“The biggest challenge”: Cathleen Falsani, “Transcript: Barack Obama and the God Factor Interview,” Sojourners, March 27, 2012, sojo.net/articles/transcript-barack-obama-and-god-factor-interview.
“The voice in my head”: Dan Harris, 10% Happier: How I Tamed the Voice in My Head, Reduced Stress Without Losing My Edge, and Found Self-Help That Actually Works—a True Story (New York: It Books, 2014).
CBS Evening News: “Pain of Rejection: Real Pain for the Brain,” CBS News, March 29, 2011, www.cbsnews.com/news/pain-of-rejection-real-pain-for-the-brain/. The segment can be viewed here: selfcontrol.psych.lsa.umich.edu/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/Why-does-a-broken-heart-physically-hurt.mp4.
central evolutionary advances: Janet Metcalfe and Hedy Kober, “Self-Reflective Consciousness and the Projectable Self,” in The Missing Link in Cognition: Origins of Self-Reflective Consciousness, ed. H. S. Terrace and J. Metcalfe (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 57–83.
In recent years: Each of the points referenced in this paragraph are fleshed out in the remaining chapters, with references provided when they are discussed. For a discussion of how chatter contributes to aging at the cellular level, see the “illnesses and infections” note in chapter 2.
not living in the present: Matthew A. Killingsworth and Daniel T. Gilbert, “A Wandering Mind Is an Unhappy Mind,” Science 330 (2010): 932; Peter Felsman et al., “Being Present: Focusing on the Present Predicts Improvements in Life Satisfaction but Not Happiness,” Emotion 17 (2007): 1047–1051; Michael J. Kane et al., “For Whom the Mind Wanders, and When, Varies Across Laboratory and Daily-Life Settings,” Psychological Science 28 (2017): 1271–1289. As the Kane et al. article makes clear, mind wandering rates do, of course, vary across individuals. The numbers I report in the chapter refer to averages, like most of the other statistics I present in Chatter.
“default state”: A paper published in 2001 triggered an explosion of research into the “default state,” Marcus E. Raichle et al., “A Default Mode of Brain Function,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 98 (2001): 676–682. Subsequent research linked default state activity to mind wandering: Malia F. Mason et al., “Wandering Minds: The Default Network and Stimulus-Independent Thought,” Science 315 (2007): 393–395. Also see Kalina Christoff et al., “Experience Sampling During fMRI Reveals Default Network and Executive System Contributions to Mind Wandering,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 106 (2009): 8719–8724.
when we slip away: As I explain in chapter 1, our default mode is not restricted to verbal reasoning. We can, for example, engage in visual-spatial reasoning when our mind wanders as well. Nonetheless, verbal reasoning constitutes a central component of mind-wandering. For example, in one of the first rigorous studies on this topic, Eric Klinger and W. Miles Cox concluded that “thought content is usually accompanied by some degree of interior monologue,” which they defined as “I was talking to myself throughout the whole thought.” They further noted that “interior monologues were at least as prevalent a feature of thought flow as visual imagery.” Eric Klinger and W. Miles Cox, “Dimensions of Thought Flow in Everyday Life,” Imagination, Cognition, and Personality 7 (1987): 105–128. Also see Christopher L. Heavey and Russell T. Hurlburt, “The Phenomena of Inner Experience,” Consciousness and Cognition 17 (2008): 798–810; and David Stawarczyk, Helena Cassol, and Arnaud D’Argembeau, “Phenomenology of Future-Oriented Mind-Wandering Episodes,” Frontiers in Psychology 4 (2013): 1–12.
dawn of civilization: Halvor Eifring, “Spontaneous Thought in Contemplative Traditions,” in The Oxford Handbook of Spontaneous Thought: Mind-Wandering, Creativity, and Dreaming, ed. K. Christoff and K. C. R. Fox (New York: Oxford University Press, 2018), 529–538. Eifring conceptualizes spontaneous thought as a kind of mind-wandering, which, as noted above (see “when we slip away”), often involves interior monologue. More broadly, the idea that inner speech plays a prominent role in religion throughout history has been discussed by several scholars. Christopher C. H. Cook notes, for instance, “the attribution of voices to divine sources in contemporary religious experience is indisputable”: Christopher C. H. Cook, Hearing Voices, Demonic and Divine (London: Routledge, 2019). For additional discussion, see Daniel B. Smith, Muses, Madmen and Prophets: Hearing Voices and the Borders of Sanity (New York: Penguin Books, 2007); T. M. Luhrmann, Howard Nusbaum, and Ronald Thisted, “The Absorption Hypothesis: Learning to Hear God in Evangelical Christianity,” American Anthropologist 112 (2010): 66–78; Charles Fernyhough, The Voices Within: The History and Science of How We Talk to Ourselves (New York: Basic Books, 2016); and Douglas J. Davies, “Inner Speech and Religious Traditions,” in Theorizing Religion: Classical and Contemporary Debates, ed. James A. Beckford and John Walliss (Aldershot, England: Ashgate Publishing, 2006), 211–223.
one in ten people: K. Maijer et al., “Auditory Hallucinations Across the Lifespan: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis,” Psychological Medicine 48 (2018): 879–888.
vocal impairments: Ron Netsell and Klaas Bakker, “Fluent and Dysfluent Inner Speech of Persons Who Stutter: Self-Report,” Missouri State University Unpublished Manuscript (2017). For discussion, see M. Perrone-Bertolotti et al., “What Is That Little Voice Inside My Head? Inner Speech Phenomenology, Its Role in Cognitive Performance, and Its Relation to Self-Monitoring,” Behavioural Brain Research 261 (2014): 220–239, and Charles Fernyhough, The Voices Within: The History and Science of How We Talk to Ourselves. There is, however, evidence that people who stutter make errors during internal speech just as they do when they talk out loud when asked to perform tongue-twisters, “Investigating the Inner Speech of People Who Stutter: Evidence for (and Against) the Covert Repair Hypothesis,” Journal of Communication Disorders 44 (2011): 246–260.
silently signing to themselves: Deaf people who use sign language “talk to themselves” too, but the way their inner speech manifests shares both similarities and differences with hearing populations. Margaret Wilson and Karen Emmorey, “Working Memory for Sign Language: A Window into the Architecture of the Working Memory System,” Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education 2 (1997): 121–130; Perrone-Bertolotti et al., “What Is That Little Voice Inside My Head?”; and Helene Loevenbruck et al., “A Cognitive Neuroscience View of Inner Language: To Predict and to Hear, See, Feel,” in Inner Speech: New Voices, ed. P. Langland-Hassan and Agustin Vicente (New York: Oxford University Press, 2019), 131–167. One brain imaging study found, for example, that the same regions of the left prefrontal cortex that supports inner speech in hearing populations becomes activated when profoundly deaf individuals were asked to silently complete a sentence (for example, “I am…”) using inner signing. Philip K. McGuire et al., “Neural Correlates of Thinking in Sign Language,” NeuroReport 8 (1997): 695–698. These findings are broadly consistent with research demonstrating an overlap between the brain systems that support spoken and signed language usage in hearing and deaf populations. To understand how signed and spoken language can share a common neural basis, it’s useful to consider the fact that both types of languages are governed by identical sets of organizing principles (e.g., morphology, syntax, semantics, and phonology): Laura Ann Petitto et al., “Speech-Like Cerebral Activity in Profoundly Deaf People Processing Signed Languages: Implications for the Neural Basis of Human Language,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 97 (2000): 13961–13966.
four thousand words per minute: Rodney J. Korba, “The Rate of Inner Speech,” Perceptual and Motor Skills 71 (1990): 1043–1052, asked participants to record the “inner speech” they used to solve verbal word problems and then speak the solution out loud in fully predicated speech. Participants silently verbalized the solution approximately eleven times faster than they were able to express the solution in “expressive speech.” As this study demonstrates, although we are capable of thinking to ourselves in full sentences, inner speech can also take a more condensed form that occurs much faster than how we talk out loud. For discussion, see Simon McCarthy Jones and Charles Fernyhough, “The Varieties of Inner Speech: Links Between Quality of Inner Speech and Psychopathological Variables in a Sample of Young Adults,” Consciousness and Cognition 20 (2011): 1586–1593.
State of the Union speeches: I defined “contemporary American presidents’ annual State of the Union speeches as referring to all presentations delivered from 2001 until the latest date that data was available in 2020. Gerhard Peters, “Length of State of the Union Address in Minutes (from 1966),” in The American Presidency Project, ed. John T. Woolley and Gerhard Peters (Santa Monica, CA: University of California, 1999–2020). Available from the World Wide Web: https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/324136/.
sabotage us: Psychologists have historically used different terms to refer to ostensibly similar chatter-related processes (for example, “rumination,” “post-event processing,” “habitual negative self-thinking,” “chronic stress,” and “worry”). Although in some cases subtle differences characterize these different forms of repetitive negative thinking (that is, rumination tends to be past focused, whereas worry is future oriented), scientists often talk about them as constituting a single construct of “perseverative cognition” or “negative repetitive thoughts.” In this book, I use the term “chatter” to capture this concept. For discussion of these issues, see Jos F. Brosschot, William Gerin, and Julian F. Thayer, “The Perseverative Cognition Hypothesis: A Review of Worry, Prolonged Stress-Related Physiological Activation, and Health,” Journal of Psychosomatic Research 60 (2006): 113–124; and Edward R. Watkins, “Constructive and Unconstructive Repetitive Thought,” Psychological Bulletin 134 (2008): 163–206.
fourteen months: For the date range of the project, see Irving’s webpage at the University of Manchester: www.research.manchester.ac.uk/portal/en/researchers/andrew-irving(109e5208-716e-42e8-8d4f-578c9f556cd9)/projects.html?period=finished.
a hundred New Yorkers: “Interview: Dr. Andrew Irving & ‘New York Stories,’ ” June 10, 2013, Wenner-Gren Foundation, blog.wennergren.org/2013/06/interview-dr-andrew-irving-new-york-stories/; and Andrew Irving, The Art of Life and Death: Radical Aesthetics and Ethnographic Practice (New York: Hau Books, 2017).
earlier fieldwork in Africa: For a discussion of Irving’s fieldwork in Africa see Andrew Irving, “Strange Distance: Towards an Anthropology of Interior Dialogue,” Medical Anthropology Quarterly 25 (2011): 22–44; and Sydney Brownstone, “For ‘New York Stories,’ Anthropologist Tracked 100 New Yorkers’ Inner Monologues Across the City,” Village Voice, May 1, 2013.
avid time traveler: Thomas Suddendorf and Michael C. Corballis, “The Evolution of Foresight: What Is Mental Time Travel, and Is It Unique to Humans?,” Behavioral and Brain Sciences 30 (2007): 299–351.
often dealt with negative “content”: Irving noted that although there was variability in what participants thought about, he was struck by how many people thought about negative topics such as economic instability and terrorism. Brownstone, “For ‘New York Stories,’ Anthropologist Tracked 100 New Yorkers’ Inner Monologues Across the City.”
nature of the default state: Eric Klinger, Ernst H. W. Koster, and Igor Marchetti, “Spontaneous Thought and Goal Pursuit: From Functions Such as Planning to Dysfunctions Such as Rumination,” in Christoff and Fox, Oxford Handbook of Spontaneous Thought, 215–232; Arnaud D’Argembeau, “Mind-Wandering and Self-Referential Thought,” in ibid., 181–192; and A. Morin, B. Uttl, and B. Hamper, “Self-Reported Frequency, Content, and Functions of Inner Speech,” Procedia: Social and Behavioral Journal 30 (2011): 1714–1718.
nonverbal forms: See “when we slip away” note from the introduction.
neural reuse: Michael L. Anderson, “Neural Reuse: A Fundamental Principle of the Brain,” Behavioral and Brain Sciences 33 (2010): 245–313.
phonological loop: Alan Baddeley, “Working Memory,” Science 255 (1992): 556–559. Also see Alan Baddeley and Vivien Lewis, “Inner Active Processes in Reading: The Inner Voice, the Inner Ear, and the Inner Eye,” in Interactive Processes in Reading, ed. A. M. Lesgold and C. A. Perfetti (Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum, 1981), 107–129; Alan D. Baddeley and Graham J. Hitch, “The Phonological Loop as a Buffer Store: An Update,” Cortex 112 (2019): 91–106; and Antonio Chella and Arianna Pipitone, “A Cognitive Architecture for Inner Speech,” Cognitive Systems Research 59 (2020): 287–292.
in infancy: Nivedita Mani and Kim Plunkett, “In the Infant’s Mind’s Ear: Evidence for Implicit Naming in 18-Month-Olds,” Psychological Science 21 (2010): 908–913. For discussion, see Ben Alderson-Day and Charles Fernyhough, “Inner Speech: Development, Cognitive Functions, Phenomenology, and Neurobiology,” Psychological Bulletin 141 (2015); and Perrone-Bertolotti et al., “What Is That Little Voice Inside My Head?”
language development and self-control: Lev Vygotsky, Thinking and Speech: The Collected Works of Lev Vygotsky, vol. 1 (1934; New York: Plenum Press, 1987). Also see Alderson-Day and Fernyhough, “Inner Speech”; and Perrone-Bertolotti et al., “What Is That Little Voice Inside My Head?”
research on socialization: For research highlighting the complexity of the role that parents play in socialization, see W. Andrew Collins et al., “Contemporary Research on Parenting: The Case for Nature and Nurture,” American Psychologist 55 (2000): 218–232. A more recent illustration of the role that parents play in children’s emotional lives comes from a large meta-analysis, which revealed statistically significant positive links between parental behavior and several emotional adjustment outcomes. See Michael M. Barger et al., “The Relation Between Parents’ Involvement in Children’s Schooling and Children’s Adjustment: A Meta-analysis,” Psychological Bulletin 145 (2019): 855–890.
shape our own verbal streams: For broader discussions of the role that language plays in the transmission of cultural ideas, see Susan A. Gelman and Steven O. Roberts, “How Language Shapes the Cultural Inheritance of Categories,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 114 (2017): 7900–7907; and Roy Baumeister and E. J. C. Masicampo, “Conscious Thought Is for Facilitating Social and Cultural Interactions,” Psychological Review 117 (2010): 945–971.
broader cultural factors: Hazel R. Markus and Shinobu Kitayama, “Culture and the Self: Implications for Cognition, Emotion, and Motivation,” Psychological Review 98 (1991): 224–253.
Religions and the values they teach: Adam B. Cohen, “Many Forms of Culture,” American Psychologist 64 (2009): 194–204.
inner speech earlier: Laura E. Berk and Ruth A. Garvin, “Development of Private Speech Among Low-Income Appalachian Children,” Developmental Psychology 20 (1984): 271–286; Laura E. Berk, “Children’s Private Speech: An Overview of Theory and the Status of Research,” in Private Speech: From Social Interaction to Self-Regulation, eds. Rafael M. Diaz and Laura E. Berk (New York: Psychology Press, 1992), 17–54.
imaginary friends may spur internal speech: Paige E. Davis, Elizabeth Meins, and Charles Fernyhough, “Individual Differences in Children’s Private Speech: The Role of Imaginary Companions,” Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 116 (2013): 561–571.
among many other desirable qualities: Amanda Grenell and Stephanie M. Carlson, “Pretense,” in The Sage Encyclopedia of Contemporary Early Childhood Education, ed. D. Couchenour and J. K. Chrisman (New York: Sage, 2016), 1075–1077.
spontaneous thoughts related to goals: For illustrative studies, see Arnaud D’Argembeau, Olivier Renaud, and Martial Van der Linden, “Frequency, Characteristics, and Functions of Future-Oriented Thoughts in Daily Life,” Applied Cognitive Psychology 25 (2011): 96–103; Alain Morin, Christina Duhnych, and Famira Racy, “Self-Reported Inner Speech Use in University Students,” Applied Cognitive Psychology 32 (2018): 376–382; and Akira Miyake et al., “Inner Speech as a Retrieval Aid for Task Goals: The Effects of Cue Type in the Random Task Cuing Paradigm,” Acta Psychologica 115 (2004): 123–142. Also see Adam Winsler, “Still Talking to Ourselves After All These Years: A Review of Current Research on Private Speech,” in Private Speech, Executive Functioning, and the Development of Verbal Self-Regulation, ed. A. Winsler, C. Fernyhough, and I. Montero (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 3–41.
run mental simulations: D’Argembeau, Renaud, and Van der Linden, “Frequency, Characteristics, and Functions of Future-Oriented Thoughts in Daily Life”; D’Argembeau, “Mind-Wandering and Self-Referential Thought”; and Morin, Duhnych, and Racy, “Self-Reported Inner Speech Use in University Students.”
Historically, psychologists thought of dreams: Erin J. Wamsley, “Dreaming and Waking Thought as a Reflection of Memory Consolidation,” in Christoff and Fox, Oxford Handbook of Spontaneous Thought, 457–468, presents a cogent review of dream research.
share many similarities: Kieran C. R. Fox et al., “Dreaming as Mind Wandering: Evidence from Functional Neuroimaging and First-Person Content Reports,” Frontiers in Human Neuroscience 7 (2013): 1–18; Tracey L. Kahan and Stephen P. LaBerge, “Dreaming and Waking: Similarities and Differences Revisited,” Consciousness and Cognition 20 (2011): 494–514; Lampros Perogamvros et al., “The Phenomenal Contents and Neural Correlates of Spontaneous Thoughts Across Wakefulness, NREM Sleep, and REM Sleep,” Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience 29 (2017): 1766–1777; and Erin J. Wamsley, “Dreaming and Waking Thought as a Reflection of Memory Consolidation.”
dreams are often functional: For a discussion of the role that dreams play in simulating threats, see Katja Valli and Antti Revonsuo, “The Threat Simulation Theory in Light of Recent Empirical Evidence: A Review,” American Journal of Psychology 122 (2009): 17–38; and Antti Revonsuo, “The Reinterpretation of Dreams: An Evolutionary Hypothesis of the Function of Dreaming,” Behavioral and Brain Sciences 23 (2001): 877–901. Also see J. Allan Hobson, “REM Sleep and Dreaming: Towards a Theory of Protoconsciousness,” Nature Reviews Neuroscience 10 (2009): 803–813.
creation of our selves: Arnaud D’Argembeau et al., “Brains Creating Stories of Selves: The Neural Basis of Autobiographical Reasoning,” Social Cognitive Affective Neuroscience 9 (2014): 646–652; Raymond A. Mar, “The Neuropsychology of Narrative: Story Comprehension, Story Production, and Their Interrelation,” Neuropsychologia 42 (2004): 1414–1434; and Baumeister and Masicampo, “Conscious Thought Is for Facilitating Social and Cultural Interactions”; Kate C. McLean et al., “Selves Creating Stories Creating Selves: A Process Model of Self-Development,” Personality and Social Psychology Review 11 (2007): 262–278. For a broader discussion of the role that language plays in autobiographical reasoning, see Robyn Fivus, “The Stories We Tell: How Language Shapes Autobiography,” Applied Cognitive Psychology 12 (1998): 483–487.
stopped functioning well: To tell Jill Bolte Taylor’s story, I drew on her book, My Stroke of Insight: A Brain Scientist’s Personal Journey (New York: Penguin Books, 2008), and her TED Talk, “My Stroke of Insight,” www.ted.com/talks/jill_bolte_taylor_s_powerful_stroke_of_insight?language=en, both of which I quote from. I am grateful to an article by Alain Morin that analyzed Jill Bolte Taylor’s case in the context of private speech for pointing me to this example: Alain Morin, “Self-Awareness Deficits Following Loss of Inner Speech: Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor’s Case Study,” Consciousness and Cognition 18 (2009): 524–529.
inner experiences consistently dwarf outer ones: Killingsworth and Gilbert, “Wandering Mind Is an Unhappy Mind.”
first wild pitch: To tell Rick Ankiel’s story, I drew on Rick Ankiel, The Phenomenon: Pressure, the Yips, and the Pitch That Changed My Life (New York: PublicAffairs, 2017), which I quote from, as well as this article: Gary Waleik, “Former MLB Hurler Remembers 5 Pitches That Derailed His Career,” Only a Game, WBUR, May 19, 2017, www.wbur.org/onlyagame/2017/05/19/rick-ankiel-baseball; and Rick Ankiel, “Letter to My Younger Self,” The Players’ Tribune, Sept. 18, 2017, https://www.theplayerstribune.com/en-us/articles/rick-ankiel-letter-to-my-younger-self-cardinals.
national TV: Waleik, “Former MLB Hurler Remembers 5 Pitches That Derailed His Career.”
crowd oohed a bit louder: MLB.com. YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=5&v=KDZX525CSvw&feature=emb_title.
never pitch professionally again: Baseball-reference.com: https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/a/ankieri01.shtml.
influence our attention: Sian Beilock is one of the world’s foremost experts on choking under pressure. I drew on the work she describes in Sian L. Beilock and Rob Gray, “Why Do Athletes Choke Under Pressure?,” in Handbook of Sport Psychology, 3rd ed., ed. G. Tenenbaum and R. C. Eklund (Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley and Sons, 2007), 425–444.
Attention is what allows us: Michael I. Posner and Mary K. Rothbart, “Research on Attention Networks as a Model for the Integration of Psychological Science,” Annual Review of Psychology 58 (2007): 1–23.
“It’s a move that requires”: Amanda Prahl, “Simone Biles Made History with Her Triple Double—Here’s What That Term Actually Means,” PopSugar, Aug. 15, 2019, www.popsugar.com/fitness/What-Is-Triple-Double-in-Gymnastics-46501483. Also see Charlotte Caroll, “Simone Biles Is First-Ever Woman to Land Triple Double in Competition on Floor,” Sports Illustrated, Aug. 11, 2019, https://www.si.com/olympics/2019/08/12/simone-biles-first-ever-woman-land-triple-double-competition-video.
He unlinked: Beilock and Gray, “Why Do Athletes Choke Under Pressure?” Note that this work typically uses the word “dechunked” to describe the process that I refer to as “unlinked.”
paralysis by analysis: Sian Beilock, Choke (New York: Little, Brown, 2011).
steer our thoughts and behavior: Adele Diamond, “Executive Functions,” Annual Review of Psychology 64 (2013): 135–168.
limited capacity: Amitai Shenhav et al., “Toward a Rational and Mechanistic Account of Mental Effort,” Annual Review of Neuroscience 40 (2017): 99–124.
illustration of this limited capacity: Nelson Cowan, “The Magical Mystery Four: How Is Working Memory Capacity Limited, and Why?,” Current Directions in Psychological Science 19 (2010): 51–57.
hogs our neural capacity: The idea that perseverative cognition compromises executive functions has been studied from several perspectives. See Michael W. Eysenck et al., “Anxiety and Cognitive Performance: Attentional Control Theory,” Emotion 7 (2007): 336–353; Hannah R. Snyder, “Major Depressive Disorder Is Associated with Broad Impairments on Neuropsychological Measures of Executive Function: A Meta-analysis and Review,” Psychological Bulletin 139 (2013): 81–132; and Tim P. Moran, “Anxiety and Working Memory Capacity: A Meta-analysis and Narrative Review,” Psychological Bulletin 142 (2016): 831–864.
perform worse on tests: Nathaniel von der Embse et al., “Test Anxiety Effects, Predictors, and Correlates: A 30-Year Meta-analytic Review,” Journal of Affective Disorders 227 (2018): 483–493.
artistic performers: Dianna T. Kenny, “A Systematic Review of Treatments for Music Performance Anxiety,” Anxiety, Stress, and Coping 18 (2005): 183–208.
make low initial offers: Alison Wood Brooks and Maurice E. Schweitzer, “Can Nervous Nelly Negotiate? How Anxiety Causes Negotiators to Make Low First Offers, Exit Early, and Earn Less Profit,” Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 115 (2011): 43–54.
Bernard Rimé: Bernard Rimé, “Emotion Elicits the Social Sharing of Emotion: Theory and Empirical Review,” Emotion Review 1 (2009): 60–85. I also drew on the following lecture: Bernard Rimé, “The Social Sharing of Emotion” (lecture delivered at Collective Emotions in Cyberspace Consortium), YouTube, published May 20, 2013, www.youtube.com/watch?v=JdCksLisfUQ.
From Asia to the Americas: Although Rimé’s research suggests that the motivation to talk about one’s emotions is a cross-cultural phenomenon, cultures nonetheless vary in the rate at which they share their emotions. See Archana Singh-Manoux and Catrin Finkenauer, “Cultural Variations in Social Sharing of Emotions: An Intercultural Perspective on a Universal Phenomenon,” Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology 32 (2001): 647–661. Also see Heejung S. Kim, “Social Sharing of Emotion in Words and Otherwise,” Emotion Review 1 (2009): 92–93.
pushing away: For review, see Susan Nolen-Hoeksema, Blair E. Wisco, and Sonja Lyubomirsky, “Rethinking Rumination,” Perspectives on Psychological Science 3 (2008): 400–424; also see Thomas E. Joiner et al., “Depression and Excessive Reassurance-Seeking,” Psychological Inquiry 10 (1999): 269–278; Michael B. Gurtman, “Depressive Affect and Disclosures as Factors in Interpersonal Rejection,” Cognitive Therapy Research 11 (1987): 87–99; and Jennifer L. Schwartz and Amanda McCombs Thomas, “Perceptions of Coping Responses Exhibited in Depressed Males and Females,” Journal of Social Behavior and Personality 10 (1995): 849–860.
less capable of solving problems: For reviews, see Nolen-Hoeksema, Wisco, and Lyubomirsky, “Rethinking Rumination”; and Lyubomirsky et al., “Thinking About Rumination,” Annual Review of Clinical Psychology 11 (2015): 1–22.
toxic outcome: For a discussion of how frayed social relationships contribute to feelings of social isolation and loneliness, see Julianne Holt-Lunstad, “Why Social Relationships Are Important for Physical Health: A Systems Approach to Understanding and Modifying Risk and Perception,” Annual Review of Psychology 69 (2018): 437–458; and Julianne Holt-Lunstad, Timothy B. Smith, Mark Baker, Tyler Harris, and David Stephenson, “Loneliness and Social Isolation as Risk Factors for Mortality: A Meta-analytic Review,” Perspectives on Psychological Science 10 (2015): 227–237.
For work documenting the toxic effects of loneliness and social isolation, see John T. Cacioppo and Stephanie Cacioppo, “The Growing Problem of Loneliness,” The Lancet 391 (2018): 426; Greg Miller, “Why Loneliness Is Hazardous to Your Health,” Science 14 (2011): 138–140; and Aparna Shankar, Anne McMunn, James Banks, and Andrew Steptoe, “Loneliness, Social Isolation, and Behavioral and Biological Health Indicators in Older Adults,” Health Psychology 30 (2011): 377–385.
kids who were prone to rumination: Katie A. McLaughlin and Susan Nolen-Hoeksema, “Interpersonal Stress Generation as a Mechanism Linking Rumination to Internalizing Symptoms in Early Adolescents,” Journal of Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology 41 (2012): 584–597.
A study by John Cacioppo and colleagues further underscores the reciprocal link between loneliness and self-focused attention: John T. Cacioppo, Hsi Yuan Chen, and Stephanie Cacioppo, “Reciprocal Influences Between Loneliness and Self-Centeredness: A Cross-Lagged Panel Analysis in a Population-Based Sample of African American, Hispanic, and Caucasian Adults,” Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 43 (2017): 1125–1135.
grieving adults: Susan Nolen-Hoeksema and Christopher G. Davis, “ ‘Thanks for Sharing That’: Ruminators and Their Social Support Networks,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 77 (1999): 801–814.
behave aggressively: Thomas F. Denson et al., “Understanding Impulsive Aggression: Angry Rumination and Reduced Self-Control Capacity Are Mechanisms Underlying the Provocation-Aggression Relationships,” Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 37 (2011): 850–862; and Brad J. Bushman, “Does Venting Anger Feed or Extinguish the Flame? Catharsis, Rumination, Distraction, Anger, and Aggressive Responding,” Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 28 (2002): 724–731.
displace our aggression: Brad J. Bushman et al., “Chewing on It Can Chew You Up: Effects of Rumination on Triggered Displaced Aggression,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 88 (2005): 969–983.
two and a half billion people: Facebook Newsroom, Facebook, newsroom.fb.com/company-info/; and J. Clement, “Number of Monthly Active Twitter Users Worldwide from 1st Quarter 2010 to 1st Quarter 2019 (in Millions),” Statista, www.statista.com/statistics/282087/number-of-monthly-active-twitter-users/.
share their private ruminations: Mina Choi and Catalina L. Toma, “Social Sharing Through Interpersonal Media: Patterns and Effects on Emotional Well-Being,” Computers in Human Behavior 36 (2014): 530–541; and Adriana M. Manago, Tamara Taylor, and Patricia M. Greenfield, “Me and My 400 Friends: The Anatomy of College Students’ Facebook Networks, Their Communication Patterns, and Well-Being,” Developmental Psychology 48 (2012): 369–380.
how we interact with them: As one example of this principle, consider research my colleagues and I performed demonstrating that passively using Facebook (that is, browsing the site to consume information about others) leads to emotional well-being declines, whereas actively using Facebook (that is, producing information on the site) does not. See Philippe Verduyn et al., “Passive Facebook Usage Undermines Affective Well-Being: Experimental and Longitudinal Evidence,” Journal of Experimental Psychology: General 144 (2015): 480–488. For review, see Philippe Verduyn et al., “Do Social Network Sites Enhance or Undermine Subjective Well-Being? A Critical Review,” Social Issues and Policy Review 11 (2017): 274–302.
importance of empathy: Jamil Zaki, The War for Kindness: Building Empathy in a Fractured World (New York: Crown, 2019); and Frans B. M. de Waal and Stephanie Preston, “Mammalian Empathy: Behavioural Manifestations and Neural Basis,” Nature Reviews Neuroscience 18 (2017): 498–509.
find ourselves venting: Rimé, “Emotion Elicits the Social Sharing of Emotion.”
subtle physical gestures: John Suler, “The Online Disinhibition Effect,” Cyberpsychology and Behavior 3 (2004): 321–326; Noam Lapidot-Lefler and Azy Barak, “Effects of Anonymity, Invisibility, and Lack of Eye-Contact on Toxic Online Disinhibition,” Computers in Human Behavior 28 (2012): 434–443; and Christopher Terry and Jeff Cain, “The Emerging Issue of Digital Empathy,” American Journal of Pharmaceutical Education 80 (2016): 58.
Cyberbullying: Committee on the Biological and Psychosocial Effects of Peer Victimization: Lessons for Bullying Prevention, National Academy of Sciences Report; Michele P. Hamm et al., “Prevalence and Effect of Cyberbullying on Children and Young People,” JAMA Pediatrics, Aug. 2015; Robin M. Kowalski et al., “Bullying in the Digital Age: A Critical Review and Meta-analysis of Cyberbullying Research Among Youth,” Psychological Bulletin 140 (2014): 1073–1137; and Robert Tokunaga, “Following You Home from School: A Critical Review and Synthesis of Research on Cyber-bullying Victimization,” Computers in Human Behavior 26 (2010): 277–287.
passage of time: Emotions typically wane once they reach their maximum level of intensity: Philippe Verduyn, Iven Van Mechelen, and Francis Tuerlinckx, “The Relation Between Event Processing and the Duration of Emotional Experience,” Emotion 11 (2011): 20–28; and Philippe Verduyn et al., “Predicting the Duration of Emotional Experience: Two Experience Sampling Studies,” Emotion 9 (2009): 83–91.
irritate and alienate others: Caitlin McLaughlin and Jessica Vitak, “Norm Evolution and Violation on Facebook,” New Media and Society 14 (2012): 299–315; and Emily M. Buehler, “ ‘You Shouldn’t Use Facebook for That’: Navigating Norm Violations While Seeking Emotional Support on Facebook,” Social Media and Society 3 (2017): 1–11.
share more negative personal content: Jiyoung Park et al., “When Perceptions Defy Reality: The Relationships Between Depression and Actual and Perceived Facebook Social Support,” Journal of Affective Disorders 200 (2016): 37–44.
need to self-present: For two classic accounts of the role that self-presentation plays in daily life, see Erving Goffman, The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1959); and Mark R. Leary and Robin M. Kowalski, “Impression Management: A Literature Review and Two-Component Model,” Psychological Bulletin 107 (1990): 34–47.
skillfully curate: Randi Zuckerberg captured this facet of Facebook well in an interview she did with The New York Times. “What are you most guilty of on Facebook?” the reporter asked her. “I’m a marketer,” she responded, “and sometimes I almost can’t take it out of my personal life. I’ve had friends call me and say, ‘Your life looks so amazing.’ And I tell them: ‘I’m a marketer; I’m only posting the moments that are amazing.’ ” Susan Dominus, “Randi Zuckerberg: ‘I Really Put Myself Out There,’ ” New York Times, Nov. 1, 2013, www.nytimes.com/2013/11/03/magazine/randi-zuckerberg-i-really-put-myself-out-there.html.
feel better: Amy L. Gonzales and Jeffrey T. Hancock, “Mirror, Mirror on My Facebook Wall: Effects of Exposure to Facebook on Self-Esteem,” Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking 14 (2011): 79–83.
driven to compare ourselves with others: Leon Festinger, “A Theory of Social Comparison Processes,” Human Relations 7 (1954): 117–140; and Katja Corcoran, Jan Crusius, and Thomas Mussweiler, “Social Comparison: Motives, Standards, and Mechanisms,” in Theories in Social Psychology, ed. D. Chadee (Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2011), 119–139. Sometimes we compare ourselves with others to see how we’re stacking up in a particular domain. Other times it’s to make ourselves feel better (by comparing ourselves with someone ostensibly “beneath” us) or to identify how we might improve some facet of our lives that we care about (by comparing ourselves with someone ostensibly “above” us). There is also evidence that comparing ourselves with others is an efficient way of measuring and obtaining information about ourselves.
A study my colleagues and I published: Verduyn et al., “Passive Facebook Usage Undermines Affective Well-Being.”
And the more we stew over how badly our lives stack up against others, the worse the consequences. Case in point: A longitudinal study performed with 268 young adults found that the more people compared themselves negatively to others on Facebook, the more they ruminated and the more depressed they felt: Feinstein et al., “Negative Social Comparison on Facebook and Depressive Symptoms,” Psychology of Popular Media Culture 2 (2013): 161–170.
Also see Melissa G. Hunt et al., “No More FOMO: Limiting Social Media Decreases Loneliness and Depression,” Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology 37 (2018): 751–768; Morten Tromholt, “The Facebook Experiment: Quitting Facebook Leads to Higher Levels of Well-Being,” Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking 19 (2016): 661–666; R. Mosquera et al., “The Economic Effects of Facebook,” Experimental Economics (2019); Holly B. Shakya and Nicholas A. Christakis, “Association of Facebook Use with Compromised Well-Being: A Longitudinal Study,” American Journal of Epidemiology 185 (2017): 203–211; and Cesar G. Escobar-Viera et al., “Passive and Active Social Media Use and Depressive Symptoms Among United States Adults,” Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking 21 (2018): 437–443.
Research has also begun to demonstrate how these findings generalize to other social media platforms like Instagram. Eline Frison and Steven Eggermont, “Browsing, Posting, and Liking on Instagram: The Reciprocal Relationships Between Different Types of Instagram Use and Adolescents’ Depressed Mood,” Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking 20 (2017): 603–609.
the more envy they experienced: The negative consequences of envy are well-established. However, envy isn’t all bad. It can be functional in small doses, motivating us to improve ourselves: Jens Lange, Aaron Weidman, and Jan Crusius, “The Painful Duality of Envy: Evidence for an Integrative Theory and a Meta-analysis on the Relation of Envy and Schadenfreude,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 114 (2018): 572–598.
One answer to that question: Additional explanations for why we continue to use social media in spite of its negative consequences include: (a) our desire to stay abreast of what is happening in our community, which might trump our desire to feel better about ourselves at any given moment in time, (b) the desire to obtain feedback from others, and (c) people often misjudge how using Facebook will make them feel (i.e., we focus on the potential positives that social media will bring us, losing sight [or perhaps even being unaware in the first place] of its potential to do harm as well). For discussion, see Ethan Kross and Susannah Cazaubon, “How Does Social Media Influence People’s Emotional Lives?,” in Applications of Social Psychology: How Social Psychology Can Contribute to the Solution of Real-World Problems, eds. J. Forgas, William D. Crano, and Klaus Fiedler (New York: Routledge-Psychology Press, 2020), 250–264.
Harvard neuroscientists: Diana I. Tamir and Jason P. Mitchell, “Disclosing Information About the Self Is Intrinsically Rewarding,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 109 (2012): 8038–8043.
languages across the globe: Geoff MacDonald and Mark R. Leary, “Why Does Social Exclusion Hurt? The Relationship Between Social and Physical Pain,” Psychological Bulletin 131 (2005): 202–223; Naomi I. Eisenberger, Matthew D. Lieberman, and Kipling D. Williams, “Does Rejection Hurt? An fMRI Study of Social Exclusion,” Science 302 (2003): 290–292.
heartbroken of New York City: Ethan Kross et al., “Social Rejection Shares Somatosensory Representations with Physical Pain,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 108 (2011): 6270–6275.
city of eight million: https://www.health.ny.gov/statistics/vital_statistics/2007/table02.htm.
influence what happens in our bodies: Naomi I. Eisenberger and Steve W. Cole, “Social Neuroscience and Health: Neurophysiological Mechanisms Linking Social Ties with Physical Health,” Nature Neuroscience 15 (2012): 669–674; and Gregory Miller, Edith Chen, and Steve W. Cole, “Health Psychology: Developing Biologically Plausible Models Linking the Social World and Physical Health,” Annual Review of Psychology 60 (2009): 501–524.
$500 billion annually: Michele Hellebuyck et al., “Workplace Health Survey,” Mental Health America, www.mhanational.org/sites/default/files/Mind%20the%20Workplace%20-%20MHA%20Workplace%20Health%20Survey%202017%20FINAL.pdf.
negative verbal stream: For an account of how perseverative cognition, which often takes the form of verbal rumination and worry (see the introduction), prolongs the stress response, see Brosschot, Gerin, and Thayer, “Perseverative Cognition Hypothesis”; Jos F. Brosschot, “Markers of Chronic Stress: Prolonged Physiological Activation and (Un)conscious Perseverative Cognition,” Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews 35 (2010): 46–50; and Cristina Ottaviani et al., “Physiological Concomitants of Perseverative Cognition: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis,” Psychological Bulletin 142 (2016): 231–259.
illnesses that span the gamut: Andrew Steptoe and Mika Kivimaki, “Stress and Cardiovascular Disease,” Nature Reviews Cardiology 9 (2012): 360–370; Suzanne C. Segerstrom and Gregory E. Miller, “Psychological Stress and the Human Immune System: A Meta-analytic Study of 30 Years of Inquiry,” Psychological Bulletin 130 (2004): 601–630; Bruce S. McEwen, “Brain on Stress: How the Social Environment Gets Under the Skin,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 109 (2012): 17180–17185; Ronald Glaser and Janice Kiecolt-Glaser, “Stress-Induced Immune Dysfunction: Implications for Health,” Nature Reviews Immunology 5 (2005): 243–251; Edna Maria Vissoci Reiche, Sandra Odebrecht Vargas Nunes, and Helena Kaminami Morimoto, “Stress, Depression, the Immune System, and Cancer,” Lancet Oncology 5 (2004): 617–625; A. Janet Tomiyama, “Stress and Obesity,” Annual Review of Psychology 70 (2019): 703–718; and Gregory E. Miller et al., “A Functional Genomic Fingerprint of Chronic Stress in Humans: Blunted Glucocorticoid and Increased NF-κB Signaling,” Biological Psychiatry 15 (2008): 266–272.
not having a strong social-support network: Julianne Holt-Lunstad, Timothy B. Smith, and J. Bradley Layton, “Social Relationships and Mortality Risk: A Meta-analytic Review,” PLOS Medicine 7 (2010): e1000316.
transdiagnostic risk factor: Susan Nolen-Hoeksema and Edward R. Watkins, “A Heuristic for Developing Transdiagnostic Models of Psychopathology: Explaining Multifinality and Divergent Trajectories,” Perspectives on Psychological Science 6 (2011): 589–609; Katie A. McLaughlin et al., “Rumination as a Transdiagnostic Factor Underlying Transitions Between Internalizing Symptoms and Aggressive Behavior in Early Adolescents,” Journal of Abnormal Psychology 123 (2014): 13–23; Edward R. Watkins, “Depressive Rumination and Co-morbidity: Evidence for Brooding as a Transdiagnostic Process,” Journal of Rational-Emotive and Cognitive-Behavior Therapy 27 (2009): 160–75; Douglas S. Mennin and David M. Fresco, “What, Me Worry and Ruminate About DSM-5 and RDoC? The Importance of Targeting Negative Self-Referential Processing,” Clinical Psychology: Science and Practice 20 (2013): 258–267; and Brosschot, “Markers of Chronic Stress.”
DNA is like a piano: I drew on the following sources to make the connection between gene expression and playing a musical instrument: Jane Qiu, “Unfinished Symphony,” Nature 441 (2006): 143–145; and University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, “Study Gives Clue as to How Notes Are Played on the Genetic Piano,” EurekAlert!, May 12, 2011, www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2011-05/uoth-sgc051011.php.
Steve Cole: Steven W. Cole, “Social Regulation of Human Gene Expression,” American Journal of Public Health 103 (2013): S84–S92. I also drew on the following talk that Steve delivered at Stanford: “Meng-Wu Lecture” (lecture delivered at the Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education, Nov. 12, 2013), ccare.stanford.edu/videos/meng-wu-lecture-steve-cole-ph-d/.
inflammation genes: George M. Slavich and Michael R. Irwin, “From Stress to Inflammation and Major Depressive Disorder: A Social Signal Transduction Theory of Depression,” Psychological Bulletin 140 (2014): 774–815; Steve W. Cole et al., “Social Regulation of Gene Expression in Human Leukocytes,” Genome Biology 8 (2007): R189; and Gregory E. Miller, Edith Chen, and Karen J. Parker, “Psychological Stress in Childhood and Susceptibility to the Chronic Diseases of Aging: Moving Towards a Model of Behavioral and Biological Mechanisms,” Psychological Bulletin 137 (2011): 959–997.
illnesses and infections: Chatter also extends its tentacles around our DNA in another fashion—through our telomeres. Telomeres are little caps at the end of our chromosomes that protect our DNA from unraveling in ways that affect our health and longevity. Short telomeres contribute to a host of age-related diseases. Fortunately, we all have a chemical in our body called telomerase that is capable of preserving the length of our telomeres. The problem is, stress hormones like cortisol deplete our body of this chemical, speeding up the rate at which our telomeres shorten.
In 2004, Elissa Epel, Nobel laureate Elizabeth Blackburn, and their colleagues published a landmark study examining the relationship between how stressed women felt over a ten-month period and their telomere length. As expected, they found that the more stressed the women felt—stress, of course, being a trigger for chatter, and chatter a driver of chronic stress—the shorter their telomeres. Even more dramatic, the most stressed women had telomeres that were equivalent to over a decade shorter than the least stressed women. Elissa S. Epel et al., “Accelerated Telomere Shortening in Response to Life Stress,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 101 (2004): 17312–17315.
For a detailed review, see Elizabeth H. Blackburn and Elissa S. Epel, The Telomere Effect (New York: Grand Central Publishing, 2017). Also see Elizabeth Blackburn, Elissa S. Epel, and Jue Lin, “Human Telomere Biology: A Contributory and Interactive Factor in Aging, Disease Risks, and Protection,” Science 350 (2015): 1193–1198; and Kelly E. Rentscher et al., “Psychosocial Stressors and Telomere Length: A Current Review of the Science,” Annual Review of Public Health 41 (2020): 223–245.
nearly twenty years: Matt Kelly, “This Thirty-Nine-Year-Old Is Attempting a Comeback,” MLB.com, August 2, 2018, https://www.mlb.com/news/rick-ankiel-to-attempt-comeback-c288544452 (retrieved February 9, 2020).
“Have you ever killed someone?”: I changed the name and several other details in this story to preserve my former student’s anonymity. All other aspects of the story are true. I also consulted with a published profile, which I don’t cite here to protect her anonymity.
the brain regions: Ethan Kross et al., “Coping with Emotions Past: The Neural Bases of Regulating Affect Associated with Negative Autobiographical Memories,” Biological Psychiatry 65 (2009): 361–366; and Ayna Baladi Nejad, Philippe Fossati, and Cedric Lemogne, “Self-Referential Processing, Rumination, and Cortical Midline Structures in Major Depression,” Frontiers in Human Neuroscience 7 (2013): 666.
zoom out: Ethan Kross and Özlem Ayduk, “Self-Distancing: Theory, Research, and Current Directions,” in Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, eds. J. Olson and M. Zanna (Amsterdam: Elsevier, 2017), 81–136; and John P. Powers and Kevin S. LaBar, “Regulating Emotion Through Distancing: A Taxonomy, Neurocognitive Model, and Supporting Meta-analysis,” Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews 96 (2019): 155–173.
psychological immune system: See Daniel T. Gilbert et al., “Immune Neglect: A Source of Durability Bias in Affective Forecasting,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 75 (1998): 617–638, for an introduction to the concept of a psychological immune system.
paradigm for studying self-control: Walter Mischel, The Marshmallow Test: Mastering Self-Control (New York: Little, Brown, 2014); and Walter Mischel, Yuichi Shoda, and Monica Rodriguez, “Delay of Gratification in Children,” Science 244 (1989): 933–938.
battling inner-voice rumination: Özlem Ayduk, Walter Mischel, and Geraldine Downey, “Attentional Mechanisms Linking Rejection to Hostile Reactivity: The Role of ‘Hot’ Versus ‘Cool’ Focus,” Psychological Science 13 (2002): 443–448. Also see Cheryl L. Rusting and Susan Nolen-Hoeksema, “Regulating Responses to Anger: Effects of Rumination and Distraction on Angry Mood,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 74 (1998): 790–803.
The downside of this approach: Ethan Kross and Özlem Ayduk, “Facilitating Adaptive Emotional Analysis: Distinguishing Distanced-Analysis of Depressive Experiences from Immersed-Analysis and Distraction,” Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 34 (2008): 924–938.
tool that therapists should employ: Aaron T. Beck, “Cognitive Therapy: Nature and Relation to Behavior Therapy,” Behavior Therapy 1 (1970): 184–200. Also see Rick E. Ingram and Steven Hollon, “Cognitive Therapy for Depression from an Information Processing Perspective,” in Personality, Psychopathology, and Psychotherapy Series: Information Processing Approaches to Clinical Psychology, ed. R. E. Ingram (San Diego: Academic Press, 1986), 259–281.
not thinking about your problems: For a classic review of research pointing to the harmful effects of avoidance, see Edna B. Foa and Michael J. Kozak, “Emotional Processing of Fear: Exposure to Corrective Information,” Psychological Bulletin 99 (1986): 20–35. As I mention in the text, people can distance to achieve different goals (i.e., to avoid their emotions, to mindfully accept them, to approach and analyze them). Like a hammer that can be used to pound a nail into the wall or rip it out, distancing has multiple applications. And like any tool, whether it’s helpful or harmful depends on how and why people use it. In the work reviewed in this section of the chapter, I focus on a context in which research indicates that distancing is helpful: to aid people in their attempts to actively reflect on and make sense of their negative experiences. For a more detailed discussion of these issues, see the conclusion and Ethan Kross and Özlem Ayduk, “Self-Distancing: Theory, Research, and Current Directions.”
powerful optical device: Georgia Nigro and Ulric Neisser, “Point of View in Personal Memories,” Cognitive Psychology 15 (1983): 467–482; John A. Robinson and Karen L. Swanson, “Field and Observer Modes of Remembering,” Memory 1 (1993): 169–184. People tend to recall intense negative experiences from a self-immersed/first person perspective: Arnaud D’Argembau, “Phenomenal Characteristics of Autobiographical Memories for Positive, Negative, and Neutral Events,” Applied Cognitive Psychology 17 (2003): 281–294; and Heather K. McIsaac and Eric Eich, “Vantage Point in Episodic Memory,” Psychonomic Bulletin and Review 9 (2002): 146–150. However, memories of trauma and self-conscious experiences are more likely to be recalled from a self-distanced/observer perspective: Lucy M. Kenny et al., “Distant Memories: A Prospective Study of Vantage Point of Trauma Memories,” Psychological Science 20 (2009): 1049–1052; and Meredith E. Coles et al., “Effects of Varying Levels of Anxiety Within Social Situations: Relationship to Memory Perspective and Attributions in Social Phobia,” Behaviour Research and Therapy 39 (2001): 651–665. For discussion of the implications of this distinction for emotion regulation, see Ethan Kross and Özlem Ayduk, “Self-Distancing: Theory, Research, and Current Directions.”
fly-on-the-wall perspective: Ethan Kross, Özlem Ayduk, and Walter Mischel, “When Asking ‘Why’ Does Not Hurt: Distinguishing Rumination from Reflective Processing of Negative Emotions,” Psychological Science 16 (2005): 709–715.
differences in the verbal stream: The examples of verbal streams that I cite were pulled from Ethan Kross and Özlem Ayduk, “Making Meaning out of Negative Experiences by Self-Distancing,” Current Directions in Psychological Science 20 (2011): 187–191.
response to stress: Özlem Ayduk and Ethan Kross, “Enhancing the Pace of Recovery: Self-Distanced Analysis of Negative Experiences Reduces Blood Pressure Reactivity,” Psychological Science 19 (2008): 229–231. Also see Rebecca F. Ray, Frank H. Wilhelm, and James J. Gross, “All in the Mind’s Eye? Anger Rumination and Reappraisal,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 94 (2008): 133–145.
dampened emotional activity in the brain: Brittany M. Christian et al., “When Imagining Yourself in Pain, Visual Perspective Matters: The Neural and Behavioral Correlates of Simulated Sensory Experiences,” Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience 27 (2015): 866–875.
less hostility and aggression: Dominik Mischkowski, Ethan Kross, and Brad Bushman, “Flies on the Wall Are Less Aggressive: Self-Distancing ‘in the Heat of the Moment’ Reduces Aggressive Thoughts, Angry Feelings, and Aggressive Behavior,” Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 48 (2012): 1187–1191. Also see Tamara M. Pfeiler et al., “Adaptive Modes of Rumination: The Role of Subjective Anger,” Cognition and Emotion 31 (2017): 580–589.
people with depression: Ethan Kross et al., “ ‘Asking Why’ from a Distance: Its Cognitive and Emotional Consequences for People with Major Depressive Disorder,” Journal of Abnormal Psychology 121 (2012): 559–569; Ethan Kross and Özlem Ayduk, “Boundary Conditions and Buffering Effects: Does Depressive Symptomology Moderate the Effectiveness of Distanced-Analysis for Facilitating Adaptive Self-Reflection?,” Journal of Research in Personality 43 (2009): 923–927; Emma Travers-Hill et al., “Beneficial Effects of Training in Self-Distancing and Perspective Broadening for People with a History of Recurrent Depression,” Behaviour Research and Therapy 95 (2017): 19–28. For a summary of research on the clinical implications of distancing and a discussion of how it operates under different conditions, see Ethan Kross and Özlem Ayduk, “Self-Distancing: Theory, Research, and Current Directions.”
highly anxious parents: Louis A. Penner et al., “Self-Distancing Buffers High Trait Anxious Pediatric Cancer Caregivers Against Short- and Longer-Term Distress,” Clinical Psychological Science 4 (2016): 629–640.
Philippe Verduyn: Philippe Verduyn et al., “The Relationship Between Self-Distancing and the Duration of Negative and Positive Emotional Experiences in Daily Life,” Emotion 12 (2012): 1248–1263. For a conceptual replication of the finding demonstrating that distancing reduces positive affect, see June Gruber, Allison G. Harvey, and Sheri L. Johnson, “Reflective and Ruminative Processing of Positive Emotional Memories in Bipolar Disorder and Healthy Controls,” Behaviour Research and Therapy 47 (2009): 697–704. For experimental data supporting the delayed benefits of distancing, see Kross and Ayduk, “Facilitating Adaptive Emotional Analysis.”
we are all prone: Özlem Ayduk and Ethan Kross, “From a Distance: Implications of Spontaneous Self-Distancing for Adaptive Self-Reflection,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 98 (2010): 809–829.
Researchers at Stanford: Ray, Wilhelm, and Gross, “All in the Mind’s Eye?”
Across the Atlantic: Patricia E. Schartau, Tim Dalgleish, and Barnaby D. Dunn, “Seeing the Bigger Picture: Training in Perspective Broadening Reduces Self-Reported Affect and Psychophysiological Response to Distressing Films and Autobiographical Memories,” Journal of Abnormal Psychology 118 (2009): 15–27.
shrinking the size of an image: Joshua Ian Davis, James J. Gross, and Kevin N. Ochsner, “Psychological Distance and Emotional Experience: What You See Is What You Get,” Emotion 11 (2011): 438–444.
higher GPAs: David S. Yeager et al., “Boring but Important: A Self-Transcendent Purpose for Learning Fosters Academic Self-Regulation,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 107 (2014): 558–580.
1010 B.C.E.: John S. Knox, “Solomon,” Ancient History Encyclopedia, Jan. 25, 2017, www.ancient.eu/solomon/.
As the Bible tells us: Robert Alter, The Hebrew Bible: A Translation with Commentary (New York: W. W. Norton, 2018).
“Solomon’s Paradox”: Igor Grossmann and Ethan Kross, “Exploring Solomon’s Paradox: Self-Distancing Eliminates the Self-Other Asymmetry in Wise Reasoning About Close Relationships in Younger and Older Adults,” Psychological Science 25 (2014): 1571–1580.
Lincoln later reflected: Doris Kearns Goodwin, Team of Rivals (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2005).
what wisdom actually is: Igor Grossmann, “Wisdom in Context,” Perspectives on Psychological Science 12 (2017): 233–257.
associate wisdom with advanced age: Igor Grossmann et al., “Reasoning About Social Conflicts Improves into Old Age,” PNAS 107 (2010): 7246–7250. Also see Darrell A. Worthy et al., “With Age Comes Wisdom: Decision Making in Younger and Older Adults,” Psychological Science 22 (2011): 1375–1380.
happening to someone else: Grossmann and Kross, “Exploring Solomon’s Paradox”; and Alex C. Huynh et al., “The Wisdom in Virtue: Pursuit of Virtue Predicts Wise Reasoning About Personal Conflicts,” Psychological Science 28 (2017): 1848–1856.
choose to do nothing: This tendency is referred to as the omission bias. Ilana Ritov and Jonathan Baron, “Reluctance to Vaccinate: Omission Bias and Ambiguity,” Journal of Behavioral Decision Making 3 (1990): 263–277.
and this is a big but: This study included three different conditions in which people were asked to make medical decisions for someone other than the self. Participants were randomly assigned to assume the role of a physician making a decision for a patient, a medical director setting treatment policy for all patients, or a parent making a decision for a child. Each of these “making a decision for someone else” conditions produced judgments that were equivalent to one another and superior compared with when participants decided for themselves. I averaged across the response rates for all three conditions for the purpose of text. Brian J. Zikmund-Fisher et al., “A Matter of Perspective: Choosing for Others Differs from Choosing for Yourself in Making Treatment Decisions,” Journal of General Internal Medicine 21 (2006): 618–622.
18 million: Global Cancer Observatory, “Globocan 2018,” International Agency for Research on Cancer, World Health Organization, 1, gco.iarc.fr/today/data/factsheets/cancers/39-All-cancers-fact-sheet.pdf.
avoid an “inside view”: Daniel Kahneman, Thinking, Fast and Slow (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2011).
decision making more generally: Qingzhou Sun et al., “Self-Distancing Reduces Probability-Weighting Biases,” Frontiers in Psychology 9 (2018): 611.
information overload: Jun Fukukura, Melissa J. Ferguson, and Kentaro Fujita, “Psychological Distance Can Improve Decision Making Under Information Overload via Gist Memory,” Journal of Experimental Psychology: General 142 (2013): 658–665.
roll back “loss aversion”: Evan Polman, “Self-Other Decision Making and Loss Aversion,” Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 119 (2012): 141–150; Flavia Mengarelli et al., “Economic Decisions for Others: An Exception to Loss Aversion Law,” PLoS One 9 (2014): e85042; and Ola Andersson et al., “Deciding for Others Reduces Loss Aversion,” Management Science 62 (2014): 29–36.
2008 U.S. presidential election: Ethan Kross and Igor Grossmann, “Boosting Wisdom: Distance from the Self Enhances Wise Reasoning, Attitudes, and Behavior,” Journal of Experimental Psychology: General 141 (2012): 43–48.
eased the conflict: Özlem Ayduk and Ethan Kross, “From a Distance: Implications of Spontaneous Self-Distancing for Adaptive Self-Reflection.”
buffered against romantic decline: Eli J. Finkel et al., “A Brief Intervention to Promote Conflict Reappraisal Preserves Marital Quality over Time,” Psychological Science 24 (2013): 1595–1601.
creating positive personal narratives: For review, see Dan P. McAdams and Kate C. McLean, “Narrative Identity,” Current Directions in Psychological Science 22 (2013): 233–238.
temporal distancing: Emma Bruehlman-Senecal and Özlem Ayduk, “This Too Shall Pass: Temporal Distance and the Regulation of Emotional Distress,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 108 (2015): 356–375. Also see Emma Bruehlman-Senecal, Özlem Ayduk, and Oliver P. John, “Taking the Long View: Implications of Individual Differences in Temporal Distancing for Affect, Stress Reactivity, and Well-Being,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 111 (2016): 610–635; S. P. Ahmed, “Using Temporal Distancing to Regulate Emotion in Adolescence: Modulation by Reactive Aggression,” Cognition and Emotion 32 (2018): 812–826; and Alex C. Huynh, Daniel Y. J. Yang, and Igor Grossmann, “The Value of Prospective Reasoning for Close Relationships,” Social Psychological and Personality Science 7 (2016): 893–902.
James Pennebaker: For reviews, see James W. Pennebaker, “Writing About Emotional Experiences as a Therapeutic Process,” Psychological Science 8 (1997): 162–166; James W. Pennebaker and Cindy K. Chung, “Expressive Writing: Connections to Physical and Mental Health,” in The Oxford Handbook of Health Psychology, ed. H. S. Friedman (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 417–437; also see Eva-Maria Gortner, Stephanie S. Rude, and James W. Pennebaker, “Benefits of Expressive Writing in Lowering Rumination and Depressive Symptoms,” Behavior Therapy 37 (2006): 292–303; Denise M. Sloan et al., “Expressive Writing Buffers Against Maladaptive Rumination,” Emotion 8 (2008): 302–306; and Katherine M. Krpan et al., “An Everyday Activity as a Treatment for Depression: The Benefits of Expressive Writing for People Diagnosed with Major Depressive Disorder,” Journal of Affective Disorders 150 (2013): 1148–1151.
creates distance from our experience: Jiyoung Park, Özlem Ayduk, and Ethan Kross, “Stepping Back to Move Forward: Expressive Writing Promotes Self-Distancing,” Emotion 16 (2016): 349–364. As Park and colleagues discuss, this doesn’t mean that distance is the only factor explaining why expressive writing helps.
frequency illusion: Also referred to as the “Baader-Meinhof phenomenon, Baader-Meinhof,” Oxford English Dictionary, April 6, 2020, https://www.oed.com/view/Entry/250279.
LeBron James: Interview by Michael Wilbon. Henry Abbott, “LeBron James’ Post-decision Interviews,” ESPN, July 9, 2010, https://www.espn.com/blog/truehoop/post/_/id/17856/lebron-james-post-decision-interviews and Jim Gray, “LeBron James ‘The Decision,’ ” ESPN, July 8, 2010, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bHSLw8DLm20.
Malala Yousafzai: Malala Yousafzai, interview by Jon Stewart, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, Oct. 8, 2013.
Jennifer Lawrence: Brooks Barnes, “Jennifer Lawrence Has No Appetite for Playing Fame Games,” New York Times, Sept. 9, 2015.
Gallic Wars: Julius Caesar, Caesar’s Gallic War: With an Introduction, Notes, and Vocabulary by Francis W. Kelsey, 7th ed. (Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1895).
The Education of Henry Adams: Henry Adams, The Education of Henry Adams: An Autobiography (Cambridge, MA: Massachusetts Historical Society, 1918).
powerful techniques: Sally Dickerson and Margaret E. Kemeny, “Acute Stressors and Cortisol Responses: A Theoretical Integration and Synthesis of Laboratory Research,” Psychological Bulletin 130 (2004): 355–391.
public speaking: Ethan Kross et al., “Self-Talk as a Regulatory Mechanism: How You Do It Matters,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 106 (2014): 304–324.
marker of negative emotion: For a historical review and meta-analysis, see Allison M. Tackman et al., “Depression, Negative Emotionality, and Self-Referential Language: A Multi-lab, Multi-measure, and Multi-language-task Research Synthesis,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 116 (2019): 817–834; and To’Meisha Edwards and Nicholas S. Holtzman, “A Meta-Analysis of Correlations Between Depression and First-Person Singular Pronoun Use,” Journal of Research in Personality 68 (2017): 63–68.
For example: The two studies I discuss in the text were published after our work on self-talk. As the papers cited in the previous endnote demonstrate, however, research stretching back multiple decades had already revealed a link between first-person singular pronoun usage and negative affect. I present these newer studies as evidence for that link because they represent particularly compelling evidence of the relationship. Tackman et al., “Depression, Negative Emotionality, and Self-Referential Language: A Multi-lab, Multi-measure, and Multi-language-task Research Synthesis”; and Johannes C. Eichstaedt et al., “Facebook Language Predicts Depression in Medical Records,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 115 (2018): 11203–11208.
distanced self-talk: For reviews, see Ethan Kross and Özlem Ayduk, “Self-Distancing: Theory, Research, and Current Directions”; and Ariana Orvell et al., “Linguistic Shifts: A Relatively Effortless Route to Emotion Regulation?,” Current Directions in Psychological Science 28 (2019): 567–573.
third-person “he” or “she”: It’s worth asking whether using “they” for those who identify as nonbinary would lead to a similar result. Although we have not tested this idea directly, theoretically we would expect this pronoun to serve the same distancing, emotion regulatory function.
Other experiments: Kross et al., “Self-Talk as a Regulatory Mechanism”; Sanda Dolcos and Dolores Albarracin, “The Inner Speech of Behavioral Regulation: Intentions and Task Performance Strengthen When You Talk to Yourself as a You,” European Journal of Social Psychology 44 (2014): 636–642; and Grossmann and Kross, “Exploring Solomon’s Paradox.” For other domains in which distanced self-talk has revealed benefits, see Celina Furman, Ethan Kross, and Ashley Gearhardt, “Distanced Self-Talk Enhances Goal Pursuit to Eat Healthier,” Clinical Psychological Science 8 (2020): 366–373; Ariana Orvell et al., “Does Distanced Self-Talk Facilitate Emotion Regulation Across a Range of Emotionally Intense Experiences?,” Clinical Psychological Science (in press); and Jordan B. Leitner et al., “Self-Distancing Improves Interpersonal Perceptions and Behavior by Decreasing Medial Prefrontal Cortex Activity During the Provision of Criticism,” Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience 12 (2017): 534–543.
2014 Ebola crisis: Ethan Kross et al., “Third-Person Self-Talk Reduces Ebola Worry and Risk Perception by Enhancing Rational Thinking,” Applied Psychology: Health and Well-Being 9 (2017): 387–409.
most chatter-provoking scenarios: Aaron C. Weidman et al., “Punish or Protect: How Close Relationships Shape Responses to Moral Violations,” Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 46 (2019).
“shifters” refer to words: Orvell et al., “Linguistic Shifts”; and Roman Jakobson, Shifters, Verbal Categories, and the Russian Verb (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University, Russian Language Project, Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures, 1957). For discussion, see Orvell et al., “Linguistic Shifts.”
within milliseconds: For discussion, see Orvell et al., “Linguistic Shifts.”
One tiny second: Jason S. Moser et al., “Third-Person Self-Talk Facilitates Emotion Regulation Without Engaging Cognitive Control: Converging Evidence from ERP and fMRI,” Scientific Reports 7 (2017): 1–9.
overtaxed people’s executive functions: Ibid.
Catch-22 of sorts: Orvell et al., “Linguistic Shifts.”
typed to himself in 1979: Robert Ito, “Fred Rogers’s Life in 5 Artifacts,” New York Times, June 5, 2018.
think of it as a challenge: Jim Blascovich and Joe Tomaka, “The Biopsychosocial Model of Arousal Regulation,” Advances in Experimental Social Psychology 28 (1996): 1–51; and Richard S. Lazarus and Susan Folkman, Stress, Appraisal, and Coping (New York: Springer, 1984).
Several studies back: For review, see Jeremy P. Jamieson, Wendy Berry Mendes, and Matthew K. Nock, “Improving Acute Stress Responses: The Power of Reappraisal,” Current Directions in Psychological Science 22 (2013): 51–56. Also see Adam L. Alter et al., “Rising to the Threat: Reducing Stereotype Threat by Reframing the Threat as a Challenge,” Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 46 (2010): 155–171; and Alison Wood Brooks, “Get Excited: Reappraising Pre-performance Anxiety as Excitement,” Journal of Experimental Psychology: General 143 (2014): 1144–1158.
Seventy-five percent: Kross et al., “Self-Talk as a Regulatory Mechanism.”
see it in people’s bodies: Jim Blascovich and Joe Tomaka, “The Biopsychosocial Model of Arousal Regulation”; Mark D. Seery, “Challenge or Threat? Cardiovascular Indexes of Resilience and Vulnerability to Potential Stress in Humans,” Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews 35 (2011): 1603–1610.
cardiovascular systems functioned: Lindsey Streamer et al., “Not I, but She: The Beneficial Effects of Self-Distancing on Challenge/Threat Cardiovascular Responses,” Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 70 (2017): 235–241.
Batman Effect: Rachel E. White et al., “The ‘Batman Effect’: Improving Perseverance in Young Children,” Child Development 88 (2017): 1563–1571. Stephanie and her colleagues have examined the Batman Effect in additional contexts. In one direction, they’ve shown that this tool can promote executive functioning among five-year-olds: Rachel E. White and Stephanie M. Carlson, “What Would Batman Do? Self-Distancing Improves Executive Function in Young Children,” Developmental Science 19 (2016): 419–426. In other work, they’ve shown that this tool is uniquely effective for young children and vulnerable children characterized by low levels of self-control when they work on frustrating tasks that have no solution: Amanda Grenell et al., “Individual Differences in the Effectiveness of Self-Distancing for Young Children’s Emotion Regulation,” British Journal of Developmental Psychology 37 (2019): 84–100.
loss of a parent: Julie B. Kaplow et al., “Out of the Mouths of Babes: Links Between Linguistic Structure of Loss Narratives and Psychosocial Functioning in Parentally Bereaved Children,” Journal of Traumatic Stress 31 (2018): 342–351.
normalizing experiences: Robert L. Leahy, “Emotional Schema Therapy: A Bridge over Troubled Waters,” in Acceptance and Mindfulness in Cognitive Behavior Therapy: Understanding and Applying New Therapies, ed. J. D. Herbert and E. M. Forman (Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, 2011), 109–131; and Blake E. Ashforth and Glen E. Kreiner, “Normalizing Emotion in Organizations: Making the Extraordinary Seem Ordinary,” Human Resource Management Review 12 (2002): 215–235.
Sheryl Sandberg: Sheryl Sandberg Facebook Post About Her Husband’s Death, Facebook, June 3, 2015, www.facebook.com/sheryl/posts/10155617891025177:0. Also see Sheryl Sandberg in conversation with Oprah Winfrey, Super Soul Sunday, June 25, 2017, http://www.oprah.com/own-super-soul-sunday/the-daily-habit-the-helped-sheryl-sandberg-heal-after-tragedy-video.
gaining helpful emotional distance: Park, Ayduk, and Kross, “Stepping Back to Move Forward.”
“generic ‘you’ ”: Ariana Orvell, Ethan Kross, and Susan Gelman, “How ‘You’ Makes Meaning,” Science 355 (2017): 1299–1302. Also see Ariana Orvell, Ethan Kross, and Susan Gelman, “Lessons Learned: Young Children’s Use of Generic-You to Make Meaning from Negative Experiences,” Journal of Experimental Psychology: General 148 (2019): 184–191.
another type of linguistic hack: Orvell et al., “Linguistic Shifts.”
asked to learn from their experience: Orvell, Kross, and Gelman, “How ‘You’ Makes Meaning.”
Then he opened fire on them again: Steven Gray, “How the NIU Massacre Happened,” Time, Feb. 16, 2008, content.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1714069,00.html.
Amanda Vicary and R. Chris Fraley: Amanda M. Vicary and R. Chris Fraley, “Student Reactions to the Shootings at Virginia Tech and Northern Illinois University: Does Sharing Grief and Support over the Internet Affect Recovery?,” Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 36 (2010): 1555–1563; report of the February 14, 2008, shootings at Northern Illinois University, https://www.niu.edu/forward/_pdfs/archives/feb14report.pdf; Susan Saulny and Monica Davey, “Gunman Kills at Least 5 at U.S. College,” New York Times, Feb. 15, 2008; and Cheryl Corley and Scott Simon, “NIU Students Grieve at Vigil,” NPR, Feb. 16, 2008, https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=19115808&t=1586343329323.
one Virginia Tech student: Vicary and Fraley, “Student Reactions to the Shootings at Virginia Tech and Northern Illinois University.”
September 11 attacks: Mark D. Seery et al., “Expressing Thoughts and Feelings Following a Collective Trauma: Immediate Responses to 9/11 Predict Negative Outcomes in a National Sample,” Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology 76 (2008): 657–667. The measure used to index expressing emotions following 9/11 consisted of an open-ended prompt asking participants to share their thoughts about 9/11. The authors used this prompt as a proxy for assessing people’s tendency to express emotions with others (pp. 663, 665). Critically, the authors demonstrate that people who completed the open-ended prompt also reported seeking out more emotional support and venting to others after the attacks (p. 664).
For additional resources indicating that expressing emotions is not always beneficial, see Richard McNally, Richard J. Bryant, and Anke Ehlers, “Does Early Psychological Intervention Promote Recovery from Posttraumatic Stress?,” Psychological Science in the Public Interest 4 (2003): 45–79; Arnold A. P. van Emmerik et al., “Single Session Debriefing After Psychological Trauma: A Meta-analysis,” Lancet 360 (2002): 766–771; George A. Bonanno, “Loss, Trauma, and Human Resilience: Have We Underestimated the Human Capacity to Thrive After Extremely Aversive Events?,” American Psychologist 59 (2004): 20–28; Bushman, “Does Venting Anger Feed or Extinguish the Flame?”; Bushman et al., “Chewing on It Can Chew You Up”; and Rimé, “Emotion Elicits the Social Sharing of Emotion.”
earliest proponents of this approach: Aristotle, Poetics (Newburyport, MA: Pullins, 2006). Also see, Brad J. Bushman, “Catharsis of Aggression,” in Encyclopedia of Social Psychology, ed. Roy F. Baumeister and Kathleen D. Vohs (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2007), 135–137; and The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica, “Catharsis,” Encyclopaedia Britannica.
Sigmund Freud and his mentor: Josef Breuer and Sigmund Freud, Studies on Hysteria, 1893–1895 (London: Hogarth Press, 1955).
earlier stage of our development: I drew on Bernard Rimé’s excellent synthesis of the role that developmental processes play in establishing emotion regulation as an interpersonal process for this section. Rimé, “Emotion Elicits the Social Sharing of Emotion.”
basic need we have to belong: Roy F. Baumeister and Mark R. Leary, “The Need to Belong: Desire for Interpersonal Attachments as a Fundamental Human Motivation,” Psychological Bulletin 117 (1995): 497–529.
“tend and befriend” response: Shelley E. Taylor, “Tend and Befriend: Biobehavioral Bases of Affiliation Under Stress,” Current Directions in Psychological Science 15 (2006): 273–77.
seek out other people: Research indicates that simply thinking about caring for others, activating a mental snapshot of them, is sufficient for activating an inner coach like a script in people’s heads. According to psychologists Mario Mikulincer and Phillip Shaver, two pioneers in attachment research, the unspoken mental script goes like this: “If I encounter an obstacle and/or become distressed, I can approach a significant other for help; he or she is likely to be available and supportive; I will experience relief and comfort as a result of proximity to this person; I can then return to other activities.” Mario Mikulincer et al., “What’s Inside the Minds of Securely and Insecurely Attached People? The Secure-Base Script and Its Associations with Attachment-Style Dimensions,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 97 (2002): 615–633.
This script idea played into a set of studies I performed in 2015 with my colleague, Cornell psychologist Vivian Zayas, and her students, to examine whether glancing at pictures of attachment figures would have implications for helping people manage chatter. Specifically, we asked people to think about a negative experience that caused chatter and then asked people to look at a picture of either their mother or someone else’s mother. Just as Mikulincer and Shaver would have predicted, looking at a picture of their mother reduced their emotional pain; they rated themselves as feeling much better. Emre Selcuk et al., “Mental Representations of Attachment Figures Facilitate Recovery Following Upsetting Autobiographical Memory Recall,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 103 (2012): 362–378.
emotional needs over our cognitive ones: Christelle Duprez et al., “Motives for the Social Sharing of an Emotional Experience,” Journal of Social and Personal Relationships 32 (2014): 757–787. Also see Lisanne S. Pauw et al., “Sense or Sensibility? Social Sharers’ Evaluations of Socio-affective vs. Cognitive Support in Response to Negative Emotions,” Cognition and Emotion 32 (2018): 1247–1264.
interlocutors tend to miss these cues: Lisanne S. Pauw et al., “I Hear You (Not): Sharers’ Expressions and Listeners’ Inferences of the Need for Support in Response to Negative Emotions,” Cognition and Emotion 33 (2019): 1129–1243.
co-rumination: Amanda J. Rose, “Co-rumination in the Friendships of Girls and Boys,” Child Development 73 (2002): 1830–1843; Jason S. Spendelow, Laura M. Simonds, and Rachel E. Avery, “The Relationship Between Co-rumination and Internalizing Problems: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis,” Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy 24 (2017): 512–527; Lindsey B. Stone et al., “Co-rumination Predicts the Onset of Depressive Disorders During Adolescence,” Journal of Abnormal Psychology 120 (2011): 752–757; and Benjamin L. Hankin, Lindsey Stone, and Patricia Ann Wright, “Co-rumination, Interpersonal Stress Generation, and Internalizing Symptoms: Accumulating Effects and Transactional Influences in a Multi-wave Study of Adolescents,” Developmental Psychopathology 22 (2010): 217–235. Also see Rimé, “Emotion Elicits the Social Sharing of Emotion.”
when it comes to our inner voice: For a discussion of the role that spreading activation theories play in rumination, see Rusting and Nolen-Hoeksema, “Regulating Responses to Anger.”
most effective verbal exchanges: Andrew C. High and James Price Dillard, “A Review and Meta-analysis of Person-Centered Messages and Social Support Outcomes,” Communication Studies 63 (2012): 99–118; Frederic Nils and Bernard Rimé, “Beyond the Myth of Venting: Social Sharing Modes Determine Emotional and Social Benefits from Distress Disclosure,” European Journal of Social Psychology 42 (2012): 672–681; Stephen J. Lepore et al., “It’s Not That Bad: Social Challenges to Emotional Disclosure Enhance Adjustment to Stress,” Anxiety, Stress, and Coping 17 (2004): 341–361; Anika Batenburg and Enny Das, “An Experimental Study on the Effectiveness of Disclosing Stressful Life Events and Support Messages: When Cognitive Reappraisal Support Decreases Emotional Distress, and Emotional Support Is Like Saying Nothing at All,” PLoS One 9 (2014): e114169; and Stephanie Tremmel and Sabine Sonnentag, “A Sorrow Halved? A Daily Diary Study on Talking About Experienced Workplace Incivility and Next-Morning Negative Affect,” Journal of Occupational Health Psychology 23 (2018): 568–583.
prefer to not cognitively reframe: Gal Sheppes, “Transcending the ‘Good and Bad’ and ‘Here and Now’ in Emotion Regulation: Costs and Benefits of Strategies Across Regulatory Stages,” Advances in Experimental Social Psychology 61 (2020). For further discussion of the role that time plays in social exchanges, see Rimé, “Emotion Elicits the Social Sharing of Emotion.”
Once the hostage takers understood: Christopher S. Wren, “2 Give Up After Holding 42 Hostages in a Harlem Bank,” New York Times, April 19, 1973; Barbara Gelb, “A Cool-Headed Cop Who Saves Hostages,” New York Times, April 17, 1977; Gregory M. Vecchi et al., “Crisis (Hostage) Negotiation: Current Strategies and Issues in High-Risk Conflict Resolution,” Aggression and Violent Behavior 10 (2005): 533–551; Gary Noesner, Stalling for Time (New York: Random House, 2010); “Police Negotiation Techniques from the NYPD Crisis Negotiations Team,” Harvard Law School, Nov. 11, 2019, https://www.pon.harvard.edu/daily/crisis-negotiations/crisis-negotiations-and-negotiation-skills-insights-from-the-new-york-city-police-department-hostage-negotiations-team/.
diversify their sources of support: Elaine O. Cheung, Wendi L. Gardner, and Jason F. Anderson, “Emotionships: Examining People’s Emotion-Regulation Relationships and Their Consequences for Well-Being,” Social Psychological and Personality Science 6 (2015): 407–414.
global grassroots movement: It Gets Better Project, itgetsbetter.org/; “How It All Got Started,” https://itgetsbetter.org/blog/initiatives/how-it-all-got-started/; Brian Stelter, “Campaign Offers Help to Gay Youths,” New York Times, Oct. 18, 2010; and Dan Savage, “Give ’Em Hope,” The Stranger, Sept. 23, 2010.
psychological debriefing: McNally, Bryant, and Ehlers, “Does Early Psychological Intervention Promote Recovery from Posttraumatic Stress?”; and van Emmerik et al., “Single Session Debriefing After Psychological Trauma.”
powerful neurobiological experience: For reviews of the empathy literature, see Zaki, War for Kindness; de Waal and Preston, “Mammalian Empathy”; and Erika Weisz and Jamil Zaki, “Motivated Empathy: A Social Neuroscience Perspective,” Current Opinion in Psychology 24 (2018): 67–71.
damages not only our self-esteem: The relationship scientists Eshkol Rafaeli and Marci Gleason offer an incisive review of the social-support literature in Eshkol Rafaeli and Marci Gleason, “Skilled Support Within Intimate Relationships,” Journal of Family Theory and Review 1 (2009): 20–37. They also provide a detailed discussion of the myriad additional ways that visible support can backfire. They note that it may focus attention on the source of stress, enhance how indebted one feels to a partner, highlight relationship inequities, and be perceived as hostile when the support is delivered with criticism (however well-intentioned).
New York bar exam: Niall Bolger, Adam Zuckerman, and Ronald C. Kessler, “Invisible Support and Adjustment to Stress,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 79 (2000): 953–61. For an experimental conceptual replication of these results, see Niall Bolger and David Amarel, “Effects of Social Support Visibility on Adjustment to Stress: Experimental Evidence,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 92 (2007): 458–475.
A study on marriages: Yuthika U. Girme et al., “Does Support Need to Be Seen? Daily Invisible Support Promotes Next Relationship Well-Being,” Journal of Family Psychology 32 (2018): 882–893.
meeting their self-improvement goals: Yuthika U. Girme, Nickola C. Overall, and Jeffry A. Simpson, “When Visibility Matters: Short-Term Versus Long-Term Costs and Benefits of Visible and Invisible Support,” Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 39 (2013): 1441–1454.
insights into the circumstances: Katherine S. Zee and Niall Bolger, “Visible and Invisible Social Support: How, Why, and When,” Current Directions in Psychological Science 28 (2019): 314–320. Also see Katherine S. Zee et al., “Motivation Moderates the Effects of Social Support Visibility,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 114 (2018): 735–765.
Caring physical contact: Brittany K. Jakubiak and Brooke C. Feeney, “Affectionate Touch to Promote Relational, Psychological, and Physical Well-Being in Adulthood: A Theoretical Model and Review of the Research,” Personality and Social Psychology Review 21 (2016): 228–252.
one second of contact: Sander L. Koole, Mandy Tjew A. Sin, and Iris K. Schneider, “Embodied Terror Management: Interpersonal Touch Alleviates Existential Concerns Among Individuals with Low Self-Esteem,” Psychological Science 25 (2014): 30–37.
teddy bear: Ibid.; and Kenneth Tai, Xue Zheng, and Jayanth Narayanan, “Touching a Teddy Bear Mitigates Negative Effects of Social Exclusion to Increase Prosocial Behavior,” Social Psychological and Personality Science 2 (2011): 618–626.
result of the brain: Francis McGlone, Johan Wessberg, and Hakan Olausson, “Discriminative and Affective Touch: Sensing and Feeling,” Neuron 82 (2014): 737–751. For discussion of the role that C-fibers play in social support, see Jakubiak and Feeney, “Affectionate Touch to Promote Relational, Psychological, and Physical Well-Being in Adulthood.”
social organ: India Morrison, Line S. Loken, and Hakan Olausson, “The Skin as a Social Organ,” Experimental Brain Research 204 (2009): 305–314.
nature of co-rumination via social media: David S. Lee et al., “When Chatting About Negative Experiences Helps—and When It Hurts: Distinguishing Adaptive Versus Maladaptive Social Support in Computer-Mediated Communication,” Emotion 20 (2020): 368–375. For additional evidence indicating that the social sharing processes generalize to social media interactions, see Mina Choi and Catalina L. Toma, “Social Sharing Through Interpersonal Media.”
In 1963: Erik Gellman, Robert Taylor Homes, Chicago Historical Society, http://www.encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/pages/2478.html.
Robert Taylor Homes: Aaron Modica, “Robert R. Taylor Homes, Chicago, Illinois (1959–2005),” BlackPast, Dec. 19, 2009, blackpast.org/aah/robert-taylor-homes-chicago-illinois-1959-2005; D. Bradford Hunt, “What Went Wrong with Public Housing in Chicago? A History of the Robert Taylor Homes,” Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society 94 (2001): 96–123; Hodding Carter, Crisis on Federal Street, PBS (1987).
Ming Kuo: Frances E. Kuo, “Coping with Poverty: Impacts of Environment and Attention in the Inner City,” Environment and Behavior 33 (2001): 5–34.
Roger Ulrich: Roger S. Ulrich, “View Through a Window May Influence Recovery from Surgery,” Science 224 (1984): 420–421.
green revelations have followed: For recent reviews of the link between nature exposure and health, see Gregory N. Bratman et al., “Nature and Mental Health: An Ecosystem Service Perspective,” Science Advances 5 (2019): eaax0903; Roly Russell et al., “Humans and Nature: How Knowing and Experiencing Nature Affect Well-Being,” Annual Review of Environmental Resources 38 (2013): 473–502; Ethan A. McMahan and David Estes, “The Effect of Contact with Natural Environments on Positive and Negative Affect: A Meta-analysis,” Journal of Positive Psychology 10 (2015): 507–519; and Terry Hartig et al., “Nature and Health,” Annual Review of Public Health 35 (2014): 207–228.
ten thousand individuals in England: Mathew P. White et al., “Would You Be Happier Living in a Greener Urban Area? A Fixed-Effects Analysis of Panel Data,” Psychological Science 24 (2013): 920–928.
seven years younger: Omid Kardan et al., “Neighborhood Greenspace and Health in a Large Urban Center,” Scientific Reports 5 (2015): 11610.
entire population of England: Richard Mitchell and Frank Popham, “Effect of Exposure to Natural Environment on Health Inequalities: An Observational Population Study,” Lancet 372 (2008): 1655–1660. Also see David Rojas-Rueda et al., “Green Spaces and Mortality: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis of Cohort Studies,” Lancet Planet Health 3 (2019): 469–477.
Stephen and Rachel Kaplan: Rachel Kaplan and Stephen Kaplan, The Experience of Nature: A Psychological Perspective (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1989). I also drew on this article to tell the Kaplans’ story: Rebecca A. Clay, “Green Is Good for You,” Monitor on Psychology 32 (2001): 40.
William James: William James, Psychology: The Briefer Course (New York: Holt, 1892).
brain’s limited resources: For an excellent discussion of the distinction between voluntary and involuntary attention as it relates to nature and attention restoration, see Stephen Kaplan and Marc G. Berman, “Directed Attention as a Common Resource for Executive Functioning and Self-Regulation,” Perspectives on Psychological Science 5 (2010): 43–57. Also see Timothy J. Buschman and Earl K. Miller, “Top-Down Versus Bottom-Up Control of Attention in the Prefrontal and Posterior Parietal Cortices,” Science 315 (2007): 1860–1862.
One now classic study: Marc G. Berman, John Jonides, and Stephen Kaplan, “The Cognitive Benefits of Interacting with Nature,” Psychological Science 19 (2008): 1207–1212. Also see Terry Hartig et al., “Tracking Restoration in Natural and Urban Field Settings,” Journal of Environmental Psychology 23 (2003): 109–123.
clinically depressed participants: Marc G. Berman et al., “Interacting with Nature Improves Cognition and Affect for Individuals with Depression,” Journal of Affective Disorders 140 (2012): 300–305.
Another satellite-imagery study: Kristine Engemann et al., “Residential Green Space in Childhood Is Associated with Lower Risk of Psychiatric Disorders from Adolescence into Adulthood,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 116 (2019): 5188–5193. Also see White et al., “Would You Be Happier Living in a Greener Urban Area?”
Palo Alto, California: Gregory N. Bratman et al., “Nature Experience Reduces Rumination and Subgenual Prefrontal Cortex Activation,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 112 (2015): 8567–8572. For a conceptual replication at the behavioral level, see Gregory N. Bratman et al., “The Benefits of Nature Experience: Improved Affect and Cognition,” Landscape and Urban Planning 138 (2015): 41–50, which linked a nature (versus urban) walk with improved rumination, anxiety, positive affect, and working memory functioning.
born and bred city dweller: There’s a natural level of skepticism that many people feel when they hear about these findings on the cognitive and emotional restorative effects of nature. Indeed, one clever set of studies found that people consistently underestimate how much interacting with green spaces will improve their mood. Elizabeth K. Nisbet and John M. Zelenski, “Underestimating Nearby Nature: Affective Forecasting Errors Obscure the Happy Path to Sustainability,” Psychological Science 22 (2011): 1101–1106.
68 percent of the world’s population: United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division, World Urbanization Prospects: The 2018 Revision (New York: United Nations, 2019); and Hannah Ritchie and Max Roser, “Urbanization,” Our World in Data (2018, updated 2019), https://ourworldindata.org/urbanization#migration-to-towns-and-cities-is-very-recent-mostly-limited-to-the-past-200-years.
six-minute video of neighborhood streets: Bin Jiang et al., “A Dose-Response Curve Describing the Relationship Between Urban Tree Cover Density and Self-Reported Stress Recovery,” Environment and Behavior 48 (2016): 607–629. Also see Daniel K. Brown, Jo L. Barton, and Valerie F. Gladwell, “Viewing Nature Scenes Positively Affects Recovery of Autonomic Function Following Acute-Mental Stress,” Environmental Science and Technology 47 (2013): 5562–5569; Berman, Jonides, and Kaplan, “Cognitive Benefits of Interacting with Nature”; and McMahan and Estes, “Effect of Contact with Natural Environments on Positive and Negative Affect.”
improved performance on an attentional task: Stephen C. Van Hedger et al., “Of Cricket Chirps and Car Horns: The Effect of Nature Sounds on Cognitive Performance,” Psychonomic Bulletin and Review 26 (2019): 522–530.
longer we’re exposed: Danielle F. Shanahan et al., “Health Benefits from Nature Experiences Depend on Dose,” Scientific Reports 6 (2016): 28551. Also see Jiang et al., “Dose-Response Curve Describing the Relationship Between Urban Tree Cover Density and Self-Reported Stress Recovery.”
ReTUNE: ReTUNE (Restoring Through Urban Nature Experience), The University of Chicago, https://appchallenge.uchicago.edu/retune/, accessed March 4, 2020. ReTUNE app: https://retune-56d2e.firebaseapp.com/.
Suzanne Bott: Suzanne Bott, interview by Ethan Kross, Oct. 1, 2008.
“the most dangerous place in Iraq”: Mark Kukis, “The Most Dangerous Place in Iraq,” Time, Dec. 11, 2006.
psychologist named Craig Anderson: Craig L. Anderson, Maria Monroy, and Dacher Keltner, “Awe in Nature Heals: Evidence from Military Veterans, At-Risk Youth, and College Students,” Emotion 18 (2018): 1195–1202.
Awe is the wonder: Jennifer E. Stellar et al., “Self-Transcendent Emotions and Their Social Functions: Compassion, Gratitude, and Awe Bind Us to Others Through Prosociality,” Emotion Review 9 (2017): 200–207; Paul K. Piff et al., “Awe, the Small Self, and Prosocial Behavior,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 108 (2015): 883–899; and Michelle N. Shiota, Dacher Keltner, and Amanda Mossman, “The Nature of Awe: Elicitors, Appraisals, and Effects on Self-Concept,” Cognition and Emotion 21 (2007): 944–963.
brain during awe-inspiring experiences: Michiel van Elk et al., “The Neural Correlates of the Awe Experience: Reduced Default Mode Network Activity During Feelings of Awe,” Human Brain Mapping 40 (2019): 3561–3574.
brain responds when people meditate: Judson A. Brewer et al., “Meditation Experience Is Associated with Differences in Default Mode Network Activity and Connectivity,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 108 (2011): 20254–20259. For discussion of how the experience of awe relates to psychedelics in terms of underlying brain function, see van Elk et al., “The Neural Correlates of the Awe Experience: Reduced Default Mode Network Activity During Feelings of Awe.” Also see Robin L. Carhart-Harris et al., “The Entropic Brain: A Theory of Conscious States Informed by Neuroimaging Research with Psychedelic Drugs,” Frontiers in Human Neuroscience 3 (2014): 20.
we developed this emotion: For discussion, see Stellar et al., “Self-Transcendent Emotions and Their Social Functions.”
center of the world: For example, see Yang Bai et al. “Awe, the Diminished Self, and Collective Engagement: Universals and Cultural Variations in the Small Self,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 113 (2017): 185–209.
synaptic flow of your thoughts: van Elk et al., “Neural Correlates of the Awe Experience.”
similar ways as other distancing techniques: For a similar argument, see Phuong Q. Le et al., “When a Small Self Means Manageable Obstacles: Spontaneous Self-Distancing Predicts Divergent Effects of Awe During a Subsequent Performance Stressor,” Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 80 (2019): 59–66. This study also interestingly suggests that people who tend to spontaneously distance when reflecting on negative experiences may benefit the most from experiencing awe prior to delivering a stressful speech in terms of their cardiovascular stress response.
purchasing a new watch: Melanie Rudd, Kathleen D. Vohs, and Jennifer Aaker, “Awe Expands People’s Perception of Time, Alters Decision Making, and Enhances Well-Being,” Psychological Science 23 (2012): 1130–1136.
linked with reduced inflammation: Jennifer E. Stellar et al., “Positive Affect and Markers of Inflammation: Discrete Positive Emotions Predict Lower Levels of Inflammatory Cytokines,” Emotion 15 (2015): 129–133.
One set of studies: Jennifer E. Stellar et al., “Awe and Humility,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 114 (2018): 258–269.
hallmark features of wisdom: Grossmann and Kross, “Exploring Solomon’s Paradox.”
caveat to consider: Amie Gordon et al., “The Dark Side of the Sublime: Distinguishing a Threat-Based Variant of Awe,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 113 (2016): 310–328.
“What I battle hardest to do”: Rafael Nadal, Rafa: My Story, with John Carlin (New York: Hachette Books, 2013); Chris Chase, “The Definitive Guide to Rafael Nadal’s 19 Bizarre Tennis Rituals,” USA Today, June 5, 2019.
compensatory control: Mark J. Landau, Aaron C. Kay, and Jennifer A. Whitson, “Compensatory Control and the Appeal of a Structured World,” Psychological Bulletin 141 (2015): 694–722.
“It’s a way of placing myself”: Nadal, Rafa.
This might explain the global influence: Maria Kondo, The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing (Berkeley, CA: Ten Speed Press, 2014).
perceptions of control: As Mark Landau, Aaron Kay, and Jennifer Whitson deftly argue in their review, “Compensatory Control and the Appeal of a Structured World,” this topic has been the focus of a tremendous amount of research over the past sixty years and has been studied from a variety of perspectives.
whether we try to achieve goals: Albert Bandura, Social Foundations of Thought and Action: A Social Cognitive Theory (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1986); and Bandura, Self-Efficacy: The Exercise of Control (New York: Freeman, 1997).
improved physical health and emotional well-being: For reviews, see Landau, Kay, and Whitson, “Compensatory Control and the Appeal of a Structured World”; D. H. Shapiro, Jr., C. E. Schwartz, and J. A. Astin, “Controlling Ourselves, Controlling Our World: Psychology’s Role in Understanding Positive and Negative Consequences of Seeking and Gaining Control,” The American Psychologist 51 (1996): 1213–1230; and Bandura, Self-Efficacy: The Exercise of Control. Also see Richard M. Ryan and Edward L. Deci, “Self-Determination Theory and the Facilitation of Intrinsic Motivation, Social Development, and Well-Being,” American Psychologist 55 (2000): 68–78.
heightened performance at school and work: Michelle Richardson, Charles Abraham, and Rod Bond, “Psychological Correlates of University Students’ Academic Performance: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis,” Psychological Bulletin 138 (2012): 353–387; Michael Schneider and Franzis Preckel, “Variables Associated with Achievement in Higher Education: A Systematic Review of Meta-analyses,” Psychological Bulletin 143 (2017): 565–600; Alexander D. Stajkovic and Fred Luthans, “Self-Efficacy and Work-Related Performance: A Meta-analysis,” Psychological Bulletin 124 (1998): 240–261.
more satisfying interpersonal relationships: Toni L. Bisconti and C. S. Bergeman, “Perceived Social Control as a Mediator of the Relationships Among Social Support, Psychological Well-Being, and Perceived Health,” Gerontologist 39 (1999): 94–103; Tanya S. Martini, Joan E. Grusec, and Silvia C. Bernardini, “Effects of Interpersonal Control, Perspective Taking, and Attributions on Older Mothers’ and Adult Daughters’ Satisfaction with Their Helping Relationships,” Journal of Family Psychology 15 (2004): 688–705.
causes our chatter to spike: For discussion, see Nolen-Hoeksema, Wisco, and Lyubomirsky, “Rethinking Rumination.”
propels us to try to regain it: Another resource that people frequently utilize to enhance their sense of control is religion, which provides people with order, structure, and organization on practical and spiritual levels. Aaron C. Kay et al., “God and the Government: Testing a Compensatory Control Mechanism for the Support of External Systems,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 95 (2008): 18–35. For discussion, see Landau, Kay, and Whitson, “Compensatory Control and the Appeal of a Structured World.”
easier to navigate and more predictable: Landau, Kay, and Whitson, “Compensatory Control and the Appeal of a Structured World.”
illusory patterns: Jennifer A. Whitson and Adam D. Galinsky, “Lacking Control Increases Illusory Pattern Perception,” Science 322 (2008): 115–117.
the one with the structured border: Keisha M. Cutright, “The Beauty of Boundaries: When and Why We Seek Structure in Consumption,” Journal of Consumer Research 38 (2012): 775–790. Also see, Samantha J. Heintzelman, Jason Trent, and Laura A. King, “Encounters with Objective Coherence and the Experience of Meaning in Life,” Psychological Science 24 (2013): 991–998.
reading about the world: Alexa M. Tullett, Aaron C. Kay, and Michael Inzlicht, “Randomness Increases Self-Reported Anxiety and Neurophysiological Correlates of Performance Monitoring,” Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience 10 (2015): 628–635.
perceive in their surroundings: Catherine E. Ross, “Neighborhood Disadvantage and Adult Depression,” Journal of Health and Social Behavior 41 (2000): 177–187.
subset of people: Not all people diagnosed with obsessive-compulsive disorder are motivated to establish order in their surroundings: Miguel Fullana, “Obsessions and Compulsions in the Community: Prevalence, Interference, Help-Seeking, Developmental Stability, and Co-occurring Psychiatric Conditions,” American Journal of Psychiatry 166 (2009): 329–336.
proliferation of conspiracy theories: For discussion, see Landau, Kay, and Whitson, “Compensatory Control and the Appeal of a Structured World.”
Franz Anton Mesmer: I used the following resources to tell Mesmer’s story: George J. Makari, “Franz Anton Mesmer and the Case of the Blind Pianist,” Hospital and Community Psychiatry 45 (1994): 106–110; Derek Forrest, “Mesmer,” International Journal of Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis 50 (2001): 295–308; Douglas J. Lanska and Joseph T. Lanska, “Franz Anton Mesmer and the Rise and Fall of Animal Magnetism: Dramatic Cures, Controversy, and Ultimately a Triumph for the Scientific Method,” in Brain, Mind, and Medicine: Essays in Eighteenth-Century Neuroscience, ed. Harry Whitaker (New York: Springer, 2007), 301–320; Sadie F. Dingfelder, “The First Modern Psychology Study: Or How Benjamin Franklin Unmasked a Fraud and Demonstrated the Power of the Mind,” Monitor on Psychology 41 (2010), www.apa.org/monitor/2010/07-08/franklin; and David A. Gallo and Stanley Finger, “The Power of a Musical Instrument: Franklin, the Mozarts, Mesmer, and the Glass Armonica,” History of Psychology 3 (2000): 326–343.
didn’t miss this point: Benjamin Franklin, Report of Dr. Benjamin Franklin, and Other Commissioners, Charged by the King of France, with the Examination of Animal Magnetism, as Now Practiced at Paris (London: printed for J. Johnson, 1785).
until the mid-twentieth century: This dramatic jump forward is largely owed to an anesthesiologist named Henry Beecher, who published an article in 1955 called “The Powerful Placebo”: Henry Beecher, “The Powerful Placebo,” Journal of the American Medical Association 159 (1955): 1602–1606.
ancient human tradition: The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica, “Amulet,” Encyclopaedia Britannica.
mythical seal: Joseph Jacobs and M. Seligsohn, “Solomon, Seal of,” Jewish Encyclopedia, www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/13843-solomon-seal-of.
symbol of good fortune: Mukti J. Campion, “How the World Loved the Swastika—Until Hitler Stole It,” BBC News, Oct. 23, 2014, www.bbc.com/news/magazine-29644591.
worry dolls: Charles E. Schaefer and Donna Cangelosi, Essential Play Therapy Techniques: Time-Tested Approaches (New York: The Guilford Press, 2016).
Heidi Klum: Dan Snierson, “Heidi Klum Reveals Victoria’s Secret,” Entertainment Weekly, Nov. 21, 2003.
Michael Jordan: NBA.com Staff, “Legends Profile: Michael Jordan,” NBA, www.nba.com/history/legends/profiles/michael-jordan.
healing practice of crystals has become big business: Rina Raphael, “Is There a Crystal Bubble? Inside the Billion-Dollar ‘Healing’ Gemstone Industry,” Fast Company, May 5, 2017.
it’s quite rational: For an excellent discussion of the psychological gymnastics that explain how rational individuals endorse superstitious beliefs, see Jane Risen, “Believing What We Do Not Believe: Acquiescence to Superstitious Beliefs and Other Powerful Intuitions,” Psychological Review 123 (2016): 182–207.
Study after study demonstrates: Yoni K. Ashar, Luke J. Chang, and Tor D. Wager, “Brain Mechanisms of the Placebo Effect: An Affective Appraisal Account,” Annual Review of Clinical Psychology 13 (2017): 73–98; Ted J. Kaptchuk and Franklin G. Miller, “Placebo Effects in Medicine,” New England Journal of Medicine 373 (2015): 8–9; and Tor D. Wager and Lauren Y. Atlas, “The Neuroscience of Placebo Effects: Connecting Context, Learning and Health,” Nature Reviews Neuroscience 16 (2015): 403–418.
irritable bowel syndrome patients: Ted J. Kaptchuk et al., “Components of Placebo Effect: Randomized Controlled Trial in Patients with Irritable Bowel Syndrome,” British Medical Journal 336 (2008): 999–1003.
migraine sufferers: Karin Meissner et al., “Differential Effectiveness of Placebo Treatments: A Systematic Review of Migraine Prophylaxis,” JAMA Internal Medicine 173 (2013): 1941–1951.
improved respiratory symptoms for asthmatics: Michael E. Wechsler et al., “Active Albuterol or Placebo, Sham Acupuncture, or No Intervention in Asthma,” New England Journal of Medicine 365 (2011): 119–126.
varies notably across diseases and patients: For examples, see Andrew L. Geers et al., “Dispositional Optimism Predicts Placebo Analgesia,” The Journal of Pain 11 (2010): 1165–1171; Marta Pecina et al., “Personality Trait Predictors of Placebo Analgesia and Neurobiological Correlates,” Neuropsychopharmacology 38 (2013): 639–646.
injected a promising new chemical treatment: C. Warren Olanow et al., “Gene Delivery of Neurturin to Putamen and Substantia Nigra in Parkinson Disease: A Double-Blind, Randomized, Controlled Trial,” Annals of Neurology 78 (2015): 248–257. For additional evidence that placebos benefit Parkinson’s disease, see Raul de la Fuente-Fernandez et al., “Expectation and Dopamine Release: Mechanism of the Placebo Effect in Parkinson’s Disease,” Science 293 (2001): 1164–1166; Christopher G. Goetz, “Placebo Response in Parkinson’s Disease: Comparisons Among 11 Trials Covering Medical and Surgical Interventions,” Movement Disorders 23 (2008): 690–699; American Parkinson Disease Association, “The Placebo Effect in Clinical Trials in Parkinson’s Disease,” March, 6, 2017, www.apdaparkinson.org/article/the-placebo-effect-in-clinical-trials-in-parkinsons-disease/.
after participants completed: Leonie Koban et al., “Frontal-Brainstem Pathways Mediating Placebo Effects on Social Rejection,” Journal of Neuroscience 37 (2017): 3621–3631.
help people with chatter: The flip side to the emotionally fortifying boost of placebos holds as well. In a phenomenon dubbed the “nocebo” effect, believing that a substance will harm you has also been shown to have that effect in some circumstances. Paul Enck, Fabrizio Benedetti, and Manfred Schedlowski, “New Insights into the Placebo and Nocebo Responses,” Neuron 59 (2008): 195–206.
depression and anxiety: For review, see Ashar, Chang, and Wager, “Brain Mechanisms of the Placebo Effect.”
several months: Arif Khan, Nick Redding, and Walter A. Brown, “The Persistence of the Placebo Response in Antidepressant Clinical Trials,” Journal of Psychiatric Research 42 (2008): 791–796.
Tig Notaro: Stuart Heritage, “Tig Notaro and Her Jaw-Dropping Cancer Standup Routine,” Guardian, Oct. 19, 2012; Andrew Marantz, “Good Evening. Hello. I Have Cancer,” New Yorker, Oct. 5, 2012; Vanessa Grigoriadis, “Survival of the Funniest,” Vanity Fair, Dec. 18, 2012; and Tig Notaro, Live, 2012.
brain is a prediction machine: Andy Clark, “Whatever Next? Predictive Brains, Situated Agents, and the Future of Cognitive Science,” Behavioral and Brain Sciences 36 (2013): 181–204.
generalizes to our internal experiences: Irving Kirsch, “Response Expectancy and the Placebo Effect,” International Review of Neurobiology 138 (2018): 81–93; and Christian Büchel et al., “Placebo Analgesia: A Predictive Coding Perspective,” Neuron 81 (2014): 1223–1239.
strengthen our beliefs: For an excellent discussion of the role that preconscious and deliberative processes play in placebo effects, see Ashar, Chang, and Wager, “Brain Mechanisms of the Placebo Effect”; Donald D. Price, Damien G. Finniss, and Fabrizio Benedetti, “A Comprehensive Review of the Placebo Effect: Recent Advances and Current Thought,” Annual Review of Psychology 59 (2008): 565–590; and Karin Meissner and Klaus Linde, “Are Blue Pills Better Than Green? How Treatment Features Modulate Placebo Effects,” International Review of Neurobiology 139 (2018): 357–378; John D. Jennings et al., “Physicians’ Attire Influences Patients’ Perceptions in the Urban Outpatient Surgery Setting,” Clinical Orthopaedics and Related Research 474 (2016): 1908–1918.
rodents and other animals respond to placebos: As reviewed in Ashar, Chang, and Wager, “Brain Mechanisms of the Placebo Effect.” Also see R. J. Herrnstein, “Placebo Effect in the Rat,” Science 138 (1962): 677–678; and Jian-You Gou et al., “Placebo Analgesia Affects the Behavioral Despair Tests and Hormonal Secretions in Mice,” Psychopharmacology 217 (2011): 83–90; and K. R. Munana, D. Zhang, and E. E. Patterson, “Placebo Effect in Canine Epilepsy Trials,” Journal of Veterinary Medicine 24 (2010): 166–170.
brain and spinal cord: Tor D. Wager and Lauren Y. Atlas, “The Neuroscience of Placebo Effects.”
brain’s pleasure circuitry: Hilke Plassmann et al., “Marketing Actions Can Modulate Neural Representations of Experienced Pleasantness,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 105 (2008): 1050–1054.
hunger hormone ghrelin: Alia J. Crum et al., “Mind over Milkshakes: Mindsets, Not Just Nutrients, Determine Ghrelin Response,” Health Psychology 30 (2011): 424–429.
stronger for psychological outcomes: Ashar, Chang, and Wager, “Brain Mechanisms of the Placebo Effect.”
placebos can act as enhancers: Slavenka Kam-Hansen et al., “Altered Placebo and Drug Labeling Changes the Outcome of Episodic Migraine Attacks,” Science Translational Medicine 6 (2014): 218ra5.
potent persuasive device: For a classic reference, see Richard E. Petty and John T. Cacioppo, “The Elaboration Likelihood Model of Persuasion,” Advances in Experimental Social Psychology 19 (1986): 123–205.
Ted Kaptchuk and his team: Ted J. Kaptchuk et al., “Placebos Without Deception: A Randomized Controlled Trial in Irritable Bowel Syndrome,” PLoS One 5 (2010): e15591.
our own experiment: Darwin Guevarra et al., “Are They Real? Non-deceptive Placebos Lead to Robust Declines in a Neural Biomarker of Emotional Reactivity,” Nature Communications (in press).
nondeceptive placebos: James E. G. Charlesworth et al., “Effects of Placebos Without Deception Compared with No Treatment: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis,” Journal of Evidence-Based Medicine 10 (2017): 97–107.
Bronislaw Malinowski: Raymond W. Firth, “Bronislaw Malinowski: Polish-Born British Anthropologist,” Encyclopaedia Britannica, Feb. 2019; Katharine Fletcher, “Bronislaw Malinowski—LSE pioneer of Social Anthropology,” June 13, 2017, LSE History, https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/lsehistory/2017/06/13/bronislaw-malinowski-lse-pioneer-of-social-anthropology/; Michael W. Young and Bronislaw Malinowski, Malinowski’s Kiriwina: Fieldwork Photography, 1915–1918 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998).
betel nuts: Cindy Sui and Anna Lacey, “Asia’s Deadly Secret: The Scourge of the Betel Nut,” BBC News, https://www.bbc.com/news/health-31921207; “Bronislaw Malinowski (1884–1942),” Lapham’s Quarterly, www.laphamsquarterly.org/contributors/malinowski.
“I kick thee down”: Bronislaw Malinowski, Argonauts of the Western Pacific: An Account of Native Enterprise and Adventure in the Archipelagoes of Melanesian New Guinea (Long Grove, IL: Waveland Press, 2010), loc. 5492–5493, Kindle; Bronislaw Malinowski, “Fishing in the Trobriand Islands,” Man 18 (1918): 87–92; Bronislaw Malinowski, Man, Science, Religion, and Other Essays (Boston: Beacon Press, 1948).
psychology of human beings: I drew from this excellent review on the psychology of rituals for this section of the book: Nicholas M. Hobson et al., “The Psychology of Rituals: An Integrative Review and Process-Based Framework,” Personality and Social Psychology Review 22 (2018): 260–284.
West Point: “10 Facts: The United States Military Academy at West Point,” American Battlefield Trust, www.battlefields.org/learn/articles/10-facts-united-states-military-academy-west-point.
business world as well: Samantha McLaren, “A ‘No Shoes’ Policy and 4 Other Unique Traditions That Make These Company Cultures Stand Out,” Linkedin Talent Blog, Nov. 12, 2018, business.linkedin.com/talent-solutions/blog/company-culture/2018/unique-traditions-that-make-these-company-cultures-stand-out.
Wade Boggs: George Gmelch, “Baseball Magic,” in Ritual and Belief, ed. David Hicks (Plymouth, UK: AltaMira Press, 2010): 253–262; Jay Brennan, “Major League Baseball’s Top Superstitions and Rituals,” Bleacher Report, Oct. 3, 2017, bleacherreport.com/articles/375113-top-mlb-superstitions-and-rituals; and Matthew Hutson, “The Power of Rituals,” Boston Globe, Aug. 18, 2016.
Steve Jobs: Steve Jobs, Commencement Address, Stanford University, June 12, 2005, Stanford News, June 14, 2005.
Michael Norton and Francesca Gino: Michael I. Norton and Francesca Gino, “Rituals Alleviate Grieving for Loved Ones, Lovers, and Lotteries,” Journal of Experimental Psychology: General 143 (2014): 266–272.
naturally turn: Martin Lang et al., “Effects of Anxiety on Spontaneous Ritualized Behavior,” Current Biology 25 (2015): 1892–1897; Giora Keinan, “Effects of Stress and Tolerance of Ambiguity on Magical Thinking,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 67 (1994): 48–55; and Stanley J. Rachman and Ray J. Hodgson, Obsessions and Compulsions (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1980).
recited psalms: Richard Sosis and W. Penn Handwerker, “Psalms and Coping with Uncertainty: Religious Israeli Women’s Responses to the 2006 Lebanon War,” American Anthropologist 113 (2011): 40–55.
reciting the rosary: Matthew W. Anastasi and Andrew B. Newberg, “A Preliminary Study of the Acute Effects of Religious Ritual on Anxiety,” Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine 14 (2008): 163–165.
consume fewer calories: Allen Ding Tian et al., “Enacting Rituals to Improve Self-Control,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 114 (2018): 851–876.
“Don’t Stop Believin’ ”: Alison Wood Brooks et al., “Don’t Stop Believing: Rituals Improve Performance by Decreasing Anxiety,” Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 13 (2016): 71–85. There is also evidence indicating that performing rituals reduces activation in brain systems that become active when people experience anxiety. Nicholas M. Hobson, Devin Bonk, and Michael Inzlicht, “Rituals Decrease the Neural Response to Performance Failure,” PeerJ 5 (2017): e3363.
aren’t simply habits or routines: Hobson et al., “Psychology of Rituals.”
Australian Olympic swimmer Stephanie Rice: Gary Morley, “Rice’s Rituals: The Golden Girl of Australian Swimming,” CNN, June 28, 2012, www.cnn.com/2012/06/28/sport/olympics-2012-stephanie-rice-australia/index.html.
ritualized cleaning behaviors: Lang et al., “Effects of Anxiety on Spontaneous Ritualized Behavior.”
socially rejected by their peers: Rachel E. Watson-Jones, Harvey Whitehouse, and Cristine H. Legare, “In-Group Ostracism Increases High-Fidelity Imitation in Early Childhood,” Psychological Science 27 (2016): 34–42.
desired goals: E. Tory Higgins, “Self-Discrepancy: A Theory Relating Self and Affect,” Psychological Review 94 (1987): 319–340; and Charles S. Carver and Michael F. Scheier, “Control Theory: A Useful Conceptual Framework for Personality-Social, Clinical, and Health Psychology,” Psychological Bulletin 92 (1982): 111–135. Also see Earl K. Miller and Jonathan D. Cohen, “An Integrative Theory of Prefrontal Cortex Function,” Annual Review of Neuroscience 24 (2001): 167–202.
karaoke study: Brooks et al., “Don’t Stop Believing.”
our species didn’t evolve: This is not to say that meditation and mindfulness aren’t useful. Like the other techniques reviewed in this chapter, they are tools that are useful in some contexts. The broader point is that it is not useful (or feasible) to continually focus on the present, because succeeding often requires us to reflect on the future and past.
useful in small doses: Dacher Keltner and James J. Gross, “Functional Accounts of Emotions,” Cognition and Emotion 13 (1999): 467–480; and Randolph M. Nesse, “Evolutionary Explanations of Emotions,” Human Nature 1 (1989): 261–289.
impossible for them to feel pain: U.S. National Library of Medicine, “Congenital Insensitivity to Pain,” National Institutes of Health, Dec. 10, 2019, ghr.nlm.nih.gov/condition/congenital-insensitivity-to-pain#genes.
into a curriculum: The curriculum for this project focuses broadly on teaching students how to control their emotions using several of the strategies reviewed in Chatter, along with other empirically supported tools.
the pilot study: This study took place during the winter of 2019 in a high school in the northeastern United States. Students were randomly assigned to the toolbox curriculum or a “control” curriculum that taught students about the science of learning. The curricula were co-created by scientists (Angela Duckworth, Daniel Willingham, John Jonides, Ariana Orvell, Benjamin Katz, and myself) and teachers (Rhiannon Killian and Keith Desrosiers).
different situations: For a discussion of the importance of flexibly using different emotion-management strategies, see Cecilia Cheng, “Cognitive and Motivational Processes Underlying Coping Flexibility: A Dual-Process Model,” Journal of Personal and Social Psychology 84 (2003): 425–438; and George A. Bonanno and Charles L. Burton, “Regulatory Flexibility: An Individual Differences Perspective on Coping and Emotion Regulation,” Perspectives on Psychological Science 8 (2013): 591–612.
when used interchangeably: James J. Gross, “Emotion Regulation: Current Status and Future Prospects,” Psychological Inquiry 26 (2015): 1–26; Ethan Kross, “Emotion Regulation Growth Points: Three More to Consider,” Psychological Inquiry 26 (2015): 69–71.