Research Showcase Gallery (Poster 2180)

Self-affirmation: Value and Health Message Recall Over Time

Abstract

Health intervention research supports utilization of self-affirmation approaches to improve acceptance of threatening health messages by reducing reactivity and influencing behavioral intentions. Self-affirmation includes various approaches to reflect on an important value that could influence active information processing. In an online experiment, participants (N=491) were randomly assigned to one of four self-affirmation conditions or a control condition. Two self-affirmation conditions were traditionally essay-based (i.e. writing about an important value) and two were non-essay-based. All participants were then exposed to a message about sun-protective behaviors. We hypothesized that participants who completed the essay-based affirmations would more accurately recall their affirmation value than those who completed the non-essay based versions immediately after message exposure and one week later. We also expected those who completed the essay-based affirmations to better recall the message content than those who completed the non-essay-based affirmations or the control task. Participants in the essay-based conditions were more likely to accurately recall the affirmational value than those in the non-essay conditions immediately (92.2% and 35.3%, respectively) after and one-week later (77.7% and 17.4%, respectively). However, message recall did not vary across self-affirmation conditions or the control condition. These results suggest essay-based affirmations may involve deeper processing of self-relevant values, but this may not translate into helping people remember content of health messages over time.


About the Presenters

photo of Robin L. Hunt

Robin L. Hunt

Robin Hunt is an undergraduate student pursuing a B. S. in Psychology at Washington State University in Vancouver, Washington, where she has been working as a research assistant in the Health and Social Psychology Research lab. Robin’s primary academic interest is studying health psychology with an emphasis on preventive health behavior and has assisted with research involving affect in health behaviors, reactivity to health communications, and perceptions involving the use of cannabis. She is currently assisting with research on cannabis use by individuals experiencing chronic pain.

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Reed T. Wonn

Reed Wonn is graduating senior Washington State University Vancouver majoring in Psychology. As an undergraduate research assistant in the Health Psychology lab, she has worked on various projects relating to self-affirmation and health messages. She also interns at the YWCA as a support group facilitator for the SafeChoice Domestic Violence Program.