Self-affirmation - in Groups

In Groups

Besides reducing self-based and relationship-based threats, self-affirmations could also reduce threats to the self at a collective level, i.e. when people confront some threatening opinions or humiliating comments about the groups they belong to, such as race, gender, or affiliation with a location or sports team.

The usefulness of self-affirmation is portrayed in the experiment conducted by David Sherman. American "patriots" were given to read a report arguing "Islamic terrorism can be understood in terms of the social and economic forces of the Middle East" and "existence of flaws in US foreign policy to the fostering of terrorist attacks". When these participants were asked to self-affirm prior to reading the report (to write about an important value unrelated to their national identity), patriots became more open to the report. Self-affirmation also helps eliminate self-serving bias and group-serving bias, which is prevalent in attributions and group judgments. In conclusion, by affirming some aspects of the self, and unrelated to their group, an individual is able to maintain an overall self-perception of worth and integrity.