The Psychology of Self‐defense: Self‐Affirmation Theory

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This chapter provides an overview of self-affirmation theory. Self-affirmation theory asserts that the overall goal of the self-system is to protect an image of its self-integrity, of its moral and adaptive adequacy. When this image of self-integrity is threatened, people respond in such a way as to restore self-worth. The chapter illustrates how self-affirmation affects not only people's cognitive responses to threatening information and events, but also their physiological adaptations and actual behavior. It examines the ways in which self-affirmations reduce threats to the self at the collective level, such as when people confront threatening information about their groups. It reviews factors that qualify or limit the effectiveness of self-affirmations, including situations where affirmations backfire, and lead to greater defensiveness and discrimination. The chapter discusses the connection of self-affirmations theory to other motivational theories of self-defense and reviews relevant theoretical and empirical advances. It concludes with a discussion of the implications of self-affirmations theory for interpersonal relationships and coping.

Introduction

In major league baseball, a hitter could have a long and productive career by maintaining a .300 average, that is, by getting a base hit 30% of the time. A great deal of money could be earned and fame accrued. Yet the other 70% of the time, this player would have failed. The vast majority of attempts to hit the ball would result in “making an out” and thus pose a potential threat to the player's sense of personal worth and social regard.

Like major league baseball players, people in contemporary society face innumerable failures and self‐threats. These include substandard performance on the job or in class, frustrated goals or aspirations, information challenging the validity of long‐held beliefs, illness, the defeat of one's political party in an election or of one's favorite sports team in a playoff, scientific evidence suggesting that one is engaging in risky health behavior, negative feedback at work or in school, rejection in a romantic relationship, real and perceived social slights, interpersonal and intergroup conflict, the misbehavior of one's child, the loss of a loved one, and so on. In the course of a given day, the potential number of events that could threaten people's “moral and adaptive adequacy”—their sense of themselves as good, virtuous, successful, and able to control important life outcomes (Steele, 1988)—seems limitless and likely to exceed the small number of events that affirm it. A major undertaking for most people is to sustain self‐integrity when faced with the inevitable setbacks and disappointments of daily life—the 70% of the time “at bat” when they do not get a base hit. How do individuals adapt to such threats and defend self‐integrity?

Much research suggests that people have a “psychological immune system” that initiates protective adaptations when an actual or impending threat is perceived (Gilbert, Pinel, Wilson, Blumberg, & Wheatley, 1998). Psychological adaptations to threats include the various cognitive strategies and even distortions whereby people come to construe a situation in a manner that renders it less threatening to personal worth and well‐being. Many of these psychological adaptations can be thought of as defensive in nature, insofar as they alter the meaning of the event in a way that shields people from the conclusion that their beliefs or actions were misguided. Psychologists have documented a wide array of such psychological adaptations that help people to protect their self‐integrity in response to threat.

Indeed, defensive adaptations are so stubborn and pervasive that Greenwald (1980) described the ego as “totalitarian” in its ambition to interpret the past and present in a way congenial to its desires and needs. People view themselves as a potent causal agent even over events that they cannot control (Langer, 1975); they view themselves as selectively responsible for producing positive rather than negative outcomes (Greenwald 1980, Miller 1975, Taylor 1983). They resist change or—if they do change—become more extreme versions of what they were before (Lord, Ross, & Lepper, 1979). People dismiss health information suggesting that they are at risk for disease or should change their risky behavior (Jemmott 1986, Kunda 1987). Students may disidentify with, or downplay the personal importance of, domains where they fail, thus sustaining self‐worth but precluding the opportunity for improvement (Major 1998, Steele 1997). People are overoptimistic in their predictions of future success and estimations of their current knowledge and competence (Dunning 1990, Kruger 1999). Indeed, these defensive adaptations may even benefit psychological and physical health (Taylor & Brown, 1988). Although we suspect that people can be more realistic and more self‐critical than this research suggests, and that their optimism and positive illusions may be magnified in certain contexts rather than others (see Armor & Taylor, 2002), the idea that people are ego defensive resonates both with psychological research and lay wisdom. An important question, then, concerns the circumstances under which people are less ego defensive and more open‐minded in their relationship with the social world.

We see defensive responses as adaptations aimed at ameliorating threats to self‐integrity. The vast research on defensive biases testifies to their robustness and to the frequency with which people use them. Although these defensive responses are adaptive in the sense of protecting or enhancing an individual's sense of self‐integrity, they can be maladaptive to the extent they forestall learning from important, though threatening, experiences and information. Moreover, peoples' efforts to protect self‐integrity may threaten the integrity of their relationships with others (Cohen 2005, Murray 1998). Yet, these normal adaptations can be “turned off” through an altogether different psychological adaptation to threat, an alternative adaptation that does not hinge on distorting the threatening event to render it less significant. One way that these defensive adaptations can be reduced, or even eliminated, is through the process of self‐affirmation (Aronson 1999, Sherman 2002, Steele 1988).

Steele (1988) first proposed the theory of self‐affirmation. It asserts that the overall goal of the self‐system is to protect an image of its self‐integrity, of its moral and adaptive adequacy. When this image of self‐integrity is threatened, people respond in such a way as to restore self‐worth. As noted previously, one way that this is accomplished is through defensive responses that directly reduce the threat. But another way is through the affirmation of alternative sources of self‐integrity. Such “self‐affirmations,” by fulfilling the need to protect self‐integrity in the face of threat, can enable people to deal with threatening events and information without resorting to defensive biases.

In this paper, we update the field on research conducted using self‐affirmation theory as a framework. This research illuminates both the motivational processes underlying self‐integrity maintenance and the implications of such processes for many domains of psychology. We illustrate how self‐affirmation affects not only people's cognitive responses to threatening information and events, but also their physiological adaptations and actual behavior. The research presented has implications for psychological and physical health, education, social conflict, closemindedness and resistance to change, prejudice and discrimination, and a variety of other important applied areas. We also examine how self‐affirmations reduce threats to the self at the collective level, such as when people confront threatening information about their groups. We then review factors that qualify or limit the effectiveness of self‐affirmations, including situations where affirmations backfire, and lead to greater defensiveness and discrimination. We discuss the connection of self‐affirmation theory to other motivational theories of self‐defense and review relevant theoretical and empirical advances. We conclude with a discussion of the implications of self‐affirmation theory for interpersonal relationships and coping.

Self‐affirmation theory (Aronson 1999, Sherman 2002, Steele 1988) begins with the premise that people are motivated to maintain the integrity of the self. Integrity can be defined as the sense that, on the whole, one is a good and appropriate person. Cultural anthropologists use the term “appropriate” to refer to behavior that is fitting or suitable given the cultural norms and the salient demands on people within that culture. Thus, the standards for what it means to be a good person vary across cultures, groups, and situations (e.g., Heine, 2005). Such standards of integrity can include the importance of being intelligent, rational, independent, and autonomous, and exerting control over important outcomes. Such standards of integrity can also include the importance of being a good group member and of maintaining close relationships. Threats to self‐integrity may thus take many forms but they will always involve real and perceived failures to meet culturally or socially significant standards (Leary & Baumeister, 2000). Consequently, people are vigilant to events and information that call their self‐integrity into question, both in their own eyes and in the eyes of others. In such situations, people try to restore or reassert the integrity of the self. Thus, the goal of protecting self‐integrity, and the impact of that goal on psychology and behavior, becomes apparent when integrity is threatened.

There are three categories of responses that people deploy to cope with such threats. First, they can respond by accommodating to the threat. That is, they can accept the failure or the threatening information and then use it as a basis for attitudinal and behavioral change. However, to the extent that the threatened domain concerns an important part of one's identity, the need to maintain self‐integrity can make it difficult to accept the threatening information and to change one's attitude or behavior accordingly. A second response thus involves ameliorating the threat via direct psychological adaptations. While some direct adaptations preserve the fundamental informational value of the event while also changing one's construal of that event (e.g., framing a failure as a learning opportunity; Dweck & Leggett, 1988), other direct psychological adaptations are defensive in nature in that they involve dismissing, denying, or avoiding the threat in some way. We refer to these responses as defensive biases (see Sherman & Cohen, 2002). Although a defensive bias can restore self‐integrity, the rejection of the threatening information can lessen the probability that the person will learn from the potentially important information.

Self‐affirmation theory proposes a third alternative, a different kind of psychological adaptation—one that, under many circumstances, enables both the restoration of self‐integrity and adaptive behavior change. People can respond to threats using the indirect psychological adaptation of affirming alternative self‐resources unrelated to the provoking threat. Such “self‐affirmations” include reflecting on important aspects of one's life irrelevant to the threat, or engaging in an activity that makes salient important values unconnected to the threatening event. Whereas defensive psychological adaptations directly address the threatening information, indirect psychological adaptations, such as self‐affirmation, allow people to focus on domains of self‐integrity unrelated to the threat. When self‐affirmed in this manner, people realize that their self‐worth does not hinge on the evaluative implications of the immediate situation. As a result, they have less need to distort or reconstrue the provoking threat and can respond to the threatening information in a more open and evenhanded manner.

Much research within the self‐affirmation framework examines whether an affirmation of self‐integrity, unrelated to a specific provoking threat, can attenuate or eliminate people's normal response to that threat. If it does, then one can infer that the response was motivated by a desire to protect self‐integrity. The self‐affirmation framework encompasses four tenets, which are enumerated below:

The most basic tenet of self‐affirmation theory (Steele, 1988) is that people are motivated to protect the perceived integrity and worth of the self. As Steele observed, the purpose of the self‐system is to “maintain a phenomenal experience of the self … as adaptively and morally adequate, that is, competent, good, coherent, unitary, stable, capable of free choice, capable of controlling important outcomes … (p. 262).” These self‐conceptions and images making up the self‐system can be thought of as the different domains that are important to an individual, or the different contingencies of a person's self‐worth (Crocker & Wolfe, 2001). Figure 1 presents a schematic of the self‐system. The self is composed of different domains, which include an individual's roles, such as being a student or a parent; values, such as being religious or having a sense of humor; social identities, such as membership in groups or organizations and in racial, cultural, and gender groups; and belief systems, such as political ideologies. The self is also composed of people's goals, such as the value of being healthy or succeeding in school. The self‐system is activated when a person experiences a threat to an important self‐conception or image. Such threat poses a challenge to a desired self‐conception. Thus, failure feedback could threaten a person's identity as a student, negative health information could threaten a person's self‐conception as a healthful individual, news about anti‐American sentiment could threaten a person's patriotic identity, and evidence of social inequality could challenge a person's belief in a just world (Lerner, 1980). All of these events are threatening because they have implications for a person's overall sense of self‐integrity.

When self‐integrity is threatened, people are motivated to repair it, and this motivation can lead to defensive responses. The defensive responses may seem rational and defensible, though they are more “rationalizing” than “rational” (Aronson 1968, Kunda 1990, Pyszczynski 1987). They serve to diminish the threat and consequently, restore the perceived integrity of the self. These defensive responses can be automatic and even unconscious in nature, and indeed, the rapidity with which people respond to threats speaks to the importance of self‐integrity maintenance.

People often compensate for failures in one aspect of their lives by emphasizing successes in other domains. Personality theorists, such as Allport 1961, Murphy 1947, have advanced this notion of compensation, and self‐affirmation theory is consistent with this claim (see also Brown & Smart, 1991). Because the goal of the self‐system focuses on maintaining the overall worth and integrity of the self, people can respond to threats in one domain by affirming the self in another domain. This fungibility in the sources of self‐integrity is what can enable smokers, for example, to maintain a perception of worth and integrity despite the potentially threatening conclusion that they are acting in a maladaptive, harmful, and irrational way (Steele, 1988). Affirmations satisfy the motivation to maintain self‐integrity—thus, they reduce the normal psychological adaptations people engage to ameliorate a specific provoking threat.

Those qualities that are central to how people see themselves are potential domains of self‐affirmation. Such affirmations can concern friends and family, making art or music, a charity, or the observance of one's religion. In a difficult situation, reminders of these core qualities can provide people with perspective on who they are and anchor their sense of self‐integrity in the face of threat. A “self‐affirmation” makes salient one of these important core qualities or sources of identity. Operationally, self‐affirmations are typically ideographic, in that people first report an important value or life domain, and then they are given the opportunity either to write an essay about it or to complete a scale or exercise that allows them to assert its importance (McQueen & Klein, 2005).

When global perceptions of self‐integrity are affirmed, otherwise threatening events or information lose their self‐threatening capacity because the individual can view them within a broader, larger view of the self. People can thus focus not on the implications for self‐integrity of a given threat or stressor, but on its informational value. When self‐affirmed, individuals feel as though the task of proving their worth, both to themselves and to others, is “settled.” As a consequence, they can focus on other salient demands in the situation beyond ego protection.

Section snippets

Self‐Affirmation and Threats to the Individual Self

A great deal of research has used self‐affirmation theory to address a wide range of psychological phenomena, including biased information processing, causal attributions, cognitive dissonance, prejudice and stereotyping, stress and rumination. What connects these disparate areas of research is that they all address situations or events where people contend with a threat to a valued self‐image. We first review research on the impact of experienced threats to self‐identities, such as one's

Self‐Affirmation and Responses to Collective Threats

Originally, self‐affirmation theory (Steele, 1988) focused on how people respond to information and events that threaten a valued self‐image, such as situations that provoke cognitive dissonance and defensive rationalization of counter‐attitudinal behavior (Steele & Liu, 1983), or situations that challenge a sense of personal control (Liu & Steele, 1986). The research detailed in the previous sections extends this theorizing to many other situations where people contend with events that

Moderator Variables and Qualifying Conditions

Across a variety of potentially threatening situations, self‐affirmations reduced perceived threat and the likelihood of engaging in defensive adaptations to threat. Health information suggesting that one has acted in a risky manner, the defeat of one's team, a stereotype directed at oneself or a fellow group member, a report attacking one's political worldview, a failure at an intellectual or athletic task—these events threaten individuals' self‐integrity. When the self is under threat, people

Underlying Processes and Superordinate Functions

Given the wide range of studies reported in this review, it is clear that self‐affirmations exert effects across many domains of psychological functioning. Yet, important questions remain concerning both the mechanisms underlying these effects and the ultimate function of the self‐integrity system. These questions set the stage for exciting and important opportunities for future research.

Implications for Interpersonal Relationships and Coping

Because people experience many potential threats to their self‐integrity, an important question concerns the extent to which people use affirmational strategies in everyday life. To what extent do people spontaneously rely on this mechanism involved in the psychological immune system? Relatedly, what are the real‐world analogs to the self‐affirmation manipulations that have been featured in the laboratory? Research on close relationships and on coping and resiliency suggests some answers and

Conclusions

In her seminal review on motivated cognition, Kunda (1990) observed:

[M]otivated illusions can be dangerous when they are used to guide behavior and decisions, especially in those cases in which objective reasoning could facilitate more adaptive behavior. For example, people who play down the seriousness of early symptoms of severe diseases such as skin cancer and people who see only weaknesses in research pointing to the dangers of drugs such as caffeine or of behaviors such as drunken driving

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank Nancy Apfel, Patricia Brzustoski, David Creswell, Jennifer Crocker, David Dunning, Julio Garcia, Heejung Kim, Leif Nelson, Steve Spencer, Claude Steele, and Mark Zanna for their thoughtful comments on earlier versions of this paper.

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