Third-person self-talk facilitates emotion regulation without engaging cognitive control: Converging evidence from ERP and fMRI
Open accessAbstract
Does silently talking to yourself in the third-person constitute a relatively effortless form of self control? We hypothesized that it does under the premise that third-person self-talk leads people to think about the self similar to how they think about others, which provides them with the psychological distance needed to facilitate self control. We tested this prediction by asking participants to reflect on feelings elicited by viewing aversive images (Study 1) and recalling negative autobiographical memories (Study 2) using either “I” or their name while measuring neural activity via ERPs (Study 1) and fMRI (Study 2). Study 1 demonstrated that third-person self-talk reduced an ERP marker of self-referential emotional reactivity (i.e., late positive potential) within the first second of viewing aversive images without enhancing an ERP marker of cognitive control (i.e., stimulus preceding negativity). Conceptually replicating these results, Study 2 demonstrated that third-person self-talk was linked with reduced levels of activation in an a priori defined fMRI marker of self-referential processing (i.e., medial prefrontal cortex) when participants reflected on negative memories without eliciting increased levels of activity in a priori defined fMRI markers of cognitive control. Together, these results suggest that third-person self-talk may constitute a relatively effortless form of self-control.
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During the SC, participants could observe the mechanisms of their own behaviour as if it were the behaviour of someone else, which would have triggered psychological distance.
“During the SC, participants could observe the mechanisms of their own behaviour as if it were the behaviour of someone else, which would have triggered psychological distance33.”
From An experimental study of a virtual reality counselling paradigm using embodied self-dialogue (2019) · cites this paper as [33]
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- Authors
- Moser, J. S., Dougherty, A., Mattson, W. I., Katz, B., Moran, T. P., Guevarra, D., Shablack, H., Ayduk, O., Jonides, J., Berman, M. G., & Kross, E.
- Affiliations
- Michigan State University (US)
- University of Michigan (US)
- Emory University (US)
- University of Chicago (US)
- Corresponding author
- Moser, Jason S.
- Kross, Ethan
- ORCID
- Venue
- Scientific Reports
- Published
- 2017-07-03
- Volume
- 7
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 4519-4519
- ISSN
- 2045-2322 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC5495792
- OpenAlex
- W2725027191
- Cited by
- 114
- References
- 36
- Citations by year
- 2026: 10 · 2025: 15 · 2024: 14 · 2023: 8 · 2022: 14 · 2021: 18 · 2020: 16 · 2019: 11 · 2018: 7 · 2017: 1
- FWCI
- 13.71
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Locations
- Scientific Reports (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
- eScholarship (California Digital Library) (submittedVersion)
- eScholarship (California Digital Library) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- VTechWorks (Virginia Tech) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- Funders
- John Templeton Foundation (348747)
- University of Michigan (349798)
- Michigan State University
- National Institutes of Health (HD065879)
- College of Engineering, Michigan State University
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Social Representations and Identity
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Neural and Behavioral Psychology Studies
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Anxiety, Depression, Psychometrics, Treatment, Cognitive Processes
- Keywords
- emotion regulation, cognitive control, self-control, psychological distance, self-referential processing, late positive potential, stimulus-preceding negativity, medial prefrontal cortex
- MeSH terms
- Self-Control, Brain Mapping, Cognition, Emotions, Evoked Potentials, Female, Humans, Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Male
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