Self-Affirmation Effect on Risk Perception and the Moderating Role of Self-Efficacy in Anti-Alcohol Messages

• Published in: Humanities Today: Proceedings Vol. 2; no. 1; pp. 49 - 62
• Main Authors: Stanojlović, Milena, Ubaldo Cuesta Cambra, Paredes, Borja, Lamprinakos, Grigorio, Stavraki, Maria
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Toronto De Gruyter Poland 01.04.2023
• Subjects: Alcohol; Perceptions; Self-efficacy
• ISSN: 2821-8787; 2821-8795
• DOI: 10.2478/htpr-2023-0006

The beneficial effect of self-affirmation on the reduction of people’s defensive responses and the increase in message acceptance has been widely demonstrated in different health-related topics. However, little is known about the specific conditions in which self-affirmation strategies might be more effective. Our objective is to explore the interplay of self-affirmation and self-efficacy in the context of alcohol consumption. Recruited participants were randomly assigned to either a self-affirmation group or a no-treatment group and exposed to a video describing several consequences of alcohol consumption. Following the message exposure, participant’s drinking refusal self-efficacy was measured together with their perceived risk of daily alcohol intake. In line with our predictions, self-affirmed individuals who reported higher drinking refusal self-efficacy perceived daily alcohol consumption as a significantly higher risk than those who were assigned to the no-treatment condition. In contrast, for individuals with low drinking refusal self-efficacy, there was no significant difference in the perceived risk between the self-affirmed and the non-affirmed. We predicted and showed that self-affirmation influences the risk perception of daily drinking only for the people who reported higher drinking refusal self-efficacy. This indicates that self-efficacy could be an important factor that moderates the effect of self-affirmation in alcohol consumption domain.