#self-affirmation

#self-affirmation

What's your favourite thing about yourself? Stylist's Love Yourself campaign asked over 400 women that, and published eight pages of their answers. People mostly picked low-key, quite specific stuff I can cook something out of nothing; I'm really strong; I can talk to anyone; I've got an excellent bum and it was lovely, and touching, to see women affirm what they like about themselves.

A large meta-analysis pooling data from 129 independent tests across 67 published studies with over 17,700 participants found that self-affirmation produces significant, albeit modest, improvements in multiple aspects of well-being. These include stronger self-perception, enhanced general and social well-being, and reduced psychological barriers like anxiety and negative mood (Zhang, Chen, and Wang, 2025). And, these benefits are not fleeting; follow-up tests showed that long-term effects, especially in reducing psychological obstacles, were sometimes even stronger than immediate outcomes.