What Are Affirmations?
Affirmations, also called positive affirmations, are phrases that, when repeated regularly, can change negative thoughts and behavior patterns.
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They can be said aloud or to yourself. These statements are usually intended to help shift thinking from negative to positive, motivate an action, reduce stress, persevere through difficult times, and increase self-confidence and well-being.
“Affirmations help build and improve your self-esteem. They can also act as a way of challenging and replacing your negative and anxious thinking when it comes to stress, depression, physical pain, and anxiety,” says Lee Phillips, LCSW, EdD, a psychotherapist and sex and couples therapist certified by the Integrative Sex Therapy Institute, who is based in New York City.
They work by replacing negative self-talk, explains Dr. Yeager. For example, if you made a mistake and then think, “I’m so stupid,” Yeager says, you’re unintentionally using a negative affirmation.
But if you can spot the negative affirmation, there’s an opportunity to change it to a positive one. In this case, you might tell yourself: “I can learn from my mistakes.”
One psychological theory of self-affirmation comes from research on the self carried out in the 1980s by Claude M. Steele, PhD, a social psychologist.
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His theory is that when people have thoughts or experiences that threaten the way they think about or perceive themselves, they are motivated to restore their self-image.
Dr. Steele suggested that people generally want to have a positive image of themselves, so when they experience a threat to that image (such as somebody telling them they’re not good at something), they tend to affirm their sense of self, which, in turn, allows them to handle these threats in a more secure, balanced way. The affirmation is a way to help navigate that stressful situation.
