Americans rarely refer to themselves in the third person, unlike European monarchs, who use the “royal we” to show they speak for an entire nation, or religious leaders, who often use “we” to indicate their close relationship with a deity.
Of course, there are also people in American pop culture who refer to themselves in the third person, whether it’s “The Todd” on Scrubs, Dwayne Johnson in his wrestling years asking if you can “smell what The Rock is cooking,” or Sesame Street’s Elmo, who preferred to use his own name over the pronoun “I.”
However cringe it may be, referring to yourself in the third person can have its benefits, and you don’t have to suffer the embarrassment of doing so publicly. Researchers have found that if you’re getting emotional, thinking about yourself in the third person can quickly cool you down. It’s like taking your pain and analyzing it as if it were someone else’s.
How to use the third-person self-talk
Let’s say that someone at work criticized your idea and it ruffled your feathers. Before you respond with a snarky remark, ask yourself (assuming your name is John): “Why is John upset?” In this case, you will be much less reactive than if you asked yourself, “Why am I upset?” This is because you’ve put some distance between yourself and your emotions, allowing you to think and feel more clearly.
It also works when you’re reflecting on a painful moment from the past. If you’re ruminating about a difficult breakup, you can ask yourself, “Why is John upset when thinking about his breakup?”
Why does referring to yourself in the third person calm you down?
“Essentially, we think referring to yourself in the third person leads people to think about themselves more similar[ly] to how they think about others, and you can see evidence for this in the brain,” Jason Moser, Michigan State University associate professor of psychology and co-author of the study, said in a statement. “That helps people gain a tiny bit of psychological distance from their experiences, which can often be useful for regulating emotions.”
Researchers discovered this third-person hack by showing study participants emotionally disturbing images and asking them to react to them in the first and third person. After seeing the imagery, when people referred to themselves in the third person, their emotional brain activity decreased within one second. In a second study, participants reflected on a painful moment from their past. When they described the experience from a third-person perspective, activity decreased in brain regions associated with painful recollections.
“What’s really exciting here,” University of Michigan psychology professor Ethan Kross said in a statement, “is that the brain data from these two complementary experiments suggest that third-person self-talk may constitute a relatively effortless form of emotion regulation.”
The third-person self-talk method is a great way to snap out of an emotional moment and respond skillfully. It also helps us look at past triggers with a little emotional distance. It also gives us an important perspective that can help us make better decisions. It lets us ask, “Would I approve of my reaction if it were someone else?”
