When life gets messy, stress can make it hard to concentrate and keep a clear mind. But simply thinking about one’s values can boost that problem-solving ability.
Self-affirmation has been shown in past studies to help reduce stress and narrow performance gaps for people in stressful situations, such as women in engineering and science fields.
“It’s not a Stuart Smalley type of idea like ‘gosh darnit, I really like myself,’” Creswell said.
Instead, self-affirmation means identifying and focusing on each person’s most important values, whether they are family, friends, money or leisure.
It also seems to play a role in cognitive performance: Research has shown middle-school students who perform self-affirmations tend to do better academically than those who don’t, Creswell said.
Creswell thinks thinking about what’s important may remind people about the resources they have internally to deal with stressful situations.
The boost in problem-solving appeared whether people prized a belief in God, a sense of humor or wealth.
“It doesn’t even matter what the value is, it’s about finding something that’s personally important to you that can have these effects,” Creswell said.