D·09
Decisions & Judgment
Advise Yourself in the Third Person
People reason more wisely about other people's problems than their own — and the gap closes when you address yourself by name.
- Evidence
- solid
- Topic
- Decisions
- Things to do
- 3
- Read
- 1 min
solidHow strong is the evidence?
Good evidence behind it, but fewer people have checked it independently.
- Grossmann & Kross, Psychological Science, 2014 (Solomon's paradox)
- Kross et al., JPSP, 2014
Why it works
Distance shifts you from immersed experience to observer, which restores the willingness to see other viewpoints and accept uncertainty.
What to do about it
- Ask: “What would I tell a friend in exactly this position?” — then do that.
- Write the journal entry in the second or third person: “Devendra is worried about X. What should he do?”
- For anything emotionally hot, write before you decide. The writing does the distancing.
Where people go wrong
Using distance to avoid feeling the thing at all. It is a lens for deciding, not a way of not caring.
Where this fits in your day
When it's hot
Name the feeling in one precise word. Then ask what you'd tell a friend.
Read next
- 10 / 10 / 10How will I feel about this in ten minutes, in ten months, and in ten years?solid
- Sleep Sets the Emotional BaselineOne night of deprivation raises amygdala reactivity to negative images by about 60% and weakens the prefrontal control over it.proven
- Name It to Tame ItPutting a feeling into words reduces amygdala activity and recruits the regulating prefrontal regions.solid
- Reframe, Don't SuppressReinterpreting a situation reduces the emotion at low cost. Suppressing the expression leaves the emotion intact and adds physiological and memory costs.proven