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Self-affirmation can increase health message receptivity by engaging individuals to reflect on their core values. We propose that self-transcendence, the process of redirecting attention from self-interests to the wellbeing of others, is a key component promoting receptivity. To test this, sedentary adults were randomly assigned to a self-affirmation, self-transcendence, or control task before listening to health messages promoting physical activity in an fMRI scanner. Both self-affirmation and self-transcendence exercises elicited greater activity in the brain’s subjective value network (ventromedial prefrontal cortex [vmPFC]); however, self-transcendence exercise also recruited greater right temporal parietal junction activity, implicated in social cognition. In the subsequent health messages task, the affirmation and transcendence conditions produced comparable increases in vmPFC activity (relative to controls), a plausible neural index of message receptivity, which predicted decreases in sedentary behavior. These findings support self-transcendence as an effective health intervention strategy, and contribute to previous debates on the mechanisms of self-affirmation.
Yoona Kang, U of Pennsylvania
Prateekshit Pandey, U of Pennsylvania
Nicole Cooper, Army Research Laboratory
Christin Scholz, U of Pennsylvania
Matthew O'Donnell, U of Pennsylvania
Alison Elliott, U of Pennsylvania
Teresa Pegors, Azusa Pacific U
Matthew D Lieberman, UCLA, Department of Psychology
Shelley Taylor, UCLA
Victor Strecher, U of Michigan
Sonya Dal Cin, U of Michigan
Sara Konrath, Indiana U
Thad Polk, U of Michigan
Kenneth Resnicow, U of Michigan
Lawrence An, U of Michigan
Emily Falk, U of Pennsylvania