Principles for living
Seeing it from one step up
In shortStepping back, or talking about yourself by name, helps people think more calmly about a hard moment.
The idea
Marcus Aurelius looked at his troubles as if from very high up, small in the middle of everything. We now know that talking about oneself in the third person (‘what can Rui do now?’) or imagining how this will look in a year helps people think more calmly. It is a way of putting the problem at its own level: one moment, not a whole life.
What to try
- When something goes wrong, ask: ‘how will we see this in a week? and in a year?’
- Invite the child to talk about themselves by name: ‘what does Ana need now?’
- Do this after the hard moment, once the body has calmed, not during it.
The common mistake
Using ‘that’s nothing’ as distance; shrinking the feeling is not the same as seeing the moment at its own size.
Want to know more?
Start here
Short, plain pieces by the researchers and good writers.
Books
The core book on the theory of constructed emotion: why emotions are constructed rather than set off.
See on Amazon ›Why most people recover, and what flexibility looks like in practice.
See on Amazon ›Amazon links are affiliate links: if you buy, Bounded Uncertainty receives a small commission at no cost to you.
The science behind itHow strong the evidence is, the model, videos and references.
How strong the evidence is
Promising Good studies, but little tested with children at home or school, or the step to daily life is our interpretation.
Kross and Ayduk (2017) review evidence that self-distancing (third person, observer perspective, temporal distance) reduces emotional reactivity and rumination without suppressing emotion. Gross and John (2003) showed that suppression is associated with worse outcomes than reappraisal, which separates this exercise from ‘hiding what one feels’. In hierarchical terms, distancing brings in higher, slower levels of the model, which put the local error in context instead of being revised by it.
References
- Kross, E., & Ayduk, O. (2017). Self-distancing: Theory, research, and current directions. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 55, 81–136.
- Gross, J. J., & John, O. P. (2003). Individual differences in two emotion regulation processes: Implications for affect, relationships, and well-being. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 85(2), 348–362.
- Marcus Aurelius (c. 170/2006). Meditations (M. Hammond, Trans.). Penguin.
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