Health Psychology – Dijkstra (lecture 2) 1
Self-evaluative emotions and expectations about self-evaluative emotions in health-
behavior change
the perception of negative outcomes of own behavior and the perception of the chances that
refraining from an unhealthy behavior will lower the risk of a negative outcome → both
form a threat to the self → triggers negative self-evaluative emotions (comprise motivating
power that governs change of unhealthy behavior)
Self-threat and self-evaluative emotions
people want to feel good about themselves and when view of self is threatened people to
take actions to restore the desirable state → threat to the self is experienced as negative self-
evaluative emotions (e.g. feeling dissatisfied with oneself, shame, disliking oneself)
self-evaluative emotions can be understood within the appraisal theory on emotions:
Appraisal refers to a type of cognition about what is happening to our personal well-being
→ appraisal of a situation indicates that one is behaving inadequately or incoherently
relative to a personal value or norm, this leads to the experience of dissatisfaction with
oneself & when situation is compared to a social value or norm, it may lead to the
experience of shame
perceptions that involve negative social consequences of an unhealthy behaviour may also
comprise a threat to the self (e.g. smoker confronted with neg. image of smoker→ shame)
addition to defining factors that threaten the self, social cognitive theory emphasizes a
cognitive psychological mechanism to lower the self-threat: disengagement beliefs (self-
regulatory mechanism that regulates the self-sanctions – the negative self-evaluative
emotions – that people experience owing to their own behaviours)
◦ e.g. individuals low at risk for HIV use rationalizations to justify and excuse their risky
behaviour less often than do individuals high at risk for HIV → disengagement beliefs
preserve the unhealthy behaviour
Self-evaluative emotions and regret
regret: experience caused by the knowledge that the option one has chosen has led to more
negative outcomes or fewer positive outcomes than the option one did not choose → people
feeling responsible for “bad” decision and as negative self-evaluative emotions it is related
to the self
regret is one specific manifestation of the broader concept of self-evaluative emotions
In sum, the central idea is that negative self-evaluative emotions comprise the core of the
motivation to change unhealthy behaviours because they are a major source of self-evaluative
outcome expectations, which form the ultimate motivation to change the unhealthy behaviour.
The present study
demonstrate the relationships between measures of perceptions related to negative
outcomes, self-evaluative emotions, self-evaluative outcome expectations and quitting
smoking
Study 1: investigate determinants of self-evaluative emotions and test whether self-
evaluative emotions were related to quitting behavior
Study 2: replication of study 1 and to demonstrate the relationship between self-evaluative
emotions, self-evaluative outcome expectations and quitting behaviour
Study 3: tested whether persuasive information on outcomes of smoking and quitting
increases smokers’ self-evaluative outcome expectations and whether these increases
mediate the relation between exposure to the persuasive information and quitting smoking
Self-evaluative emotions and expectations about self-evaluative emotions in health-
behavior change
the perception of negative outcomes of own behavior and the perception of the chances that
refraining from an unhealthy behavior will lower the risk of a negative outcome → both
form a threat to the self → triggers negative self-evaluative emotions (comprise motivating
power that governs change of unhealthy behavior)
Self-threat and self-evaluative emotions
people want to feel good about themselves and when view of self is threatened people to
take actions to restore the desirable state → threat to the self is experienced as negative self-
evaluative emotions (e.g. feeling dissatisfied with oneself, shame, disliking oneself)
self-evaluative emotions can be understood within the appraisal theory on emotions:
Appraisal refers to a type of cognition about what is happening to our personal well-being
→ appraisal of a situation indicates that one is behaving inadequately or incoherently
relative to a personal value or norm, this leads to the experience of dissatisfaction with
oneself & when situation is compared to a social value or norm, it may lead to the
experience of shame
perceptions that involve negative social consequences of an unhealthy behaviour may also
comprise a threat to the self (e.g. smoker confronted with neg. image of smoker→ shame)
addition to defining factors that threaten the self, social cognitive theory emphasizes a
cognitive psychological mechanism to lower the self-threat: disengagement beliefs (self-
regulatory mechanism that regulates the self-sanctions – the negative self-evaluative
emotions – that people experience owing to their own behaviours)
◦ e.g. individuals low at risk for HIV use rationalizations to justify and excuse their risky
behaviour less often than do individuals high at risk for HIV → disengagement beliefs
preserve the unhealthy behaviour
Self-evaluative emotions and regret
regret: experience caused by the knowledge that the option one has chosen has led to more
negative outcomes or fewer positive outcomes than the option one did not choose → people
feeling responsible for “bad” decision and as negative self-evaluative emotions it is related
to the self
regret is one specific manifestation of the broader concept of self-evaluative emotions
In sum, the central idea is that negative self-evaluative emotions comprise the core of the
motivation to change unhealthy behaviours because they are a major source of self-evaluative
outcome expectations, which form the ultimate motivation to change the unhealthy behaviour.
The present study
demonstrate the relationships between measures of perceptions related to negative
outcomes, self-evaluative emotions, self-evaluative outcome expectations and quitting
smoking
Study 1: investigate determinants of self-evaluative emotions and test whether self-
evaluative emotions were related to quitting behavior
Study 2: replication of study 1 and to demonstrate the relationship between self-evaluative
emotions, self-evaluative outcome expectations and quitting behaviour
Study 3: tested whether persuasive information on outcomes of smoking and quitting
increases smokers’ self-evaluative outcome expectations and whether these increases
mediate the relation between exposure to the persuasive information and quitting smoking
