When Does Self-Affirmation Reduce Negative Responses to Antismoking Messages?

Communication Studies

Volumn 63, Issue 4, 2012, Pages 482-497

  Nan, Xiaoli ^a   Zhao, Xiaoquan ^b  

^a UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND   (United States)

^b GEORGE MASON UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

Defensive Processing; Health Communication; Persuasion; Self Affirmation; Smoking

Indexed keywords

EID: 84865004279     PISSN: 10510974     EISSN: 17451035     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/10510974.2011.633151     Document Type: Article

References (43)

1. Armitage, C. J., Harris, P. R., Hepton, G., & Napper, L. (2008). Self-affirmation increases acceptance of health-risk information among UK adult smokers with low socioeconomic status. Psychology of Addictive Behaviors, 22, 88-95.
2. Baumeister, R. F. (1998). The self. In D. T. Gilbert, S. T. Fiske & G. Lindzey (Eds.), The handbook of social psychology (4th ed., pp. 680-740). Boston, MA: McGraw-Hill.
3. Brehm, J. W. (1966). A theory of psychological reactance. New York, NY: Academic Press.
4. Brehm, S. S. B., & Brehm, J. W. (1981). Psychological reactance: A theory of freedom and control. New York, NY: Academic Press.
5. Burgoon, M., Alvaro, E., Grandpre, J., & Voloudakis, M. (2002). Revisiting the theory of psychological reactance: Communicating threats to attitudinal freedom. In J. P. Dillard & M. Pfau (Eds.), The persuasion handbook: Developments in theory and practice (pp. 213-232). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
6. Cacioppo, J. T., & Petty, R. E. (1981). Social psychological procedures for cognitive response assessment: The thought-listing technique. In T. V. Merluzzi, C. R. Glass & M. Genest (Eds.), Cognitive Assessment (pp. 309-392). New York, NY: Guilford Press.
7. Cohen, G. L., Aronson, J., & Steele, C. M. (2000). When beliefs yield to evidence: Reducing biased evaluation by affirming the self. Personality & Social Psychology Bulletin, 26, 1151-1164.
8. Correll, J., Spencer, S. J., & Zanna, M. P. (2004). An affirmed self and an open mind: Self-affirmation and sensitivity to argument strength. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 40, 350-356.
9. Dillard, A. J., McCaul, K. D., & Magnan, R. E. (2005). Why is such a smart person like you smoking?: Using self-affirmation to reduce defensiveness to cigarette warning labels. Journal of Biobehavioral Research, 10, 165-182.
10. Dillard, J. P., & Peck, E. (2001). Persuasion and the structure of affect: Dual systems and discrete emotions as complementary models. Human Communication Research, 27, 38-68.
11. Dillard, J. P., & Shen, L. J. (2005). On the nature of reactance and its role in persuasive health communication. Communication Monographs, 72, 144-168.
12. Festinger, L. (1957). A theory of cognitive dissonance. Evanston, IL: Row, Peterson.
13. Harris, P. R., Mayle, K., Mabbott, L., & Napper, L. (2007). Self-affirmation reduces smokers' defensiveness to graphic on-pack cigarette warning labels. Health Psychology, 26, 437-446.
14. Harris, P. R., & Napper, L. (2005). Self-affirmation and the biased processing of threatening health-risk information. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 31, 1250-1263.
15. Hayes, A. F., & Matthes, J. (2009). Computational procedures for probing interactions in OLS and logistic regression: SPSS and SAS implementations. Behavior Research Methods, 41, 924-936.
16. Hong, S. M. (1992). Hong's Psychological Reactance Scale: A further factor analytic validation. Psychological Reports, 70, 512-514.
17. Hong, S. M., & Faedda, S. (1996). Refinement of the Hong Psychological Reactance Scale. Educational and Psychological Measurement, 56, 173-182.
18. Karno, M. P., & Longabaugh, R. (2005). Less directiveness by therapists improves drinking outcomes of reactant clients in alcoholism treatment. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 73, 262-267.
19. Karno, M. P., Longabaugh, R., & Herbeck, D. (2009). Patient reactance as a moderator of the effect of therapist structure on posttreatment alcohol use. Journal of Studies on Alcohol & Drugs, 70, 929-936.
20. Kunda, Z. (1987). Motivated inference: Self-serving generation and evaluation of causal theories. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 53, 636-647.
21. Liberman, A., & Chaiken, S. (1992). Defensive processing of personally relevant health messages. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 18, 669-679.
22. McQueen, A., & Klein, W. M. P. (2006). Experimental manipulation of self-affirmation: A systematic review. Self and Identity, 5, 289-354.
23. Quick, B. L., Moriarty, C., & Battle-Fisher, M. (2008, May). An empirical test of the EPPM while promoting HIV tests: Does trait reactance and sensation seeking moderate the model's predictions? Paper presented at the annual conference of the International Communication Association, Montreal, Quebec, Canada.
24. Quick, B. L., & Scott, A. (2009, May). Examining the role of framing the narrative in persuasive organ donation messages: A test of psychological reactance theory. Paper presented at the annual conference of the International Communication Association, Chicago, IL.
25. Quick, B. L., & Stephenson, M. T. (2007). Further evidence that psychological reactance can be modeled as a combination of anger and negative cognitions. Communication Research, 34, 255-276.
26. Quick, B. L., & Stephenson, M. T. (2008). Examining the role of trait reactance and sensation seeking on perceived threat, state reactance, and reactance restoration. Human Communication Research, 34, 448-476.
27. Rains, S. A., & Turner, M. (2007). Psychological reactance and persuasive health communication: A test and extension of the intertwined model. Human Communication Research, 33, 241-269.
28. Reed, M. B., & Aspinwall, L. G. (1998). Self-affirmation reduces biased processing of health-risk information. Motivation & Emotion, 22, 99-132.
29. Shen, L., & Dillard, J. P. (2005). The psychometric properties of the Hong Psychological Reactance Scale. Journal of Personality Assessment, 85, 72-79.
30. Shen, L., Monahan, J., Rhodes, N., & Roskos-Ewoldsen, D. (2009). The impact of attitude accessibility and decision style on adolescents' biased processing of health-related PSAs. Communication Research, 36, 104-128.
31. Sherman, D. A., Nelson, L. D., & Steele, C. M. (2000). Do messages about health risks threaten the self?: Increasing the acceptance of threatening health messages via self-affirmation. Personality & Social Psychology Bulletin, 26, 1046-1058.
32. Sherman, D. K., & Cohen, G. L. (2002). Accepting threatening information: Self-affirmation and the reduction of defensive biases. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 11, 119-123.
33. Smith, R., Anderson, S., & Gainsburg, O. (2007, May). Blind obedience or defiant reactions: Investigating reactions to health directives. Paper presented at the annual conference of the International Communication Association, San Francisco, CA.
34. Steele, C. M. (1988). The psychology of self-affirmation: Sustaining the integrity of the self. In L. Berkowitz (Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology (pp. 261-302). New York, NY: Academic Press.
35. Steele, C. M., & Liu, T. J. (1983). Dissonance processes as self-affirmation. Journal of Personality & Social Psychology, 45, 5-19.
36. Steele, C. M., Spencer, S. J., & Lynch, M. (1993). Self-image resilience and dissonance: The role of affirmational resources. Journal of Personality & Social Psychology, 64, 885-896.
37. Taylor, S. E., & Brown, J. D. (1988). Illusion and well-being: A social psychological perspective on mental health. Psychological Bulletin, 103, 193-210.
38. Tesser, A. (2000). On the confluence of self-esteem maintenance mechanisms. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 4, 290-299.
39. Van Koningsbruggen, G. M., & Das, E. (2009). Don't derogate this message!: Self-affirmation promotes online Type 2 diabetes risk test taking. Psychology and Health, 24, 635-649.
40. Wicklund, R. A. (1974). Freedom and reactance. Potomac, MD: Lawrence Erlbaum.
41. Witte, K. (1994). Fear control and danger control: A test of the extended parallel process model (EPPM). Communication Monographs, 61, 113-134.
42. Zhao, G., & Pechmann, C. (2007). The impact of regulatory focus on adolescents' response to antismoking advertising campaigns. Journal of Marketing Research, 44, 671-687.
43. Zhao, X., & Nan, X. (2010). Influence of self-affirmation on responses to gain- vs. loss-framed anti-smoking messages. Human Communication Research, 4, 493-511.