Strengthening Identity by Affirming One’s Most Important Values

Abstract

Social-cognitive psychology assumes that personal and social identity are complex and dynamic in nature. According to motivated identity construction theory (MICT), people shape their identity to satisfy basic motivations for distinctiveness, continuity, self-esteem, belonging, efficacy and meaning. The level of motives satisfaction fluctuates and may change according to circumstances. Our experiment (N = 85) examined whether affirmation of one’s most important values increases satisfaction of identity motives. The results showed that self-affirmation strengthened the motivational basis of identity in two domains: meaning and efficacy. The interaction between self-affirmation and self-concept clarity did not predict motive satisfaction, but self-concept clarity predicted motive satisfaction independently of affirmation level.