Welcome back to Reading the Research, where I trawl
the Internet to find noteworthy research on autism and related subjects,
then discuss it in brief with bits from my own life, research, and
observations.
Today's article covers a style of self-direction and soothing called self-talk, and outlines a "best practice" for using it. Self-talk, or chatting to oneself, is used by a lot of people to help deal with various situations, from upsetting to organizational. For example, saying, "I need to do errands today, and I should probably go to the library first and the grocery store last so the frozen food doesn't thaw." Saying that sentence out loud helps prioritize and analyze the chosen course of action. I believe that's because it activates more of the brain in one action, since your hearing also comes into play. In this way, anyone can be better organized and regulated.
You can also use self-talk to help regulate emotions, and that's what this article covers. The experimenters presented a series of neutral and disturbing images with the participants hooked up to a monitor. Emotional brain activity was then compared as the participants used first and third person self-talk. They found that third-person self-talk, saying, "Why is Mary upset?" rather than "Why am I upset?" allowed for much quicker emotional control, and without expending any extra effort. The researchers theorized this effect was because it gave some psychological distance to the person's viewpoint, allowing them to view the situation as if they were talking about someone else. And situations are usually easier to deal with if they're someone else's problem and you're just helping them think about it.
I found this kind of interesting for a number of reasons. First, society has taught me that talking to yourself is a sign of mental illness. Psychology slaps that myth down, as well it should. There are a lot of kinds of self-talk, and most of it is self-regulating. And it's just as well, because I talk to myself on a relatively regular basis when I'm alone. I plan out trips, work through difficult decisions, and bounce ideas off myself. Sometimes simply by hearing an idea spoken aloud, I can see the flaws in the idea.
What also interested me is that I apparently opt for a middle ground between the studied self-talk patterns. You see, I do not talk to myself in third person like the better emotional-regulators in the study. Nor in first person, like the normal communicators. I, in fact, mainly use second person in my self-talk. I'll say, "Okay, we need to go to the store to get blackberries, flour, and salad ingredients, because we need that for dinner tonight," rather than using "I" or "Sarah."
I don't think I do that because I view myself as a multi-part individual, though you can certainly make that argument. (I tend to think of my mind and heart as two separate entities when dealing with difficult situations.) I suppose the closest comparison for what I'm doing would be the "royal we," where you can more or less substitute "I" for "we," but the convention requires the monarch to use "we" as a sign of their power... or something. I've only seen the "royal we" used a few times in literature.
In my case, I think it's a compromise between first person (acknowledging that this is a problem that I am presently facing) and third person (getting some psychological distance from the problem to understand and analyze it better). It feels disingenuous to me to use third person when talking about a personal problem, particularly since there are a lot of Sarahs out there, and why am I sticking my nose into their lives if they haven't invited me to help them with their problems? But I guess I tend to shy away from first person instinctively in difficult matters. I'm not really sure why, but it would make sense if it was specifically because of the psychological distance thing.
Regardless, it's potentially valuable information for anyone that wants to be better at emotional regulation. If you already practice self-talk, a valuable experiment might be seeing if shifting your self-talk to third person helps you.
You can also use self-talk to help regulate emotions, and that's what this article covers. The experimenters presented a series of neutral and disturbing images with the participants hooked up to a monitor. Emotional brain activity was then compared as the participants used first and third person self-talk. They found that third-person self-talk, saying, "Why is Mary upset?" rather than "Why am I upset?" allowed for much quicker emotional control, and without expending any extra effort. The researchers theorized this effect was because it gave some psychological distance to the person's viewpoint, allowing them to view the situation as if they were talking about someone else. And situations are usually easier to deal with if they're someone else's problem and you're just helping them think about it.
I found this kind of interesting for a number of reasons. First, society has taught me that talking to yourself is a sign of mental illness. Psychology slaps that myth down, as well it should. There are a lot of kinds of self-talk, and most of it is self-regulating. And it's just as well, because I talk to myself on a relatively regular basis when I'm alone. I plan out trips, work through difficult decisions, and bounce ideas off myself. Sometimes simply by hearing an idea spoken aloud, I can see the flaws in the idea.
What also interested me is that I apparently opt for a middle ground between the studied self-talk patterns. You see, I do not talk to myself in third person like the better emotional-regulators in the study. Nor in first person, like the normal communicators. I, in fact, mainly use second person in my self-talk. I'll say, "Okay, we need to go to the store to get blackberries, flour, and salad ingredients, because we need that for dinner tonight," rather than using "I" or "Sarah."
I don't think I do that because I view myself as a multi-part individual, though you can certainly make that argument. (I tend to think of my mind and heart as two separate entities when dealing with difficult situations.) I suppose the closest comparison for what I'm doing would be the "royal we," where you can more or less substitute "I" for "we," but the convention requires the monarch to use "we" as a sign of their power... or something. I've only seen the "royal we" used a few times in literature.
In my case, I think it's a compromise between first person (acknowledging that this is a problem that I am presently facing) and third person (getting some psychological distance from the problem to understand and analyze it better). It feels disingenuous to me to use third person when talking about a personal problem, particularly since there are a lot of Sarahs out there, and why am I sticking my nose into their lives if they haven't invited me to help them with their problems? But I guess I tend to shy away from first person instinctively in difficult matters. I'm not really sure why, but it would make sense if it was specifically because of the psychological distance thing.
Regardless, it's potentially valuable information for anyone that wants to be better at emotional regulation. If you already practice self-talk, a valuable experiment might be seeing if shifting your self-talk to third person helps you.
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