Trial Information

Self-Affirmation, Affect, and Implementation Intentions for Alcohol Cessation

This study aims to examine whether emotional state moderates the effect of self-affirmation
on intentions to engage in proactive behavior following a message about a health threat.
Specifically, we propose to examine whether self-affirmation - a process by which
individuals reflect on cherished personal values -differentially affects the persuasiveness
of a message about the link between alcohol and breast cancer depending on whether
individuals are in a particular emotional state. Previous evidence suggests that self
affirmation may reduce defensiveness to threatening health information, increasing openness
to the message and resulting in increased disease risk perceptions, disease-related worry,
and intentions to engage in preventive behavior. However, self-affirmation may be
differentially effective depending on the prior emotional state of the individual. Human
subjects (women who report having consumed one or more alcoholic beverages in the past
month) will be randomly assigned to write about an emotional event (something that made them
happy, sad, angry, or hopeful) or to a neutral emotion condition (writing about a room in
their house). Then, they will be randomly assigned to self-affirm (write about why a
particular value is important to them) or to be in a control condition (write about why a
particular value might be important to someone else). Following the autobiographical emotion
task and self-affirmation, subjects will read about the link between alcohol and breast
cancer. Finally, they will be asked a series of questions about their intentions to reduce
drinking, their perceived risk of breast cancer, and their worry about breast cancer.
Drawing on previous research, we hypothesize that self-affirmation will be most effective
for those asked to recall a happy or angry experience, and least effective for those asked
to recall a sad or hopeful experience