1-repeating positive affirmations can help individuals.
2- repeating positive statements encourages positive thinking.
3- positive statements help those with negative thoughts.
4- repeating positive affirmations leads to higher self-esteem
5- repeating positive affirmations can increase or decrease self-esteem depending on confidence.
6- repeating positive affirmations for people who struggle with confidence may not be able to increase self-esteem.
Counterintuitive Fall 2024 
Thank you for Radically Revising your Hypothesis in response to yesterday’s class, BabyYoda. I’m glad you made the change, and particularly gratified that you asked for Feedback and alerted me by text. This is good news all around.
We will speak no more of your first Hypothesis, which no longer exists except as a “starter” set. Readers of your final paper never need to know how your research proposal began. AND . . . if your Hypothesis undergoes further revision (it most likely will) it will eventually evolve into an arguable Thesis you can spend 3000 words proving. And even then, no reader needs to know your original Hypothesis or this new one.
Actual feedback will follow. This bit is for BOTH YOU and your classmates.
Here it is with some wordiness removed: Positive affirmations for people who struggle with confidence may not increase their self-esteem.
I’ve done no research on this topic, but at first glance, it does seem counterintuitive, in general, that being affirmed would fail to improve anyone’s self-esteem.
However, it’s easy to imagine ways in which affirmations would fail if the affirmation comes 1) from the wrong person, 2) about the wrong characteristic, 3) at the wrong time, 4) with the wrong intent.
People with loads of confidence and people with none both make assessments about their own personality, their skills, their character, their behavior. Those with confidence don’t NEED affirmation to boost their self-esteem, but they can still discredit affirmations if the come from 1) people they don’t respect, 2) about characteristics they don’t value, 3) when they’re at the personal best or worst, or 4) when they suspect insincerity in the affirmer.
The same goes for people with little or no self-esteem. Affirmations work when they come from someone whose opinion, perceptiveness, and sincerity they trust. They can easily be discredited, and are therefore useless, when they don’t meet those criteria.
Admirers hoping to administer useful affirmation have to meet SO many criteria. They need to be someone the recipient admires and trusts, someone who knows the recipient well enough to make meaningful judgments, someone who has enough expertise to recognize good character or ability. The admirer has to choose the right compliment at the right time to address the sort of self-doubt the recipient is experiencing. The affirmation has to be sincere or appear sincere to the recipient.
Affirmation from a random individual about a random characteristic will likely fail to improve the self-esteem of a dubious recipient.
Working on a visual response. 🙂
A person lacking confidence can always find an argument to refute an affirmation.
Helpful?
Thanks again for the opportunity.
🙂