Department of Psychology, University of Sussex, Brighton, United Kingdom.
Psychol Health. 2009 Jun;24(5):529-44. doi: 10.1080/08870440801930320.
The reported study compared the efficacy of three self-affirmation manipulations in reducing defensive processing and instigating behaviour change in response to personally relevant information about the health risks of sunbathing. White female sunbathers (N = 162) were recruited on a beach in the south of England. Participants were randomly allocated to a 'values affirmation' condition, a 'kindness affirmation' condition, a 'positive traits affirmation' condition, or a no affirmation 'control' condition. In the 'positive traits affirmation' condition the self-affirmation task was incorporated into a leaflet presenting the health risk information. Findings supported the hypothesis that participants in the three self-affirmation conditions would engage in less-defensive processing of the health-risk information than those in the 'control' condition. For the behavioural measure, however, only those participants in the 'positive traits affirmation' condition were more likely to request a free sample of sunscreen than those in the control condition. The implications of these findings for self-affirmation theory and the development of effective health promotion campaigns are discussed.
这项研究报告比较了三种自我肯定操作在减少防御性处理和引发行为改变方面的效果，这些操作是针对与日光浴健康风险相关的个人信息。招募了来自英国南部海滩的白人女性日光浴者（N=162）。参与者被随机分配到“价值观肯定”条件、“善良肯定”条件、“积极特质肯定”条件或无肯定“对照”条件。在“积极特质肯定”条件下，自我肯定任务被纳入一份呈现健康风险信息的传单中。研究结果支持了这样的假设，即与“对照”条件相比，自我肯定条件下的参与者在处理健康风险信息时会减少防御性。然而，对于行为测量，只有“积极特质肯定”条件下的参与者比对照条件下的参与者更有可能要求免费的防晒霜样品。这些发现对自我肯定理论和有效健康促进活动的发展具有重要意义。
