Why Does Writing About Important Values Reduce Defensiveness?

Jennifer Crocker · Yu Niiya · Dominik Mischkowski

344 citations0/0 files storedPsychological Science

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Death Anxiety and Social Exclusion Social and Intergroup Psychology Mental Health via Writing

Abstract

Previous research has repeatedly shown that writing about an important value, compared with writing about an unimportant value, reduces defensiveness in response to self-threatening information, but has not identified why. Study 1 showed that participants who wrote about an important value reported more positive other-directed feelings, such as love and connection, than participants who wrote about an unimportant value. Study 2 replicated this effect, and showed that loving and connected feelings, but not positive or negative self-directed feelings, completely accounted for the effect of a values-affirmation manipulation on smokers' acceptance of information indicating that smoking harms health. These studies, in concert with previous research, suggest that values affirmation reduces defensiveness via self-transcendence, rather than self-integrity (i.e., self-worth or self-images).

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References

1988The Psychology of Self-Affirmation: Sustaining the Integrity of the Self 2006The Psychology of Self‐defense: Self‐Affirmation Theory 2003The moral emotions.1984A New Look at Dissonance Theory 1983Dissonance processes as self-affirmation.2004Objectivity in the Eye of the Beholder: Divergent Perceptions of Bias in Self Versus Others.2000Do Messages about Health Risks Threaten the Self? Increasing the Acceptance of Threatening Health Messages Via Self-Affirmation 2000On the Confluence of Self-Esteem Maintenance Mechanisms

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