Dissertation
SELF-AFFIRMATION: THE IMPORTANCE OF SELF-CONCEPT STRUCTURE
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Washington State University
01/2020
Handle:
https://hdl.handle.net/2376/116765
Abstract
Recent theorizing about the process of affirmation on the working self-concept suggests measurement of the self-concept, specifically the relationship between affirmation and threat, may enhance understanding of what makes self-affirmation efficacious. Across three studies, people mapped out their self-concept with a trait-sort in order to quantify the degree of the self-concept associated with an affirmation and a threat, as well as the evaluative qualities of the self-aspects. In Study 1, the accessibility of self-relevant concepts, either related to the threat (student) or not (friend) was assessed with a lexical decision task. Those affirmed responded slower, suggesting they were less reactive to the threatened identity. The congruence in response times for both self-relevant domains could be due to the concepts not being differentiated in the student sample. In Study 2, participants received negative personality feedback which targeted a specific attribute, while varying activation of the self-concept with different affirmation conditions. Having a greater extent of the self-concept active did not reduce defensiveness. However, when affirmed aspects of the self-concept were more important than threatened aspects, people were less defensive to the feedback. Those whose threatened self-aspects were both more important and positive than their affirmed self-aspects were most defensive. In Study 3, using the most common values-affirmation protocol (universal values) reminded people of more important and positive aspects of their self-concept than either a values-affirmation with a list of competence values or a control task. Together, these findings provide evidence that evaluative qualities inherent to aspects of the self under threat or affirmed may be important for predicting the utility of self-affirmation. Future research should account for the evaluative qualities (i.e. importance and positivity) of identities under threat and those used to affirm when considering the efficacy of self-affirmation.
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Details
- Title
- SELF-AFFIRMATION: THE IMPORTANCE OF SELF-CONCEPT STRUCTURE
- Creators
- Eric Daniel Malain
- Contributors
- Renee E Magnan (Advisor)Walter D Scott (Committee Member)Andrew W Perkins (Committee Member)Joyce M Ehrlinger (Committee Member)
- Awarding Institution
- Washington State University
- Academic Unit
- Psychology, Department of
- Theses and Dissertations
- Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Washington State University
- Number of pages
- 95
- Identifiers
- 99900581703401842
- Language
- English
- Resource Type
- Dissertation