Important Factors
Culture imposes some effect on the process of self-affirmation. In individualistic cultures, the self is more emphasized, and independence stands out; meanwhile in collectivist cultures, kinship is emphasized and interdependence plays a significant role. Collectivists are less likely to be motivated to protect the self-integrity since self-esteem is less emphasized in their culture. However, the general process that affirmation reduces defensive responses to threats appears to be culturally invariant. Self-esteem also affects the self-affirmation process. People who affirm themselves in one aspect when they are facing threats to another aspect are believed to have more psychological support with which to self-affirm. Previous studies proved that high self-esteem individuals have more affirmational assets, and hence are more resilient to threatening incidents. People with high self-esteem are more likely to rely on self-affirmation than other defensive mechanism such as rationalization. Generally, self-affirmation increases people's open-mindedness and flexibility. However, the domain from which the threat and affirmation emerge is important. In the case that the threat and affirmation come from the same domain, self-affirmation would lead to a decrease in open-mindedness and flexibility. Further research is needed to determine the conditions under which affirmations lead to open-mindedness.
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