Abstract: Many studies have identified how people react to threatening information about the self. Selfthreat involves the experience of a discrepancy between peoples desired selffeelings and their current selffeelings. A general process model of threat and defense suggests that selfthreat first activates basic neural processes related to anxiety; then, proximal defenses result directly from anxious arousal and heightened attentional vigilance associated with anxious states; after that, distal defenses mute anxiety by activating approachoriented states. Researchers also proposed that people might engage in one of three regulatory responses to threat: compensation, resistance, and breaking and that individuals trait selfesteem affects the progress of threat and defense. Future research should try to focus on the contextdependency of threat, separately measure the multiple stage of defense, integrate the various factors that might affect the defense strategy, establish a general threat and defense model. Moreover, researchers should try to explore the universal modulation effect of selfesteem in the relationship between threat and defense.