), as well as the socio-technical contexts (social interactions and technological affordances) for processing informational cues about the conspiracy. Through an analysis of in-depth interviews with thirteen believers and seven ex-believers, we find that many people become curious about chemtrails after consuming rich online media, and they later find welcoming online communities to support shared beliefs and worldviews. We discuss how the socio-technical context of the internet may inadvertently trap people in a perpetual state of ambiguity that becomes reinforced through a collective sensemaking process. In addition, we show how the conspiracy offers a way for believers to express their dissatisfaction with authority, enjoy a sense of community, and find some entertainment along the way. Finally, we discuss how people's frames and the various socio-technical contexts of the internet are important in the sensemaking of debunking evidence, and how such factors may function in the rejection of conspiratorial beliefs.
... Research has found that in response to social identity threat we unconsciously engage in various defensive mechanisms to minimize the damage to our self-esteem, especially if we strongly identify with the group in question (Branscombe, Ellemers, Spears, & Dooje, 1999). These defense mechanisms can include not only heightened in-group affect and out-group hostility but also various forms of biased information processing (Cohen, Aronson, & Steele, 2000;Nauroth, Gollwitzer, Bender, & Rothmund, 2014;Nauroth, Gollwitzer, Kozuchowski, Bender, & Rothmund, 2017). Most salient for deliberative democracy, however, are repeated empirical findings that threats to social identity lead individuals to engage in motivated reasoning (Cohen et al., 2007;Dalton & Huang, 2013;Hoog, 2012;Slothuus & Vreese, 2010). ...
Deliberation's effectiveness as a method of problem solving and democratic decision making is often seen as stemming from the persuasive power of the "forceless force" of argument to transform beliefs. However, because conflicts related to partisan polarization, conspiracy theories, and the COVID-19 pandemic often have deep connections to social identity, they may be difficult to resolve through a deliberative approach based on persuasion. Research shows that when the conclusions of an argument threaten participants' social identity they are likely to engage in motivated reasoning, which inhibits the ability of any argument to induce belief change. In conflicts closely related to social identity a deliberative approach based around co-creation-such as Mary Parker Follett's conception of integration-may be more productive than persuasion-based approaches. The contrast between these two approaches is illustrated in reference to contemporary conflicts between vaccine advocates and members of the "vaccine hesitancy and refusal" (VHR) community. (Note: This manuscript will be included in the special collection entitled "Psychological Phenomena in Democratic Deliberation" at the Journal of Deliberate Democracy)
... IP may be especially salient in administrative leadership due to the persistence of a White male exemplar (i.e. perception that only White males excel in leadership positions) (Hoyt & Murphy, 2016;Karelaia & Guillén, 2014;Sanchez-Hucles & Davis, 2010) which contributes to the belief that women leaders are not as competent as men (Beasley & Fischer, 2012;Cohen et al., 2000;Good et al., 2008). ...
Minoritized women remain underrepresented in leadership positions, especially within higher education (HE). A key barrier to advancement for women of color is their susceptibility to impostor phenomenon (IP). A developmental network where the minoritized woman receives developmental support from multiple individuals is a potentially powerful intervention that can help them advance their careers, but there is a general lack of research on IP in the context of minoritized women’s leadership development and the role of developmental support, especially with regards to multiple diversified developmental relationships. Therefore, this paper integrates various literature streams (leader development for minoritized women in higher education, IP, mentoring) and offers a conceptual framework that utilizes a developmental network perspective. The propositions offered explain how multiple developers can help minoritized women address IP and develop positive leader identities, as well as how both parties can better anticipate and handle challenges related to diversified developmental relationships in HE.
... Another variation that has received some research attention is whether individuals self-affirm by self-generating affirming thoughts through essay writing (Cohen et al., 2000;Cohen & Sherman, 2014) or through answering a small number of directed yes/ no questions that have been shown to elicit affirmative responses (Armitage et al., 2011; Reed & Aspinwall, 1998). Whereas self-affirmation questionnaire procedures often instruct participants to elaborate on their 'yes' answers and, in this sense, they involve some level of self-generation, participants' answers and subsequent thoughts are more constrained by the nature of the questions, rendering the essay and questionnaire inductions different in how self-affirming thoughts are brought into individuals' awareness. ...
Objective
Self-affirmation reduces defensiveness toward threatening health messages. In this study, we compared several possible self-affirmation inductions in order to identify the most effective strategy.
Design
Women at increased risk for breast cancer (i.e. who drink 7+ drinks per week) were recruited through Amazon Mechanical Turk (N = 1,056), randomly assigned to one of 11 self-affirmation conditions, and presented with an article about the link between alcohol intake and breast cancer risk.
Main Outcome Measures
Participants answered questions that measured key indices of message acceptance (risk perception, message endorsement), future alcohol consumption intentions, and action plans to reduce alcohol intake.
Results
Participants who affirmed health vs. non-health values did not differ in behavioral intentions or action plans to reduce alcohol intake. General values vs. health essay affirmations led to higher odds of reporting some vs. no action plans to reduce alcohol consumption. Essay- vs. questionnaire-based inductions led to higher breast cancer worry and intentions to reduce alcohol consumption.
Conclusion
Overall, self-affirmation inductions that include an explicit focus on values (general or health-related) and self-generation of affirming thoughts through essay writing, are most potent in changing behavioral intentions and action plans to change future health behavior.
Objectives:
Self-affirmation approaches for health behaviour demonstrate consistent small to medium effects on message acceptance, health intentions and behaviour change. There are several forms of self-affirmation (e.g., values affirmations, implementation intentions), but few empirical comparisons to guide selection in empirical work. Further, there has been little emphasis on the putative mechanisms of self-affirmation driving behaviour change. The current investigation compared a control and four self-affirmation approaches: values, social, implementation intention, and perspective taking.
Methods:
Participants were recruited through CloudResearch (N = 666) and reported baseline sun exposure and protection behaviour at Time 1. One week later (Time 2), returning participants (N = 535) were randomly assigned to condition, viewed a message conveying risks of sun exposure, and reported sun exposure and protection intentions for the next week. Follow-up one week later (Time 3; N = 449) assessed past week sun exposure (i.e., number of days spent outside during peak hours), sun protection behaviour (e.g., sunscreen use), future sun exposure and protection intentions and engagement with resources conveying further health information (i.e., viewing infographics, following links to websites with more information). The association of putative mechanisms with self-affirmation conditions and health outcomes was also examined.
Results:
Unexpectedly, there were few differences between self-affirmation conditions and the control on intentions, information seeking, or behaviour at follow-up. At follow-up, perspective circle participants reported fewer days spent outside, spent longer viewing infographics, and, along with social values participants, followed more weblinks seeking information than control participants. The putative mechanisms were unrelated to health outcomes.
Conclusions:
The current investigation was a first step in comparing novel online self-affirmation approaches and had largely null findings. Results suggest that the perspective circle performed best at promoting information seeking and, to some extent, behaviour change. Suggestions for future directions are discussed.
People are biased in their consumption of scientific information. The current research investigated conclusion thresholds, testing the hypothesis that more scientific evidence is needed to arrive at a non-preferred than a preferred conclusion. Participants read brief summaries of scientific studies exploring the nature of homosexuality (Study 1; N = 126) and air safety that supported either the Democratic or the Republican position on the issue (Study 2; N = 311). Participants read summaries until a conclusion could be made about the evidence. Supporting the hypotheses, participants read fewer study summaries when the results of those studies supported their preferred conclusion than when they did not. Recommendations focus on how the scientific community and science journalism can address this bias.
Robots are transforming the nature of human work. Although human–robot collaborations can create newjobs and increase productivity, pundits often warn about how robots might replace humans at work andcreate mass unemployment. Despite these warnings, relatively little research has directly assessed howlaypeople react to robots in the workplace. Drawing from cognitive appraisal theory of stress, we suggestthat employees exposed to robots (either physically or psychologically) would report greater job insecurity.Six studies—including two pilot studies, an archival study across 185 U.S. metropolitan areas (Study 1), apreregistered experiment conducted in Singapore (Study 2), an experience-sampling study among engineersconducted in India (Study 3), and an online experiment (Study 4)—find that increased exposure to robotsleads to increased job insecurity. Study 3 also reveals that this robot-related job insecurity is in turnpositively associated with burnout and workplace incivility. Study 4 reveals that self-affirmation is apsychological intervention that might buffer the negative effects of robot-related job insecurity. Our findingshold across different cultures and industries, including industries not threatened by robots.
The purpose of this study is to assess how entertainment-education (E-E) programming and the use of narrative persuasion can potentially be used to overcome message resistance to highly polarized topics. This study focuses on narrative persuasion techniques and concepts from the Entertainment for Overcoming Resistance Model (EORM; Moyer-Gusé, 2008) and Extended-elaboration Likelihood Model (E-ELM), specifically transportation, identification, counterargument, and attitude change. In this pilot study, a quasi-experiment was conducted in which participants (n = 27) were exposed to a short film from UNICEF's Unfairy Tales series, which is a collection of three short films intended to garner support for humanitarian assistance for Syrian refugees, specifically Syrian children. Results from a paired samples t-test showed a significant change (p < .001) in attitudes toward perceived potential economic burdens posed by taking in refugees in the United States and toward individuals in the United States sponsoring more refugees and helping with assistance. Regression analysis showed that identification was a predictor of reduced counterarguing (p < .001), a form of message resistance. While not significant, transportation was surprisingly associated positively with counterarguing, indicating that this should be explored further in a full-scale study. Identifying as Republican was also significantly associated with counterarguing, suggesting that value systems should be considered when examining how to overcome message resistance in E-E content, especially when examining persuasive messages on highly polarized, geopolitical issues.
This Viewpoint highlights how new insights into belief acquisition, storage, and change can transform our understanding of psychiatric disorders.
The persistence of stigma of mental illness and seeking therapy perpetuates suffering and keeps people from getting the help they need and deserve. This volume, analysing the most up-to-date research on this process and ways to intervene, is designed to give those who are working to overcome stigma a strong, research-based foundation for their work. Chapters address stigma reduction efforts at the individual, community, and national levels, and discuss what works and what doesn't. Others explore how holding different stigmatized identities compounds the burden of stigma and suggest ways to attend to these differences. Throughout, there is a focus on the current state of the research knowledge in the field, its applications, and recommendations for future research. The Handbook provides a compelling case for the benefits reaped from current research and intervention, and shows why continued work is needed.
Self-affirmation theory provides a sophisticated framework to understand individual differences in receptivity to health-risk communication. Health messages are often ineffective because reminders of health risks can create dissonanc, which causes people to react negatively against the perceived threat of the information. Self-affirmation interventions offer a brief and practical means of improving health communication and promoting positive change. The primary purpose of this chapter is to highlight the promise of self-affirmation in understanding and reducing mental health stigma. The chapter aims to provide a theoretical background and practical path forward for researchers and clinicians, public health professionals, mental health activists, and any persons interested in dismantling the negative stereotypes and judgments associated with mental health and seeking professional psychological help. Specifically, the chapter aims to (1) briefly summarize the relationship between mental health stigma and psychotherapy use, (2) describe self-affirmation theory and its applied intervention effects in reducing perceptions of psychological threat across levels of measurement, (3) describe a standardized method of inducing self-affirmation by reflecting on personal values, (4) examine self-affirmation’s extension to mental health stigma and professional help seeking, (5) explore potential underlying mechanisms of change, and (6) suggest future directions for research and practical application.
Robots are transforming the nature of human work. Although human-robot collaborations can create new jobs and increase productivity, pundits often warn about how robots might replace humans at work and create mass unemployment. Despite these warnings, relatively little research has directly assessed how laypeople react to robots in the workplace. Drawing from cognitive appraisal theory of stress, we suggest that employees exposed to robots (either physically or psychologically) would report greater job insecurity. Six studies-including two pilot studies, an archival study across 185 U.S. metropolitan areas (Study 1), a preregistered experiment conducted in Singapore (Study 2), an experience-sampling study among engineers conducted in India (Study 3), and an online experiment (Study 4)-find that increased exposure to robots leads to increased job insecurity. Study 3 also reveals that this robot-related job insecurity is in turn positively associated with burnout and workplace incivility. Study 4 reveals that self-affirmation is a psychological intervention that might buffer the negative effects of robot-related job insecurity. Our findings hold across different cultures and industries, including industries not threatened by robots. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).
To form truthful beliefs, individuals must expose themselves to varied viewpoints. And yet, people routinely avoid information that contradicts their prior beliefs—a tendency termed “selective exposure.” Why? Prior research theorizes that that exposure to opposing views triggers negative emotions; in turn, people avoid doing so. Here, we argue that understanding why individuals find simple exposure to opposing perspectives aversive is an important and largely unanswered psychological question. We review three streams of research that offer relevant theories: self-threat borne of cognitive dissonance; naïve realism (i.e., the illusion of personal objectivity); and reluctance to expend cognitive effort. While extant empirical research offers the strongest evidence for predictions from naïve realism, more systematic research is needed to reconcile these perspectives.
Understanding why people do what they do is central to advancing equitable and sustainable futures. Yet, theories about human action are fragmented across many social science disciplines, each with its own jargon and implicit assumptions. This fragmentation has hindered theory integration and accessibility of theories relevant to a given challenge. We synthesized human action theories from across the humanities and social sciences. We developed eight underlying assumptions—metatheories—that reveal a fundamental organization of human action theories. We describe each metatheory and the challenges that it best elucidates (illustrated with climate change examples). No single metatheory addresses the full range of factors and problems; only one treats interactions between factors. Our synthesis will help researchers, policymakers, and practitioners gain a multifaceted understanding of human action.
Expected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Environment and Resources, Volume 47 is October 2022. Please see http://www.annualreviews.org/page/journal/pubdates for revised estimates.
The conservation community often communicates about the importance of conservation using language related to instrumental, intrinsic, and relational values about ecosystems; use of these values is frequently connected to ecosystem services conversations. However, few studies have examined whether messages that emphasize values associated with ecosystem services result in different policy‐support or behavior‐change outcomes among different audiences. We conducted a large‐scale survey experiment (n = 815) to examine whether messages about watershed protection that emphasize instrumental, intrinsic, or relational values result in differing support for policies or behavioral intentions. We find that respondents’ personal characteristics have a stronger effect on conservation beliefs than the way values are framed (i.e., than our treatments in the experiment)—for example, income positively predicted policy support (B = 0.07, CI = 0.02, 0.12, p = 0.01; corrected p = 0.03). We also find evidence that instrumental messages can decrease policy support among people who identify as politically liberal (B = ‐0.75, CI = ‐1.19, ‐0.30, p = 0.001; corrected p = 0.003). Over 40% of respondents selected relational values over other value types as the main reason to protect watersheds). Our results demonstrate that: political orientation interacts with how values are framed in complex ways; more research is needed to understand how such interactions relate to human behavior; and relational values likely are an important reason why people engage in conservation‐related behavior. Further, our research shows that conservation practitioners might improve the effectiveness of communication efforts by incorporating relational values and adjusting messages based on to the audience. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved
Attitude conflict—interpersonal disagreement on deeply-held, identity relevant issues—is common in personal, professional, and policy settings. Understanding one’s counterpart is critical to success in such contexts. Although prior literature focuses on misperceptions of counterpart cognitions, people often rely on affect to explain others’ behavior. Here, we examine the accuracy of individuals’ assessments of others’ affective states during attitude conflict. Specifically, we examine one affective state that has been theorized to play a central role in such situations: self-threat (i.e., threat to the integrity of an individual’s self-concept). In four pre-registered studies (N = 1,707), individuals systematically over-estimated the levels of threat reported by conflict counterparts, which in turn increased confidence in persuasion. The effect was mediated by “naïve realism,” an excessive faith in the objectivity of one’s views. The present studies document a novel barrier to effective communication and extend our understanding of how affect drives behavior during attitude conflict.
Previous studies have shown that self-affirmation increases acceptance of a message and motivates health behavior change. The present study investigated whether self-affirmation increases the acceptance of persuasive messages on COVID-19 vaccines and promotes vaccination intention. A total of 144 participants were randomly assigned to the self-affirmation (n=72) or control (n=72) groups before reading a persuasive message on COVID-19 vaccines. The results revealed that the self-affirmation group showed significantly higher acceptance of persuasive information on COVID-19 vaccines than the control group. Additionally, the self-affirmation group also showed significantly higher post-experiment vaccination intention than the control group. Mediation analysis indicated that increased acceptance of persuasive information significantly mediated the beneficial effects of self-affirmation on post-experiment
vaccination intention. The present study demonstrated that self-affirmation could be an effective strategy for increasing the acceptance of persuasive messages on COVID-19 vacacines and promoting vaccination intention.
Purpose
Public relations practitioners worldwide are attempting to enhance the overall organization–stakeholder relationships by applying strategic communication techniques and skills to corporate social responsibility (CSR) management and communications. In this light, drawing on the prosocial motivation literature, this paper aims to investigate consumers’ implicit and explicit motivations for prosocial behavior, and how these two motivations interact to affect consumers’ willingness to contribute to CSR activities. Second, through the lens of sensemaking theory, this study evaluates the influence of successful prosocial behavior engagement on consumers’ perceptions of both self and companies’ prosocial identities, CSR authenticity and company evaluations.
Design/methodology/approach
This study adopts a dictator game experiment with 2 × 2 factorial design to gauge consumers’ prosocial behavioral response toward companies’ CSR communication with implicit and explicit motivations and to examine its effect on company evaluation.
Findings
In all, the results of this study suggest that implicit motivation, i.e. self-affirmation intervention, in CSR communication will cause consumers to donate more money to CSR programs; whereas explicit motivation does not exert an effect on consumers’ prosocial behavior. In addition, such donation will trigger consumers’ prosocial sensemaking process and lead to strong identification with the company, positive attitudes and behavioral intentions toward the company.
Originality/value
This study aims to build a consumer- and social cause-oriented CSR communication model, which maximizes the impact of CSR investments on consumer relationship building, business bottom line and social causes.
Although people differ in how easily they can be influenced, little evidence is available concerning the source of these individual differences. A meta-analytic review was conducted to determine whether message recipients' self-esteem or intelligence predicts influenceability. Recipients of moderate self-esteem proved to be more influenceable than those of low or high esteem. According to the Yale-McGuire model, this curvilinear pattern stems from individual differences in reception of as well as yielding to the influence appeal. Recipients low in self-esteem have difficulty receiving the message; those high in self-esteem tend not to yield. Low intelligence recipients were more influenceable than highly intelligent ones. Findings highlight the importance of message reception in understanding the processes of opinion change. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
An experiment tested whether a positive experience (the endorsement and recall of one's past acts of kindness) would reduce biased processing of self-relevant health-risk information. Women college students (N = 66) who reported high or low levels of daily caffeine use were exposed to both risk-confirming and risk-disconfirming information about the link between caffeine consumption and fibrocystic breast disease (FBD). Participants were randomly assigned to complete an affirmation of their kindness via questionnaire or to a no-affirmation condition. Results indicated that the affirmation manipulation made frequent caffeine drinkers more open, less biased processors of risk-related information. Relative to frequent caffeine drinkers who did not affirm their kindness, frequent caffeine drinkers in the affirmation condition oriented more quickly to the risk-confirming information, rated the risk-confirming information as more convincing than the risk-disconfirming information, and recalled less risk-disconfirming information at a 1-week follow-up. They also reported greater perceived personal control over reducing their level of caffeine consumption. Although frequent caffeine drinkers in the affirmation condition initially reported lower intentions to reduce their caffeine consumption, there was no evidence that they were less likely to decrease their caffeine consumption at the follow-up. The possibility that positive beliefs and experiences function as self-regulatory resources among people confronting threats to health and well-being is discussed.
Two studies examined (a) whether biased assimilation and attitude polarization occur in the processing of stereotype-relevant scientific information and (b) the role of affect in these processes. In Study 1, individuals high or low in prejudice toward homosexuals read two fictitious studies, one confirming and one disconfirming the stereotype of homosexuality. Study 2 replicated Study 1 using a sample including individuals with moderate attitudes about homosexuality. Evidence of biased assimilation was found. Participants perceived research consistent with their attitude about homosexuality as more convincing than research inconsistent with their attitude. Evidence of attitude polarization was also found but was restricted to measures of perceived attitude change. Finally, participants reported more negative affective reactions after attitude-inconsistent than attitude-consistent information, and evidence was found that these affective reactions mediated biased processing. Implications of the results for biased assimilation, attitude polarization, and the resiliency of prejudicial attitudes are discussed.
People possess idiosyncratic, self-serving definitions of traits and abilities. This observation was supported by 6 studies in which people articulated the performances along behavioral criteria (e.g., math Scholastic Achievement Test score) necessary to "qualify" for relevant traits (e.g., math ability) or made judgments about performances attained by other people. When making judgments of others, high-performing Ss tended to rate target performances less favorably than did low-performing Ss, with these disagreements most pronounced when the target's performance was low. These disagreements were mediated neither by perceptions of trait importance nor by differing beliefs about the distribution of performances along the behavioral metrics. Discussion centers on avenues for further study and on similarities and differences between these studies and classic work on attitudinal judgment. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
People construct idiosyncratic, self-serving models of excellence or success in social domains, in part, to bolster self-esteem. In 3 studies, participants tended to articulate self-serving theories of success under experimental conditions in which pressures to maintain self-esteem were present, but not under conditions in which such pressures were absent. Participants assigned to role-play being a therapist were more self-serving in their assessments of the characteristics needed to be a "successful therapist" than were participants assigned to observe the role play (Study 1). Participants failing at an intellectual task articulated self-serving theories about the attributes crucial to success in marriage (Study 2) and evaluated targets similar to themselves more favorably than they did dissimilar targets (Study 3), tendencies not observed for participants succeeding at the task. Discussion centers on issues for future research suggested by these findings. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
People who hold strong opinions on complex social issues are likely to examine relevant empirical evidence in a biased manner. They are apt to accept "confirming" evidence at face value while subjecting "disconfirming" evidence to critical evaluation, and, as a result, draw undue support for their initial positions from mixed or random empirical findings. Thus, the result of exposing contending factions in a social dispute to an identical body of relevant empirical evidence may be not a narrowing of disagreement but rather an increase in polarization. To test these assumptions, 48 undergraduates supporting and opposing capital punishment were exposed to 2 purported studies, one seemingly confirming and one seemingly disconfirming their existing beliefs about the deterrent efficacy of the death penalty. As predicted, both proponents and opponents of capital punishment rated those results and procedures that confirmed their own beliefs to be the more convincing and probative ones, and they reported corresponding shifts in their beliefs as the various results and procedures were presented. The net effect of such evaluations and opinion shifts was the postulated increase in attitude polarization. (28 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Three experiments show that information consistent with a preferred conclusion is examined less critically than information inconsistent with a preferred conclusion, and consequently, less information is required to reach the former than the latter. In Study 1, Ss judged which of 2 students was most intelligent, believing they would work closely with the one they chose. Ss required less information to decide that a dislikable student was less intelligent than that he was more intelligent. In Studies 2 and 3, Ss given an unfavorable medical test result took longer to decide their test result was complete, were more likely to retest the validity of their result, cited more life irregularities that might have affected test accuracy, and rated test accuracy as lower than did Ss receiving more favorable diagnoses. Results suggest that a core component of self-serving bias is the differential quantity of cognitive processing given to preference-consistent and preference-inconsistent information. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
This research examined individual differences in attitude importance (J. A. Krosnick, 1988a) as a moderator of resistance to persuasion. In 2 studies, individuals who favored allowing gay people to serve openly in the military were aurally presented with a counterattitudinal message. Participants who considered their attitude high (vs low) in personal importance were more resistant to the message. Process analyses revealed that both thought listings and self-reported affect mediated this attitude importance effect. A 2nd study, which also examined message quality, showed that both high- and low-importance individuals were more resistant to a weak (vs strong) message. This effect was explained by the fact that the weak (vs strong) message engendered more irritation and negative affective elaborations. Results highlight the role of attitude importance in motivating resistance to persuasive communications and reveal that the resistance process is both cognitive and affective. Implications for contemporary models of persuasion are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Conducted 2 studies to assess the proposition that self-esteem (SE) serves an anxiety-buffering function. In Study 1, it was hypothesized that raising SE would reduce the need to deny vulnerability (VL) to early death. In support of this hypothesis, positive personality feedback eliminated 97 university students' tendency to bias emotionality reports to deny VL to a short life expectancy, except when mortality had been made salient to the Ss. Study 2, in which 47 university students participated, conceptually replicated this effect by demonstrating that whereas Ss low in trait SE biased emotionality reports to deny VL to a short life expectancy, Ss high in trait SE did not exhibit such a bias. Thus, converging evidence that SE reduces VL-denying defensive distortions was obtained. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Two experiments examined the processes by which positive mood influences attitude change under high and low message elaboration conditions. To examine elaboration, Exp 1 included individuals who differed in their need for cognition, and Exp 2 manipulated the relevance of the message. In each study, Ss were exposed to a persuasive communication following a positive or neutral mood induction. In both studies, positive mood produced more positive attitudes toward the advocacy, but positive mood influenced the positivity of Ss' thoughts only under high-elaboration conditions. Path analyses showed that positive mood had a direct effect on attitudes in the low-elaboration conditions but influenced attitudes indirectly by modifying the positivity of thoughts in the high-elaboration conditions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
There are currently a large number of models which identify self-evaluation (self-esteem) as an important source of motivation. However, these models often posit qualitatively different antecedents and consequences. The present studies focus on the questions of whether these qualitatively different behavioral systems affect the same or different mediating variables, and whether the motivation is to maximize or simply maintain a particular level of self-evaluation. In Study 1 we found that providing subjects a “self affirmation” (Steele, 1988) opportunity reduced their propensity to engage in self-evaluation maintenance behaviors (SEM; Tesser, 1988). In Studies 2 and 3 we found that making salient positive SEM scenarios reduced the propensity to engage in dissonance reduction whereas making salient a threatening SEM scenario did not. These results were interpreted as indicating that these hypothetical self-systems affect the same mediating variable and that the motive is to maintain rather than maximize self-evaluation.
Two experiments demonstrated that self-perceptions and social perceptions may persevere after the initial basis for such perceptions has been completely discredited. In both studies subjects first received false feedback, indicating that they had either succeeded or failed on a novel discrimination task and then were thoroughly debriefed concerning the predetermined and random nature of this outcome manipulation. In experiment 2, both the initial outcome manipulation and subsequent debriefing were watched and overheard by observers. Both actors and observers showed substantial perseverance of initial impressions concerning the actors' performance and abilities following a standard "outcome" debriefing. "Process" debriefing, in which explicit discussion of the perseverance process was provided, generally proved sufficient to eliminate erroneous self-perceptions. Biased attribution processes that might underlie perserverance phenomena and the implications of the present data for the ethical conduct of deception research are discussed.
Three experiments tested the idea that a motive to protect self-esteem (SE) from the threat of regret can influence decision making. Threat to SE was manipulated by varying whether people expected to know the outcome of their decisions. Study 1 showed that when Ss expected feedback about their decisions, only Ss low in SE made regret-minimizing choices. Study 2 showed that when Ss did not expect to know the outcome of their decisions, SE differences in choice strategies disappeared. Study 3 manipulated expectations about feedback on chosen and unchosen alternatives and showed that the more feedback that was expected, the more likely low but not high SE Ss were to make regret-minimizing choices. These studies suggest that people base decisions not only on objective attributes of choice alternatives, but also on the damage to SE that is perceived to result from a poor-decision outcome.
This study explored the impact of positive mood on the cognitive processes mediating attitude change in response to a persuasive communication. Subjects in either a good mood or a neutral mood were exposed to either a proattitudinal or a counterattitudinal message comprised of either strong or weak arguments. Subjects were also provided with a persuasion cue that could be used to judge the validity of the message without processing message content. As expected, subjects in a positive mood exhibited both attitude change and cognitive responses that were indicative of reduced systematic processing. Relative to subjects in a neutral mood, subjects in a good mood showed attitude change that was significantly less influenced by manipulations of message quality, and tended to be more influenced by the presence or absence of the persuasion cue. Subjects experiencing a positive mood recalled less of the message, and their cognitive responses differentiated less between strong and weak arguments and more between t...
Two studies examined how situational variables and personal factors affect peoples' immediate representations of self and how, once activated, these representations guide behavior. In Study 1, Ss with high self-esteem (HSE) and Ss with low self-esteem (LSE) first experienced success or failure at an alleged test of their intellectual ability. Subsequently, they rated themselves on a series of trait adjectives: Half of the items referred to social traits and attributes, the other half referred to achievement-related traits and attributes. Failure led HSE Ss to exaggerate the positivity of their social qualities; the reverse was true for LSE Ss. Study 2 replicated these results and found that HSE Ss were also especially helpful after failure. These findings indicate that situational variables and personal factors interact to influence peoples' immediate views of the self and that people behave in accordance with these activated self-representations.
Depressed and elated mood states may produce distinct information processing styles that can affect performance on deductive and inductive reasoning tasks differentially. Seventy-two undergraduates were asked to view a set of two film clips designed to induce either elated, neutral or depressed moods. One clip preceded each of two reasoning tasks, a deduction task and an induction task. We predicted that subjects in a depressed mood would exhibit impoverished performance relative to the other two conditions on the inductive reasoning problems but enhanced performance on those that involved deductive reasoning. Conversely, we expected subjects in an elated mood to perform worse than those in depressed and neutral moods on the deductive reasoning task, but better on the inductive reasoning task. Response times provided partial support for these hypotheses. Subjects in the elated mood condition performed significantly slower than those in both the neutral and depressed conditions on deductive reasoning problems, whereas subjects in the depressed mood condition performed significantly slower than those in the neutral condition on inductive reasoning problems. Implications for understanding mood-influenced cognitive styles are discussed.
The theory of cognitive dissonance suggests that opinion change is a function of a specific complex interaction between the credibility of the communicator and the discrepancy of the communication from the initial attitude of the recipient. In a laboratory experiment, Ss who read a communication that was attributed to a highly credible source showed greater opinion change when the opinion of the source was presented as being increasingly discrepant from their own. In sharp contrast to this was the behavior of Ss who were exposed to the same communication—attributed to a source having only moderate credibility. In this condition, increasing the discrepancy increased the degree of opinion change only to a point; as discrepancy became more extreme, however, the degree of opinion change decreased. The results support predictions from the theory and suggest a reconciliation of previously contradictory findings. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
A survey designed to examine the attitudinal and informational bases of people's opinions about the death penalty was administered to 500 Northern California residents (response rate = 96 percent). Of these, 58.8 percent were proponents of capital punishment, 30.8 percent were opponents, and 10.4 percent were undecided. When asked whether they favored mandatory, discretionary, or no death penalty for various crimes, respondents tended to treat these options as points on a scale of strength of belief, with mandatory penalties favored for the most serious crimes, rather than considering the questions of objectivity and fairness that have influenced the United States Supreme Court's considerations of these options. For no crime did a majority favor execution of all those convicted, even when a mandatory penalty was endorsed. Respondents were generally ignorant on factual issues related to the death penalty, and indicated that if their factual beliefs (in deterrence) were incorrect, their attitude would not be influenced. When asked about their reasons for favoring or opposing the death penalty, respondents tended to endorse all reasons consistent with their attitudes, indicating that the attitude does not stem from a set of reasoned beliefs, but may be an undifferenti ated, emotional reflection of one's ideological self-image. Opponents favored due process guarantees more than did Proponents. A majority of respondents said they would need more evidence to convict if a case was capital. Theoretical and legal implications of the results are discussed.
Self-affirmation processes are being activated by information that threatens the perceived adequacy or integrity of the self and as running their course until this perception is restored through explanation, rationalization, and/or action. The purpose of these constant explanations (and rationalizations) is to maintain a phenomenal experience of the self-self-conceptions and images as adaptively and morally adequate—that is, as competent, good, coherent, unitary, stable, capable of free choice, capable of controlling important outcomes, and so on. The research reported in this chapter focuses on the way people cope with the implications of threat to their self-regard rather than on the way they cope with the threat itself. This chapter analyzes the way coping processes restore self-regard rather than the way they address the provoking threat itself.
Two studies demonstrate that self-image maintenance processes affect the acceptance of personally relevant health messages. Participants who completed a self-affirmation were less defensive and more accepting of health information. In Study 1, female participants (high vs. low relevance) read an article linking caffeine consumption to breast cancer. High-relevance women rejected the information more than did low-relevance women; however, affirmed high-relevance women accepted the information and intended to change their behavior accordingly. In Study 2, sexually active participants viewed an AIDS educational video; affirmed participants saw themselves at greater risk for HIV and purchased condoms more often than did nonaffirmed participants. Results suggest that health messages can threaten an individual’s self-image and that self-affirming techniques can increase the effectiveness of health information and lead to positive health behaviors.
On the basis of the elaboration likelihood model and self-awareness theory, it was reasoned that self-awareness should stimulate thoughtful resistance to attacks on personally important attitudes. In Experiment 1, mirror-induced self-awareness increased resistance to a message that was counterattitudinal, personally important, and based on direct experience, but it failed to increase resistance to a message that lacked those qualities. In Experiment 2, self-aware subjects showed greater resistance to weak persuasive arguments than to strong arguments, unlike subjects who were not made self-aware. These results support the view of self-awareness as a cause of biased central route processing and (hence) of selective, judicious resistance to persuasion.
Conducted 2 experiments to examine whether the tendency to make more extreme attributions following control deprivation, observed by T. S. Pittman and N. L. Pittman (see record
1981-25822-001), stemmed from a motive to regain actual environmental control or to affirm an image of oneself as able to control (important outcomes). Study 1 varied control deprivation by exposing 78 undergraduates to either high-, low-, or no-helplessness training prior to measuring attributions. A 4th condition exposed Ss to low-helplessness training but allowed them to affirm a valued self-image (by completing a self-relevant value scale) just prior to the attribution measure. Replicating the findings of Pittman and Pittman, Ss made more extreme attributions and had worse moods in the high- and low-helplessness conditions than in the no-helplessness condition, but in the 4th condition the self-affirming value scale eliminated the effect of low-helplessness training on both attributions and mood. Study 2, using 32 undergraduates, showed that this effect occurred only when the value scale was central to Ss' self-concept. It is concluded that the motive for attributional analysis following control deprivation in this paradigm was to protect a positive self-image rather than to regain environmental control and that this motive can stimulate attributional analysis that is not related to the self or the provoking control threat and, thus, is not self-serving. (18 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
The authors argue that self-image maintenance processes play an important role in stereotyping and prejudice. Three studies demonstrated that when individuals evaluated a member of a stereotyped group, they were less likely to evaluate that person negatively if their self-images had been bolstered through a self-affirmation procedure, and they were more likely to evaluate that person stereotypically if their self-images had been threatened by negative feedback. Moreover, among those individuals whose self-image had been threatened, derogating a stereotyped target mediated an increase in their self-esteem. The authors suggest that stereotyping and prejudice may be a common means to maintain one's self-image, and they discuss the role of self-image-maintenance processes in the context of motivational, sociocultural, and cognitive approaches to stereotyping and prejudice. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
We have all experienced the futility of trying to change a strong conviction, especially if the convinced person has some investment in his belief. We are familiar with the variety of ingenious defenses with which people protect their convictions, managing to keep them unscathed through the most devastating attacks. But man's resourcefulness goes beyond simply protecting a belief. Suppose an individual believes something with his whole heart; suppose further that he has a commitment to this belief, that he has taken irrevocable actions because of it; finally, suppose that he is presented with evidence, unequivocal and undeniable evidence, that his belief is wrong: what will happen? The individual will frequently emerge, not only unshaken, but even more convinced of the truth of his beliefs than ever before. Indeed, he may even show a new fervor about convincing and converting other people to his view. How and why does such a response to contradictory evidence come about? This is the question on which this book focuses. We hope that, by the end of the volume, we will have provided an adequate answer to the question, an answer documented by data. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Investigated the role of cognitive processes in the maintenance of social stereotypes in 3 experiments with 73 male and 77 female high school and undergraduate students and adults. Ss read sets of sentences in which the members of different occupational groups were described by pairs of trait adjectives. In 2 experiments, the trait adjectives were either consistent (CT) with stereotypic beliefs about one of the occupational groups or unrelated to the group's stereotype; in the 3rd study, traits were either inconsistent (ICT) with or unrelated to a group's stereotype. Different correlational relationships between the traits and occupational groups were built into the sets of sentences, but, in each case, the CT or ICT traits described the members of each occupational group as often as matched traits unrelated to the groups' stereotypes. Ss estimated how frequently each of the trait adjectives had described members of each of the occupational groups. Each study revealed systematic biases in the Ss' judgments so that the perceived correlation between traits and occupations was more congruent with existing stereotypic beliefs than the actual correlation. Findings indicate a cognitive bias in the processing of new information about social groups that is mediated by existing stereotypes and that provides a basis for explaining the persistence of stereotypes in the absence of confirming evidence. (25 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Two experiments provided evidence for a disconfirmation bias in argument evaluation such that arguments incompatible with prior beliefs are scrutinized longer, subjected to more extensive refutational analyses, and consequently are judged to be weaker than arguments compatible with prior beliefs. The idea that people are unable to evaluate evidence independently of prior beliefs has been documented elsewhere, including in the classic study by C. G. Lord, L. Ross, and M. R. Lepper (see record
1981-05421-001) . The present findings contribute to this literature by specifying the processes by which prior beliefs affect the evaluation of evidence. The authors compare the disconfirmation model to several other models of how prior beliefs influence current judgments and present data that provide support for the disconfirmation model. Results indicate that whether a person's prior belief is accompanied by emotional conviction affects the magnitude and form of the disconfirmation bias. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
42 student members of a campus group supporting Ronald Reagan in the 1980 presidential election participated in a study of the effects of group membership on dissonance reduction. In a 2 × 2 factorial design, half of the Ss were asked to write arguments contrary to their attitudes, whereas the other half were required to write such arguments. Half of the Ss were then asked to advocate a position that was counter to the attitude that defined their membership in the group. The other half produced arguments that were counter to attitudes relevant to but not definitional of group membership. It was predicted that attitude change would be used as a way to reduce dissonance only by those Ss who freely wrote arguments counter to nondefinitional attitudes. Attitude change was not possible, however, for Ss who freely produced arguments counter to a definitional attitude; these Ss were expected to misattribute their arousal to the existence of a competing out-group and to reduce their dissonance by derogating that group. Results supported these predictions. The importance of group membership in affecting attitude change is discussed. (10 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Trivialization as a mode of dissonance reduction and the conditions under which it is likely to occur were explored in 4 studies. Study 1 tested and supported the hypothesis that when the preexisting attitude is made salient, participants will trivialize the dissonant cognitions rather than change their attitudes. Study 2 tested and supported the hypothesis that following a counterattitudinal behavior, participants will choose the first mode of dissonance reduction provided for them, whether it is trivialization or attitude change. Study 3 tested and supported the hypothesis that following a counterattitudinal behavior, the typical self-affirmation treatment leads to trivialization. Study 4 demonstrated that providing a trivializing frame by making an important issue salient also encourages trivialization rather than attitude change even when there was no opportunity for self-affirmation. The implications for cognitive dissonance theory and research are briefly discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Examined the self-fulfilling influences of social stereotypes on dyadic social interaction. Conceptual analysis suggests that a perceiver's actions based upon stereotype-generated attributions about a specific target individual may cause the behavior of that individual to confirm the perceiver's initially erroneous attributions. A paradigmatic investigation of the behavioral confirmation of stereotypes involving physical attractiveness (e.g., "beautiful people are good people") is presented. 51 male "perceivers" interacted with 51 female "targets" (all undergraduates) whom they believed to be physically attractive or physically unattractive. Tape recordings of each participant's conversational behavior were analyzed by naive observer judges for evidence of behavioral confirmation. Results reveal that targets who were perceived (unknown to them) to be physically attractive came to behave in a friendly, likeable, and sociable manner in comparison with targets whose perceivers regarded them as unattractive. (42 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Self-esteem, defined as the degree of correspondence between an individual's ideal and actual concept of himself, was measured by a modified Q sort. Several experiments with male students were reviewed. Ss of high self-esteem exerted more influence and perceived that they exerted more influence on their partners when assessing case histories than did Ss of low self-esteem. ""… persons of high self-esteem better protect themselves against unfavorable evaluation by becoming unresponsive to the expectations communicated by their group when an unfavorable comparison with others would be likely." A dynamic interpretation comes from a review of studies using the Blacky. ""In effect, people of high self-esteem, who appear to be less responsive to outside influence, are also characterized by a preference for ego-defenses which help them to repress, deny, or ignore challenging and conflictful impulses. Individuals with low self-esteem, who are more open to outside influence, show a preference for the more expressive defenses," projection or regression, ""being inclined to "act out' they may be more dependent upon situations and events." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Examined the process leading to the confirmation of a perceiver's expectancies about another when the social label that created the expectancy provides poor or tentative evidence about another's true dispositions or capabilities. Ss were 67 undergraduates. One group was led to believe that a child came from a high SES background; the other group, that the child came from a low SES background. Nothing in the SES data conveyed information directly relevant to the child's ability level, and when asked, both groups reluctantly rated the child's ability level to be approximately at grade level. Two other groups received the SES information and then witnessed a videotape of the child taking an academic test. Although the videotaped series was identical for all Ss, those who had information that the child came from a high SES rated her abilities well above grade level, whereas those for whom the child was identified as coming from a lower-class background rated her abilities as below grade level. Both groups cited evidence from the ability test to support their conclusions. Findings are interpreted as suggesting that some "stereotype" information creates not certainties but hypotheses about the stereotyped individual. However, these hypotheses are often tested in a biased fashion that leads to their false confirmation. (33 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Two central hypotheses of the original version of the theory of cognitive dissonance (Festinger, 1957) (1) that dissonance is to be conceived of as a primary drive and (2) that in order to reduce dissonance less resistant cognitions will be changed more than highly resistant ones led to hypotheses which were confirmed by two experiments.
In Experiment I, a 2 × 3 factorial design, order and familiarity of dissonance reduction modes were manipulated. After receiving a dissonant information the subjects were offered a relatively low and a relatively high resistant cognition for dissonance reduction, each being placed first (series I, high-low resistance) or last (series II, low-high resistance) respectively. Subjects did (known) or did not (unknown) read these modes before reacting to them. Under the unknown condition dissonance will be reduced more with a specific mode if it is placed first than last. With known reduction modes the order of presentation does not have an effect. Under series I condition the first-placed, higher-resistant cognition will be changed more in the unknown condition than in the known condition. Under the series II condition the first-placed, lower-resistant cognition will be changed equally in the known and unknown condition. In short, the higher-resistant cognition will be changed more, only when it is placed first and when the following modes are not known.
Two explanations for these results are possible: (1) The more dissonance is reduced by changing a more or a less resistant congnition, the less further reduction is necessary; (2) dissonance will be reduced in an internally consistent way. Experiment II excluded the first explanation. Subjects were allowed to revise their original way of reducing dissonance. First, subjects in one condition received series I unknown and subjects in the other condition received series II unknown. Reacting to the dissonance reduction modes the second time, there was more revision when the high-resistant congition was placed first (series 1 revision) than when placed last (series II revision). These results support the hypothesis that dissonance reduction by changing a less-resistant congnition more and changing a high-resistant one less is preferred.
Implications of the results of the two experments for the stability of dissonance reduction, the method and interpretation of dissonance experiments are discussed.
At the psychological level the reasons for holding or for changing attitudes are found in the functions they perform for the individual, specifically the functions of adjustment, ego defense, value expression, and knowledge. The conditions necessary to arouse or modify an attitude vary according to the motivational basis of the attitude. Ego-defensive attitudes, for example, can be aroused by threats, appeals to hatred and repressed impulses, and authoritarian suggestion, and can be changed by removal of threat, catharsis, and self-insight. Expressive attitudes are aroused by cues associated with the individual's values and by the need to reassert his self-image and can be changed by showing the appropriateness of the new or modified beliefs to the self-concept Brain washing is primarily directed at the value-expressive function and operates by controlling all environmental supports of old values. Changing attitudes may involve generalization of change to related areas of belief and feeling. Minimal generalization seems to be the rule among adults; for example, in politics voting for an opposition candidate does not have much effect upon party identification.
It is proposed that motivation may affect reasoning through reliance on a biased set of cognitive processes--that is, strategies for accessing, constructing, and evaluating beliefs. The motivation to be accurate enhances use of those beliefs and strategies that are considered most appropriate, whereas the motivation to arrive at particular conclusions enhances use of those that are considered most likely to yield the desired conclusion. There is considerable evidence that people are more likely to arrive at conclusions that they want to arrive at, but their ability to do so is constrained by their ability to construct seemingly reasonable justifications for these conclusions. These ideas can account for a wide variety of research concerned with motivated reasoning.
This prospective study tested the self-complexity buffering hypothesis that greater self-complexity moderates the adverse impact of stress on depression and illness. This hypothesis follows from a model that assumes self-knowledge is represented in terms of multiple self-aspects. As defined in this model, greater self-complexity involves representing the self in terms of a greater number of cognitive self-aspects and maintaining greater distinctions among self-aspects. Subjects completed measures of stressful events, self-complexity, depression, and illness in two sessions separated by 2 weeks. A multiple regression analysis used depression and illness at Time 2 as outcomes, stressful life events and self-complexity at Time 1 as predictors, and depression and illness at Time 1 as control variables. The Stress X Self-Complexity interaction provided strong support for the buffering hypothesis. Subjects higher in self-complexity were less prone to depression, perceived stress, physical symptoms, and occurrence of the flu and other illnesses following high levels of stressful events. These results suggest that vulnerability to stress-related depression and illness is due, in part, to differences in cognitive representations of the self.
Used a general model of personality and susceptibility to social influence to relate self-esteem to influenceability. The model proposes a reception mediator which operates as an increasing function of self-esteem, with the steepness of the function increasing with the complexity of the message. 3 influenceability situations of increasing complexity were utilized: suggestion, conformity, and persuasion. The model also proposes a yielding mediator operating as a decreasing function of self-esteem. Given the expectations concerning the 2 mediators, it was predicted that the self-esteem point of maximum influenceability in 96 male high school students would increase as the situation changed from suggestion to conformity to persuasion. The personality characteristic, self-esteem, was included in the design both as a chronic and manipulated variable. Results support the predicted personality-situational interaction with acute (manipulated) self-esteem but not with chronic self-esteem.
This study examined whether multiple indicators of attitude strength form general dimensions that foster differential pathways to resistance. Ego involvement, certainty, personal importance, knowledge, and extremity were assessed. Resistance processes and outcomes were measured in a selective judgment paradigm. Intentions to act on attitudes and information-seeking proclivities were also assessed. Factor analysis of the strength measures revealed 2 factors. Both fostered intentions to act but were associated with differential resistance processes and outcomes. Heightened levels of the factor representing Commitment to one's position were associated with increased selective elaboration, selective judgment, and attitude polarization. Embeddedness, the linkage of the attitude to one's self-concept, value system, and knowledge structure, was associated with decreased selective elaboration and increased information seeking and selective memory.
It was predicted that high self-esteem Ss (HSEs) would rationalize an esteem-threatening decision less than low self-esteem Ss (LSEs), because HSEs presumably had more favorable self-concepts with which to affirm, and thus repair, their overall sense of self-integrity. This prediction was supported in 2 experiments within the "free-choice" dissonance paradigm--one that manipulated self-esteem through personality feedback and the other that varied it through selection of HSEs and LSEs, but only when Ss were made to focus on their self-concepts. A 3rd experiment countered an alternative explanation of the results in terms of mood effects that may have accompanied the experimental manipulations. The results were discussed in terms of the following: (a) their support for a resources theory of individual differences in resilience to self-image threats--an extension of self-affirmation theory, (b) their implications for self-esteem functioning, and (c) their implications for the continuing debate over self-enhancement versus self-consistency motivation.
When the Dartmouth football team played Princeton in 1951, much controversy was generated over what actually took place during the game. Basically, there was disagreement between the two schools as to what had happened during the game. A questionnaire designed to get reactions to the game and to learn something of the climate of opinion was administered at each school and the same motion picture of the game was shown to a sample of undergraduate at each school, followed by another questionnnaire. Results indicate that the "game" was actually many different games and that each version of the events that transpired was just as "real" to a particular person as other versions were to other people.
This research studied the relationship between conformity and (a) the extent of the discrepancy between the opinions of a communicator and a recipient and (b) the degree of involvement of the recipient. These variables are central to a dissonance theory analysis of the social influence process, as well as to many previous investigations of attitude change. It can be derived from the theory that opinion change increases with increases in both involvement and discrepancy between communicator and recipient." " opinion conformity [did increase] as a function of involvement and discrepancy. This theory with its consideration of the tension-producing effects of these variables, provides a sound framework for the understanding of some of the dynamics of social influence.
Self-esteem, recep tion, and influenceability. Jour nal of Per son al ity and Social Psy chol ogy
- M Zellner
Zellner, M. (1970). Self-esteem, recep tion, and influenceability. Jour nal of Per son al ity and Social Psy chol ogy, 15, 87-93.
Atti tude impor tance and resis -tance to per sua sion: It's not just the thought that counts. Jour nal of Per son al ity and Social Psy chol ogy
- J Zuwerink
- P G Devine
Zuwerink, J., & Devine, P. G. (1996). Atti tude impor tance and resis -tance to per sua sion: It's not just the thought that counts. Jour nal of Per son al ity and Social Psy chol ogy, 70, 931-944. Re ceived July 10, 1998 Re vi sion ac cepted May 12, 1999
Per son al ity cor re lates of sus cep ti bil ity to per sua sion. Jour nal of Per son al ity
- I L Janis
Janis, I. L. (1954). Per son al ity cor re lates of sus cep ti bil ity to per sua sion. Jour nal of Per son al ity, 22, 504-518.
The func tional approach to the study of atti tudes. Pub -lic Opin ion Quar terly
- D Katz
Katz, D. (1960). The func tional approach to the study of atti tudes. Pub -lic Opin ion Quar terly, 24, 163-204.
A the ory of cog ni tive dis so nance
- L Festinger
Festinger, L. (1957). A the ory of cog ni tive dis so nance. Evanston, IL: Row, Peter son.
Pub lic opin ion and cap i tal pun ish -ment: A close exam i na tion of the views of abo li tion ists and retentionists
- P C Ellsworth
- L Ross
Ellsworth, P. C., & Ross, L. (1983). Pub lic opin ion and cap i tal pun ish -ment: A close exam i na tion of the views of abo li tion ists and retentionists. Crime and Delin quency, 29, 116-169.
Depth, cen tral ity, and tol er ance in cog ni tive con sis -tency The ories of cog ni tive con sis tency: A sourcebook
- M Pilisuk
Pilisuk, M. (1968). Depth, cen tral ity, and tol er ance in cog ni tive con sis -tency. In R. P. Abelson, E. Aronson, W. J. McGuire, T. M. New comb, M. J. Rosenberg, & P. H. Tannenbaum (Eds.), The ories of cog ni tive con sis tency: A sourcebook (pp. 693-699). Chi cago: Rand McNally.