Self affirmation interventions
The impact of self affirmation on health behaviour change: a meta analysis
2015
I reviewed all the current studies where a self affirmation intervention had been used to try and change health behaviour.
For each study an effect size was calculated. This is a statistic that measures the size of the difference in outcomes between the self affirmation group and the control group (who did not have the self affirmation intervention).
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The effect sizes for each study were combined in a meta analysis. Overall we found that self affirmation had a small but significant effect of health message acceptance, intentions and actual behaviour.
The impact of self-affirmation on health-related cognition and health behaviour: Issues and prospects
2010
The current evidence indicates that self affirmation interventions encourage people to accept health risk information but there is little evidence so far of changes in behaviour.
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This paper discusses why this might be and other issues in self affirmation and health.
The impact of self-affirmation on health cognition, health behaviour and other health related responses: A narrative review
2009
This is an early review of the self affirmation and health literature.
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Self affirmation increases acceptance of health risk information especially in those most at risk. Self affirmation also increases intention to change behaviour but there is limited evidence of actual behaviour change..
Developing and testing a self-affirmation manipulation
2009
This paper describes the development of a self affirmation intervention.
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The intervention is a questionnaire about people's character strengths where they complete scales about how much various character strengths describe them.
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It also tests a variety of control interventions e.g., completing the same questionnaire about David Beckham.
Self-affirmation promotes health behavior change
2008
I conducted the first study that found that getting people to self-affirm changed actual health behaviour.
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Half of the participants completed a self affirmation intervention ( answering a questionnaire about acts of kindness they had performed) and half completed a questionnaire about trivial opinions (a control group) before reading health information about the health benefits of eating fruit and vegetables. The self affirmed people reported they felt more able to get more fruit and vegetables into their diet (self-efficacy) and that eating fruit and vegetables was more likely to improve health (response-efficacy) than those in the control condition. After one week self affirmed people actually ate more fruit and vegetables than the control group too.