Helping the self help others: self-affirmation increases self-compassion and pro-social behaviors
Open accessAbstract
Reflecting on an important personal value in a self-affirmation activity has been shown to improve psychological functioning in a broad range of studies, but the underlying mechanisms for these self-affirmation effects are unknown. Here we provide an initial test of a novel self-compassion account of self-affirmation in two experimental studies. Study 1 shows that an experimental manipulation of self-affirmation (3-min of writing about an important personal value vs. writing about an unimportant value) increases feelings of self-compassion, and these feelings in turn mobilize more pro-social behaviors to a laboratory shelf-collapse incident. Study 2 tests and extends these effects by evaluating whether self-affirmation increases feelings of compassion toward the self (consistent with the self-compassion account) or increases feelings of compassion toward others (an alternative other-directed compassion account), using a validated storytelling behavioral task. Consistent with a self-compassion account, Study 2 demonstrates the predicted self-affirmation by video condition interaction, indicating that self-affirmation participants had greater feelings of self-compassion in response to watching their own storytelling performance (self-compassion) compared to watching a peer's storytelling performance (other-directed compassion). Further, pre-existing levels of trait self-compassion moderated this effect, such that self-affirmation increased self-compassionate responses the most in participants low in trait self-compassion. This work suggests that self-compassion may be a promising mechanism for self-affirmation effects, and that self-compassionate feelings can mobilize pro-social behaviors.
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Social relational emotions including compassion, gratitude and awe support an individual's capacity to connect with others and are powerful determinants of prosocial behavior.
“For example, social relational emotions including compassion, gratitude and awe support an individual's capacity to connect with others and are powerful determinants of prosocial behavior (Bartlett and DeSteno, 2005; Grant and Gino, 2010; Lindsay and Creswell, 2014; Stellar et al., 2017).”
From The Complex Construct of Wellbeing and the Role of Vagal Function (2022) · cites this paper as Lindsay and Creswell, 2014
The Introduction says feelings of love and compassion may foster helping behavior, and the General Discussion reports that compassion boosted prosocial behavior in Study 1. The paper does not establish the same claim for awe or gratitude as distinct emotions; gratitude appears only as an item in a self-compassion measure. Its Study 1 Results also did not support feelings of connection as the mechanism for helping behavior. The indexed copy provides section labels but no page numbers. (LLM, conf=0.86)
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Chou, W. S., Iles, I. A., Gaysynsky, A., & Klein, W. M. P. (2025) · American Journal of Public Health · doi:10.2105/ajph.2024.308003 · Cited by 4 · see citing works
Personal meaning as a predictor of behavioral action over and above the role of state social anxiety
Lee, C. S., & Hayes-Skelton, S. (2020) · Journal of Theoretical Social Psychology · doi:10.1002/jts5.81 · Cited by 3 · see citing works
Baltic Journal of Psychology; Volume 19, Number 1&2
University of Latvia. Faculty of Education, D. O. P. (2018) · BALTIC JOURNAL OF PSYCHOLOGY · doi:10.22364/bjp.19.01-02 · Cited by 4 · see citing works
Identifying Core Values with a Hierarchical, Ipsative, Preference Assessment
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Motivating Prosocial Behavior: The Potential of Positive Self-Directed Emotions
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The PARALLEL Study (imPAct of expeRiencing Another’s seLf harm and suicidaL bEhaviour in hospitaL)
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Compassion Fatigue and Crisis Workers' Attitude to Work
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Spontaneous self-affirmation predicts more meaning and less boredom
O’Dea, M. K., Igou, E. R., & van Tilburg, W. A. P. (2024) · Motivation and Emotion · doi:10.1007/s11031-024-10060-7 · Cited by 3 · see citing works
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L’auto-compassion, trait de personnalité ou processus de pensée ?
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Self-Affirmation through WeChat Moments
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Can left-behind experience promote prosocial behavior- Evidence from China family panel studies
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- Authors
- Lindsay, E. K., & Creswell, J. D.
- Affiliations
- Carnegie Mellon University (US)
- Corresponding author
- Creswell, J. David
- Venue
- Frontiers in Psychology
- Publisher
- Frontiers Media SA
- Published
- 2014-05-12
- Volume
- 5
- Pages
- 421-421
- ISSN
- 1664-1078 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC4026714
- OpenAlex
- W2162890598
- Cited by
- 112
- References
- 29
- Citations by year
- 2026: 5 · 2025: 16 · 2024: 11 · 2023: 8 · 2022: 14 · 2021: 7 · 2020: 14 · 2019: 5 · 2018: 11 · 2017: 8 · 2016: 7 · 2015: 4 · 2014: 2
- FWCI
- 8.28
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Licence
- cc-by
- Locations
- Frontiers in Psychology (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Figshare (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- KiltHub Repository (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
- KiltHub Repository (cc-by)
- Funders
- National Science Foundation (0924387)
- National Institute of General Medical Sciences (T32GM081760)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Mindfulness and Compassion Interventions
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Death Anxiety and Social Exclusion
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Psychological Well-being and Life Satisfaction
- Keywords
- self-affirmation, self-compassion, prosocial behavior, personal values, storytelling, trait self-compassion
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
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