“i can pass this exam”, “i am a wonderful person and will find love again” and “i am capable and deserve that pay rise” are phrases that students, the broken-hearted and driven employees may repeat to themselves over and over again in the face of adversity. self-help books through the ages, including norman vincent peale’s 1952 classic, “the power of positive thinking”, have encouraged people with low self-esteem to make positive self-statements. new research, however, suggests it may do more harm than good.
getty imagesi am important. i am, really
since the 1960s psychologists have known that people are more accepting of ideas close to their own views and resistant to those that differ. with regard to self-perception, if a person who believes they are reasonably friendly is told that they are extremely gregarious, they will probably accept the idea. but if told they are socially aloof, the idea will most likely be met with resistance and doubt.
wondering if the same tendencies could apply to making positive self-statements, joanne wood of the university of waterloo in canada and her colleagues designed a series of experiments. they questioned a group of 68 men and women using long-accepted methods to measure self-esteem. the participants were then asked to spend four minutes writing down any thoughts and feelings that were on their minds. in the midst of this, half were randomly assigned to say to themselves “i am a lovable person” every time they heard a bell ring.
immediately after the exercise, they were asked questions such as “what is the probability that a 30-year-old will be involved in a happy, loving romance?” to measure individual moods using a scoring system that ranged from a low of zero to a high of 35. past studies have indicated that optimistic answers indicate happy moods.
as the researchers report in psychological science, those with high self-esteem who repeated “i’m a lovable person” scored an average of 31 on their mood assessment compared with an average of 25 by those who did not repeat the phrase. among participants with low self-esteem, those making the statement scored a dismal average of 10 while those that did not managed a brighter average of 17.
dr wood suggests that positive self-statements cause negative moods in people with low self-esteem because they conflict with those people’s views of themselves. when positive self-statements strongly conflict with self-perception, she argues, there is not mere resistance but a reinforcing of self-perception. people who view themselves as unlovable find saying that they are so unbelievable that it strengthens their own negative view rather than reversing it. given that many readers of self-help books that encourage positive self-statements are likely to suffer from low self-esteem, they may be worse than useless.
“这次考试我一定能过！”“我这么好的一个人一定能再找到爱情！”“我完完全全够格涨工资！”以上这些话通常都是学生、情场失意之人或者累死累活的办公室职员在遭遇逆境时反复对自己说的勉力之词。多年以来，“自助”书籍一直鼓励那些自信不足的人对自己说些积极鼓励的话，其中就有诺曼·文森·皮尔写于 1952年的经典之作《积极思维的魔力》。然而，最近的研究表明，这样的做法可能弊大于利。
自20世纪60年代起，心理学研究已经表明，人们更容易接受和自己想法相近的观点，而排斥那些截然不同的观点。在自我认知方面，如果一个人本来就觉得自己比较友好，别人再说他绝对是个社交高手，他或许真的就会这么认为。但如果这个人原本就对社交毫无兴趣，同样的说法就会遭到他的质疑，而难以接受。
那对于自勉之词来说，会不会产生同样的结果呢？加拿大沃特卢大学的乔安娜·伍德（博士）与其同事共同设计了一套实验。他们先用一套已被广泛接受的自信程度调查法对68名实验对象（其中有男有女）进行了调查。随后，参与实验的志愿者按要求于接下来的四分钟内在纸上写下他们的所有想法、感受。与此同时，实验人员随机抽取其中一半对象，要求他们每听到一次铃响就对自己说：“我很惹人爱。”
紧接着，实验对象们回答了诸如“一个三十岁的人坠入爱河的几率有多大？”之类的问题，答案将通过一套情绪测试系统被评分，分值在0到35之间（分值越高说明心情越好）。过去的研究表明，正面而积极的答案与愉快的情绪呈正相关。
研究人员在后来发表在《心理学》杂志上的论文中称，自信且不断对自己说“我很惹人爱”的人在情绪测试中平均得31分，自信但没有说这句话的人平均得25分。而在本身就不太自信的实验对象中，那些重复这句话的人平均仅得可怜的10分，没说的却得到了较好的17分。
伍德博士认为，自勉之词之所以会让自卑者产生消极情绪，是因为他们的自我认知与他人评价产生了冲突。如果自勉之词与自我认知严重不符，后果就不仅仅是冲突了，因为负面的自我认知会因此加强。那些不觉得自己有多惹人爱的人发现，硬说自己如何如何惹人爱根本难以让人信服，这样不但不会减少对自己的负面想法，反而是加深了这一印象。如果“自助”书籍的读者所倡导的自勉之法真的可能让他们更加自卑，那么这些书籍，恐怕不止是没用这么糟糕。