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In the 1990s, comedian鈥攏ow U.S. Sen.鈥擜l Franken made the line, 鈥淚鈥檓 good enough, I鈥檓 smart enough, and doggone it, people like me!鈥� part of the national lexicon with the creation of the fictional 鈥淒aily Affirmation with Stuart Smalley鈥� on Saturday Night Live.

Easy to mock, to be sure, in Stuart鈥檚 case. But self-affirmation actually can help people cope with the complications and challenges of everyday life.

鈥淭here is some evidence that when people self-affirm, they boost their cognitive resources. They have more mental energy to complete tasks after self affirmation,鈥� says Arielle Silverman, graduate student in social psychology at the University of Colorado Boulder.

But, says Silverman, co-author on 鈥淪elf-affirmation as a deliberate coping strategy: The moderating role of choice,鈥� published recently in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, there are limits to self-affirmation鈥攁nd when it comes to studying the phenomenon, it鈥檚 not simply about peering in the mirror and saying nice things about oneself.

鈥淲hen we talk about self-affirmation, it鈥檚 quite specific,鈥� she says. 鈥淚t鈥檚 an exercise in which people write about their most important values.鈥�

That writing can take various forms, but often people write about their personal assets, positive attributes or skills, art, music, their religious or political values or friends and families. In controlled experiments, subjects are given tests, and over nearly two decades researchers have discovered that such self-affirmations can reduce stress.

鈥淚t helps people perform better on tests when they are stressed out. It helps them see things at a higher level. They don鈥檛 worry as much on how well they鈥檒l do on the test. They have other things in their life they can fall back on,鈥� Silverman says.

But as the new article makes clear, there are limits to the tool. In particular, people don鈥檛 gain nearly the benefit when they feel they are being ordered to self-affirm. As is often the case with human beings, freedom of choice makes a difference.

鈥淎ffirmation鈥檚 benefits were negated when participants were made aware of its benefits and then required to self-affirm,鈥� according to the article.

Silverman believes part of the negation can be explained by defensiveness created in subjects when told what to do.

鈥淚f you are told 鈥榊ou need to do this,鈥� people might be thinking, 鈥業 didn鈥檛 think I was worried, but maybe I was,鈥欌�� she says. In other words, when told something is 鈥済ood鈥� for them, there may be an implicit message that something is wrong.

Silverman and her co-authors, Christine Logel of Canada鈥檚 University of Waterloo and Geoffrey L. Cohen of Stanford University, liken the situation to a similar effect discovered by researchers with regard to exercise.

鈥淓xercise programs centered on intrinsically motivating activities, such as dancing to popular music, are often more effective in improving physical fitness than traditional physical education or programs explicitly purporting to improve physical fitness,鈥� they write.

Silverman says that people benefit from self-affirmation when it is freely chosen. And that, she says, is a tool that people can learn to use themselves.

鈥淚f they know they are approaching something stressful, they can spontaneously think of positive things in their lives, and that might buffer them from the stress,鈥� she says.

鈥淏efore taking a math test, if you spontaneously write about spring break, when you will see family and friends, there is some evidence that it does reduce the physiological markers of stress. 鈥� It just reminds people of the resources they have available to cope with stress.鈥�