Spontaneous Self-Distancing and Adaptive Self-Reflection Across Adolescence
Open accessAbstract
Experiments performed primarily with adults show that self-distancing facilitates adaptive self-reflection. However, no research has investigated whether adolescents spontaneously engage in this process or whether doing so is linked to adaptive outcomes. In this study, 226 African American adolescents, aged 11–20, reflected on an anger-related interpersonal experience. As expected, spontaneous self-distancing during reflection predicted lower levels of emotional reactivity by leading adolescents to reconstrue (rather than recount) their experience and blame their partner less. Moreover, the inverse relation between self-distancing and emotional reactivity strengthened with age. These findings highlight the role that self-distancing plays in fostering adaptive self-reflection in adolescence, and begin to elucidate the role that development plays in enhancing the benefits of engaging in this process.
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Brief therapeutic exercises that stimulate a decentred self-perspective reduce negative emotional reactivity towards stressors such as unpleasant memories and negative self-relevant statements.
“Indeed, brief therapeutic exercises that stimulate a decentred self-perspective have been shown to reduce negative emotional reactivity towards stressors like unpleasant memories and negative self-relevant statements.9–13”
From Protocol for a randomised controlled trial investigating an intervention to boost decentering in response to distressing mental experiences during adolescence: the decentering in adolescence study (DECADES) (2022) · cites this paper as [10]
The Self-Distancing and Emotion Regulation section reports that experimentally adopting an outsider’s perspective while recalling an upsetting experience lowered emotional reactivity. The Discussion also links spontaneous self-distancing in adolescents to less upset. Our copy does not describe these exercises as therapeutic or report an effect on reactions to negative self-relevant statements. (LLM, conf=0.85)
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- Authors
- White, R. E., Kross, E., & Duckworth, A. L.
- Affiliations
- University of Pennsylvania (US)
- University of Michigan (US)
- Corresponding author
- White, Rachel E
- Venue
- Child Development
- Publisher
- Oxford University Press (OUP)
- Published
- 2015-07-01
- Volume
- 86
- Issue
- 4
- Pages
- 1272-1281
- ISSN
- 0009-3920 (ISSN-L)
- 1467-8624
- PMC
- PMC4607548
- OpenAlex
- W2117810919
- Cited by
- 63
- References
- 56
- Citations by year
- 2026: 4 · 2025: 5 · 2024: 2 · 2023: 5 · 2022: 7 · 2021: 4 · 2020: 7 · 2019: 7 · 2018: 8 · 2017: 3 · 2016: 9 · 2015: 2
- FWCI
- 18.54
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
- Licence
- Locations
- Child Development (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (acceptedVersion)
- PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
- Deep Blue (University of Michigan) (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- John F. Templeton Foundation (21564)
- National Institute on Aging (K01-AG033182)
- John Templeton Foundation (21564)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Developmental and Educational Psychology › Identity, Memory, and Therapy
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Emotions and Moral Behavior
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Child and Adolescent Psychosocial and Emotional Development
- Keywords
- self-distancing, self-reflection, adolescents, emotional reactivity, anger, interpersonal conflict, blame attribution, cognitive reappraisal, age differences, African American adolescents
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