self-affirmation theory
the concept that people are motivated to maintain views of themselves as well adapted, moral, competent, stable, and able to control important outcomes. When some aspect of this self-view is challenged, people experience psychological discomfort. They may attempt to reduce this discomfort by directly resolving the inconsistency between the new information and the self, by affirming some other aspect of the self, or both. Self-affirmation theory has been used as an alternative to cognitive dissonance theory for explaining some phenomena. See also dissonance reduction; self-consistency perspective. [originally proposed by U.S. psychologist Claude M. Steele (1946– )]