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Cited by 190Media Influence and HealthBehavioral Health and InterventionsDeath Anxiety and Social Exclusion

Self-affirmation alters the brain’s response to health messages and subsequent behavior change.

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Falk, Emily B., O’Donnell, Matthew Brook, Cascio, Christopher N., Tinney, Francis, Kang, Yoona, Lieberman, Matthew D., Taylor, Shelley E., An, Lawrence +2 more·2015·Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
DOI 10.1073/pnas.1500247112PMC PMC4343089
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Abstract

Health communications can be an effective way to increase positive health behaviors and decrease negative health behaviors; however, those at highest risk are often most defensive and least open to such messages. For example, increasing physical activity among sedentary individuals affects a wide range of important mental and physical health outcomes, but has proven a challenging task. Affirming core values (i.e., self-affirmation) before message exposure is a psychological technique that can increase the effectiveness of a wide range of interventions in health and other domains; however, the neural mechanisms of affirmation's effects have not been studied. We used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to examine neural processes associated with affirmation effects during exposure to potentially threatening health messages. We focused on an a priori defined region of interest (ROI) in ventromedial prefrontal cortex (VMPFC), a brain region selected for its association with self-related processing and positive valuation. Consistent with our hypotheses, those in the self-affirmation condition produced more activity in VMPFC during exposure to health messages and went on to increase their objectively measured activity levels more. These findings suggest that affirmation of core values may exert its effects by allowing at-risk individuals to see the self-relevance and value in otherwise-threatening messages.

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  • Pre-intervention self-affirmations (thinking or writing about one's core values) are associated with increased health-related behavior change.

    “This decision was made on the basis of research by Falk et al. (2015), who found that participants who engaged in pre-intervention self-affirmations (the process of thinking or writing about one’s core values), demonstrated increased health-related behavior change.”

    From Examining a Group Acceptance and Commitment Therapy Intervention for Music Performance Anxiety in Student Vocalists (2020) · cites this paper as Falk et al. (2015)

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Research works printed but not linked: 1

  1. Cascio CN, et al. (2015) Neural correlates of self affirmation. The Meeting of the In- ternational Communication Association (San Juan, Puerto Rico), in press.

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Authors
Falk, E. B., O’Donnell, M. B., Cascio, C. N., Tinney, F., Kang, Y., Lieberman, M. D., Taylor, S. E., An, L., Resnicow, K., & Strecher, V. J.
Affiliations
  • University of Pennsylvania (US)
  • University of Michigan (US)
  • University of California, Los Angeles (US)
  • Center for Health Communications Research, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109; and
ORCID
Venue
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Publisher
National Academy of Sciences
Published
2015-02-02
Volume
112
Issue
7
Pages
1977-1982
ISSN
  • 0027-8424 (ISSN-L)
  • 1091-6490
DOI
10.1073/pnas.1500247112
PMC
PMC4343089
OpenAlex
W2136204897
Cited by
190
References
76
Citations by year
2026: 12 · 2025: 14 · 2024: 8 · 2023: 9 · 2022: 24 · 2021: 18 · 2020: 14 · 2019: 15 · 2018: 28 · 2017: 20 · 2016: 22 · 2015: 5
FWCI
403.19
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Licence
www.pnas.org/site/misc/userlicense.xhtml (vor, 181 d)
Locations
  • Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (publishedVersion)
  • Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed Central (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • eScholarship (California Digital Library) (submittedVersion, cc-by-nd)
Funders
  • HHS | NIH | National Cancer Institute (NIH-P50 CA101451, NIH/NCI 1R01CA180015-01)
  • HHS | NIH | NIH Office of the Director (1DP2DA03515601)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › Literature and Literary Theory › Media Influence and Health
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Applied Psychology › Behavioral Health and Interventions
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Death Anxiety and Social Exclusion
Keywords
self-affirmation, core values, health communication, health messaging, ventromedial prefrontal cortex, physical activity, sedentary behavior, behavior change, threat processing, self-relevance
MeSH terms
Behavior Therapy, Brain, Humans, Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Sedentary Behavior

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