Recently, Professor Peng Kaiping's research group from the Department of Psychology at Tsinghua University published a paper titled "Effects of a self-affirmation intervention among Chinese adolescents during the COVID-19 pandemic: A large-scale randomized controlled trial" in the flagship applied psychology journal Applied Psychology: Health and Well-Being (IF=6.9; JCR Q1). Through a large-scale randomized controlled trial, the study revealed the effectiveness of self-affirmation intervention for Chinese adolescents.
Adolescence is a critical period for individual physical and mental development. Compounded by the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, adolescents' mental health has faced unprecedented challenges. Self-affirmation intervention is a potential method to improve adolescents' mental health. This approach helps individuals more adaptively cope with various threats and challenges in daily life by encouraging them to affirm their core values and strengths, maintain a positive self-image, and restore a sense of self-integrity. Although the effectiveness of this intervention has been verified in Western participants and Chinese adult participants, its effect on Chinese adolescents, especially its role in promoting mental health during the pandemic, remains unclear.
This study provides large-scale empirical evidence for the first time on the effectiveness of self-affirmation intervention in improving adolescents' mental health. The study recruited 2,234 students from 112 middle schools in China and randomly assigned them to experimental or control groups. The research fully considered cultural adaptability by adjusting the value word list for the experimental group, including 9 individualistic words and 9 collectivistic words. In terms of measurement indicators, this study comprehensively collected 8 mental health indicators from both positive and negative aspects: (1) Positive indicators: life satisfaction, positive mental health, self-esteem, life purpose, resilience; (2) Negative indicators: depression, anxiety, loneliness.
The study found that self-affirmation intervention helped improve adolescents' life satisfaction, positive mental health, and self-esteem levels, while buffering the decline in their sense of life purpose. However, the intervention did not significantly impact clinical measurement indicators such as depression, anxiety, and loneliness. These effects were not moderated by variables such as gender, age, or socioeconomic status, indicating that the positive effects of self-affirmation intervention on adolescent mental health are broadly applicable to different adolescent groups.
These results suggest that although self-affirmation intervention has limited impact on some clinically relevant psychological issues (depression, anxiety, loneliness), it can still be an effective method to enhance adolescents' well-being during major crises, such as global public health events like the COVID-19 pandemic. Finally, the paper discusses the implications of this research for self-affirmation theory and cultural psychology, as well as directions for future research exploration.
The research provides important empirical references for researchers, practitioners, and people from all sectors of society who care about adolescent mental health. In today's society full of uncertainties, adolescents may still face various threats, challenges, and uncertainties. Self-affirmation intervention helps adolescents navigate difficult times in life by affirming their core values, protecting their mental health, and illuminating the path forward.
The first author of this paper is Dr. Yan Wei, a doctoral graduate from our department and current postdoctoral researcher at Stanford University. The corresponding author is Professor Peng Kaiping from our department. Other co-authors include Wang Yuling, a doctoral student from the School of Psychological and Cognitive Sciences at Peking University; Jiang Zhongxin, a research assistant from our department; and Geoffrey L. Cohen, a professor from the Department of Psychology and School of Education at Stanford University. This research was supported by the Cultural Science Research Fund from the School of Social Sciences at Tsinghua University (070202052) and the Tsinghua University Spring Breeze Fund (2020Z99CFG013).
Paper link:
Yan, W., Wang, Y., Jiang, Z., Peng, K., & Cohen, G. (2023). Effects of a self‐affirmation intervention among Chinese adolescents during the COVID‐19 pandemic: A large‐scale randomized controlled trial. Applied Psychology: Health and Well‐Being. Online First.
https://iaap-journals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/aphw.12516
