
Pronouns matter when psyching yourself up - breitling
https://hbr.org/2015/02/pronouns-matter-when-psyching-yourself-up
======
yaddayadda
> We found that cueing people to reflect on intense emotional experiences
> using their names and non-first-person pronouns such as “you” or “he” or
> “she” consistently helped them control their thoughts, feelings, and
> behaviors.

In Marine Corps basic training (i.e. bootcamp) recruits must refer to
themselves in the third person and as "Recruit LastName". I always assumed it
was to dehumanize us (and that was probably the initial reason), but now I
wonder if it had the added side effect of helping us "control [our] thoughts,
feelings, and behaviors" during the prolonged period of "intense emotional
experiences" that is bootcamp.

~~~
kiiski
I assume it's the same in all militaries (in Finnish Defence Forces, when
talking to superiors you're always supposed to begin with "sir/ma'am <his/her
rank>, <my rank> <my last name>" (in reality people are rarely that formal
after basic training)). I always assumed it was mainly to ensure that the
other person knows who you are. It's certainly helpfull when you go as an NCO
to a new unit and need to learn everyones names.

------
herbig
The Malala story is a really terrible example of this for three reasons:

1\. Her native language is not English, so she presumably does not speak to
herself in English. She is translating what she says to herself to English.
She may or may not speak to herself in the third person.

2\. She is relating a story about speaking to herself to other people. Just
because she described it in the third person does not mean that the thought
occurred in the third person. People tell stories for dramatic effect.

3\. Culturally, she is very different from broke undergrads at the University
of California Berkeley. Perhaps culture plays a much larger role than
pronouns.

------
grandpa
The paper described in the article is available as PDF here:
[http://cpl.psy.msu.edu/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/Kross-
et-a...](http://cpl.psy.msu.edu/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/Kross-et-al-.pdf)

------
Swizec
People always make fun of Swizec for referring to himself in third person.
Apparently it's pretentious.

But I do it a lot, especially when I mess up. I'll be like, "jeezus swizec,
you really didn't have to say that"

No idea why I do it. I think it just makes the dialogue flow better because it
gives you a faux outside perspective

~~~
pluma
"Swizec, you really didn't have to say that" is second person, not third
person.

"Swizec didn't have to say that" (or "Swizec thinks he didn't have to say
that") would be third person.

IIRC, there is a period in early development where children frequently use the
third person to talk about themselves (likely related to the development of
the theory of mind, i.e. the distinction between one's own mind and others,
which develops during early childhood too).

I'm not sure where the prentiousness comes from (though I'm aware of it), but
this style of speech is also frequently used when trying to portray someone as
severely lacking intelligence (likely to make them appear more like a child):
"Hulk angry. Hulk smash!" comes to mind as an obvious example.

------
bla2
I'd guess that people who think "you can do this" instead of "I can do this"
heard the phrase "you can do this" often, for example from their parents,
other relatives, or friends. If that's true, then this article just confuses
causation with correlation: The causal link is more likely to be "people from
a supportive environment worry less (and they also talk to themselves in the
second person)".

~~~
regularfry
> I'd guess

No need to guess, the paper explicitly deals with this:

    
    
        Thus, individuals who scored high versus low on trait
        social anxiety benefited similarly from introspecting using non-
        first-person language.
    

In your terms, you'd expect people from less supportive environments to have
higher social anxiety. Study 6 shows this doesn't matter.

------
jmckib
My own observation from trying this out: I sometimes experience negative self-
talk when thinking about my day. If something undesirable or embarrassing
happened, I might say "I'm an idiot", almost reflexively. However, forcing
myself to say "jmckib, you're an idiot" is much harder to do, because it feels
like I'm insulting someone else, an obvious no-no.

------
pelario
It is funny how everyone engages in writing his own explanation on why this
works. Here is mine:

By having the self-talk in first person you are in the scenario of being
alone; while using any of the other forms, you are playing two different
roles, therefore you are actually accompanied instead of alone, which I guess,
helps to control anxiety...

~~~
pluma
Alternatively: if you "psych yourself up", using second person or third person
positions the praise outside yourself, as if it would come from a peer or
third party. It builds on similar things you may have heard from other people
trying to cheer you up in the past (and thus taps into the feelings associated
with those memories) and helps you visualize how other people might judge you
positively if you succeed.

I.e. visualizing success mixed with recalling positive experiences in the
past. "You can do it! You're a good person. You rock!" etc.

This would also match with the idea of people who inflict self-harm chastising
themselves in the second person (though I'm not sure whether that is actually
a thing or just something you find on tumblr and in movies): "You're no good.
You don't deserve this. You're a failure." etc (which sounds like something
you'd expect an abusive parent to tell you).

------
jobigoud
I personally use "We" which is not mentioned. Awkward. (In French we have "On"
a sort of informal "We" and mix between first and third person without
equivalent in English).

~~~
sthreet
Just to be completely clear on this word, would that be used to say something
within a group rather than to outsiders of that group? example: "here at this
group, we do things" vs "here at this group, we don't like any of you"

~~~
ashark
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_personal_pronouns#On](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_personal_pronouns#On)

TL;DR: 1) a very close analog to (pronoun, non-numerical) "one" in English, 2)
an informal stand-in for _nous_ , that is, "we", as in _on y va_ [1].

[1]
[http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?t=81144](http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?t=81144)

~~~
sthreet
Thanks for the clarification, I was fairly wrong before.

I'm not completely sure now, but at least i'm not wrong.

------
yellowapple
Tangentially-related note: does anyone happen to know of a (preferably
Firefox) browser extension (or perhaps some sort of addition to AdBlock) that
will block the incredibly-annoying full-screen in-page popups that seemingly-
ever-other site harasses its viewers with?

It's getting to the point where I'm - without fail - simply closing whatever
article I was _hoping_ to read rather immediately. Perhaps I should just start
using NoScript or whatever JS-blocking add-on happens to be the latest
fashion.

------
Dirlewanger
I kind of interpret this as playing on our insecurities of others testing our
abilities to perform an action. Saying "You/ _your name_ can do this" to
yourself is like another person saying it to you. Psychologically
hearing/thinking that someone else is depending on you to do a task is enough
to kick your ass in gear.

------
amelius
Interesting, but are there any negative side-effects of (prolonged use of)
this technique?

~~~
jdonaldson
All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.

------
swatow
Not really digging the plots with no error bars _or labels on the y axis_

------
double0jimb0
If you look at this selftalk like Shannon entropy and information transfer,
then by definition, to successfully "talk" to someone requires both a sender
and receiver, two parties, which data is transferred between, and groked, so
entropy decreases. If viewed in this context, the activity of "Talking to
oneself using I/me" then becomes non-sensical, information transfer requires
at least two parties, not one.

It then follows and makes sense that using 3rd person, or one's name,
increases chance of successful information transfer to the "I/me" receiver:
the semblance of two separate parties is maintained, thus creating the medium
for decreasing Shannon entropy.

