Accepting threatening information: Self-affirmation and the reduction of defensive biases

Why do people resist evidence that challenges the validity of long-held beliefs? And why do they persist mal-adaptive behavior even when persuasive information or personal experience recommends change? We argue that such defensive tendencies are driven, in large part, by a fundamental motivation to protect the perceived worth and integrity of the self. Studies of social-political debate, health-risk assessment, and responses to team victory or defeat have shown that people respond to information in a less defensive and more open-minded manner when their self-worth is buttressed by an affirmation of an alternative source of identity. Self-affirmed individuals are more likely to accept information that they would otherwise view as threatening, and subsequently to change their beliefs and even their behavior in a desirable fashion. Defensive biases have an adaptive function for maintaining self-worth, but maladaptive consequences for promoting change and reducing social conflict.