Psychologist joanne wood and her colleagues recruited people with high and low self-esteem to participate in a study of positive self-statements (wood, perunovic, & lee, 2009). they asked participants to write their thoughts and feelings down for 4 minutes. they randomly assigned half the participants to repeat to themselves a positive self-statement, "i am a lovable person", at 15-second intervals (cued by a bell sound). the other half did not repeat this phrase. after the 4-minute session, all participants rated their mood on a subtle mood questionnaire. here are the results: [see table above]