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Coaching approaches

Values reflection

The evidence for values reflection is mixed. A meta-analysis of health studies reports small positive effects, but a large replication in schools found none. The exercise asks you to write about something you care about and why it matters to you. It draws on Claude Steele's self-affirmation theory and on work by Geoffrey Cohen and David Sherman.

The principles underneath

A wider sense of integrity

Steele (1988) proposed that people work to sustain the integrity of the self, so a threat in one area can be met from a broader base. Cohen and colleagues (2006) tested a brief writing assignment built on that idea.

Reflect in writing on what matters

Epton and colleagues (2015) define self-affirmation as induced by reflecting on important values, attributes or social relations. This page uses that reflection, in writing.

Less defensiveness toward hard information

Epton and colleagues (2015) report that self-affirmation appears to reduce defensive resistance to health-risk information, with small but reliable positive effects on message acceptance, intentions to change and subsequent behaviour.

Reflect, do not repeat

Wood, Perunovic and Lee (2009) found that repeating a positive self-statement made people with low self-esteem feel worse. The exercise therefore asks you to reflect on what is true, and does not ask you to repeat claims about yourself.

What it is

In a values reflection, the coach asks you to name a few things you care about, such as a relationship, a skill, a principle, or the way you want to treat other people, and then to choose one. You write about why it matters to you and when it has shown up in your life. The exercise asks you to assert nothing untrue. You describe what is already true for you, and nothing more.

The approach rests on Steele's theory that people work to sustain the integrity of the self, and that reflecting on a value can ease a threat in one area. It does not repeat positive claims about yourself. Wood, Perunovic and Lee (2009) found that among people with low self-esteem, those who repeated a positive self-statement felt worse than those who did not, which is why this approach is built on reflection rather than repetition.

Where it comes from

Claude Steele set out self-affirmation theory in 1988, proposing that people work to sustain the integrity of the self (Steele, 1988). Geoffrey Cohen, Julio Garcia, Nancy Apfel and Allison Master later tested a brief in-class writing assignment that had students reaffirm their sense of personal adequacy or self-integrity, and reported that it improved the grades of African American students (Cohen et al., 2006).

Geoffrey Cohen and David Sherman later reviewed self-affirmation as a social psychological intervention (Cohen & Sherman, 2014). The values reflection on this page follows that research. The sources cited here test a single reflective exercise, not a coached practice across several sessions.

How a session runs

  1. The coach asks you to list several things you care about, beyond any one task, such as relationships, skills, or the kind of person you want to be with others.
  2. You pick one value from the list and say, in a sentence, why it matters to you.
  3. The coach sets a short writing window, and you write about a time this value showed up in your life, in your own words.
  4. The coach asks what you noticed while writing, and how the value looks next to the problem you brought into the session.
  5. You decide together whether to carry anything into the week, and the coach checks back at the next session.

When it tends to fit

  • A single piece of feedback has you feeling that your whole competence is in question.
  • You are about to have a hard conversation and want to be clear about what you stand for before you start.
  • A setback has narrowed your attention to one failure, and you want to see the rest of your life again.

What the research shows

Evidence: Randomized trials or meta-analyses

Epton and colleagues (2015) meta-analysed 144 experimental tests of self-affirmation induced by reflecting on values, attributes or social relations. They found small but reliable positive effects on message acceptance, intentions to change and subsequent behaviour, across a range of health problems and behaviours. Cohen and colleagues (2006) reported that a brief in-class writing assignment, in which students reaffirmed their sense of personal adequacy or self-integrity, improved the grades of African American students in randomised field experiments. A large replication in schools, run in a setting where an earlier field experiment had found benefits, found no evidence of effects (Hanselman et al., 2017). In a vaccine study, a values exercise did not improve intentions to vaccinate among parents with negative vaccine attitudes, and in one condition was linked to lower intentions (Reavis et al., 2017). Wood, Perunovic and Lee (2009) found that repeated positive self-statements can backfire for people with low self-esteem, which is why this page does not use repetition.

Untested combination. Each part above has its own research; this way of combining them has not been tested as a whole.

Where the evidence is thin: The evidence is mixed. The health meta-analysis reports small effects, and the school replication and the vaccine study found weaker effects or none. The sources cited here test a single reflective exercise rather than a coached practice across sessions, so the coached form has not been tested on its own.

Sources

  1. Steele, C. M. (1988). The psychology of self-affirmation: Sustaining the integrity of the self. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 21, 261–302.
  2. Cohen, G. L., Garcia, J., Apfel, N., & Master, A. (2006). Reducing the racial achievement gap: A social-psychological intervention. Science, 313(5791), 1307–1310.
  3. Cohen, G. L., & Sherman, D. K. (2014). The psychology of change: Self-affirmation and social psychological intervention. Annual Review of Psychology, 65, 333–371.
  4. Epton, T., Harris, P. R., Kane, R., van Koningsbruggen, G. M., & Sheeran, P. (2015). The impact of self-affirmation on health-behavior change: A meta-analysis. Health Psychology, 34(3), 187–196.
  5. Hanselman, P., Rozek, C. S., Grigg, J., & Borman, G. D. (2017). New evidence on self-affirmation effects and theorized sources of heterogeneity from large-scale replications. Journal of Educational Psychology, 109(3), 405–424.
  6. Reavis, R. D., Ebbs, J. B., Onunkwo, A. K., & Sage, L. M. (2017). A self-affirmation exercise does not improve intentions to vaccinate among parents with negative vaccine attitudes (and may decrease intentions to vaccinate). PLOS ONE, 12(7), e0181368.
  7. Wood, J. V., Perunovic, W. Q. E., & Lee, J. W. (2009). Positive self-statements. Psychological Science, 20(7), 860–866.

Where it stops

The effects reported are small and have not replicated in every setting. A large school replication found no evidence of effects (Hanselman et al., 2017), so values reflection is not a reliable lift for performance or motivation.

It can misfire. In a vaccine study, a values exercise did not help parents with negative vaccine attitudes and, in one condition, was linked to lower intentions to vaccinate (Reavis et al., 2017).

It is not a treatment for depression, trauma, or a sense of worth that keeps collapsing. If distress does not ease, or if a belief about yourself feels as if it needs to be argued into place, a qualified professional is better placed to help.

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