Self-Affirmation and Responses to Health Messages

Health messages encouraging people to change their behavior are often experienced as personally threatening and, as a result, may not be processed in an objective, non-defensive manner. One promising approach to overcoming people's resistance to health information involves leading people to think about their most important values or past actions, a process known as self-affirmation. Numerous studies have found that encouraging people to self-affirm not only increases their receptivity toward health information but also fosters positive changes in health behavior. In this chapter we will examine some of the recent developments and discoveries among studies of self-affirmation, including (a) the incorporation of diverse research methods, (b) the identification of moderating variables, and (c) efforts to combine self-affirmation with other intervention strategies.