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Dealing with a personal dilemma? Instead of giving yourself advice

from your own point of view, pretend that a friend is giving you wise

words.

That’s right—talk to yourself, and refer to yourself in third person.

A study in Psychological Science finds that we have a bias in ourselves

when it comes to wise reasoning.

“We call the bias Solomon’s Paradox, after the king who was known for his

wisdom, but who still failed at making personal decisions,” said Igor

Grossmann, Ph.D., of the University of Waterloo in Canada. He conducted a

series of experiments along with Ethan Kross, Ph.D., from the University of

Michigan.

They asked participants in monogamous romantic relationships, to think

about a theoretical issue in which the other person cheated. Then they

asked them questions about the fictional scenario. The questions were

designed to tapped into wise reasoning, which is the ability to recognize

the limits of one’s own knowledge, search for a compromise, consider the

perspectives of others, and recognize the possible ways in which the

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scenario could unfold.

When people were asked to weigh in on their own issue, they made less-

wise choices. But when they took the position of a friend giving advice to

someone who had been cheated on (or had cheated on the other person),

they made wiser choices.

In another experiment, Grossmann and Kross asked participants to take

either a first-person perspective (“put yourself in this situation”) or a third-

person perspective (“put yourself in your friend’s shoes”) when reasoning

about the issue. Again, those who thought about the issue from their own

point of view showed less reasoning than those who thought about a

friend’s relationship conflict.

How to talk yourself through a conflict

Distancing ourselves from a personal problem by approaching it as an

outsider may be the key to wise reasoning. The key is calling yourself by

your name, as a friend would, instead of taking the first person (“I need

to…”) approach. So use your own name instead of “I” when talking to

yourself. Heck, speak out loud if you have to. (Example: “Kristen needs

to…”)

“We are the first to demonstrate that there is a simple way to eliminate this

bias in reasoning by talking about ourselves in the third person and using

our name when reflecting on a relationship conflict,” said Grossmann.

“When we employ this strategy, we are more likely to think wisely about an

issue.”

Kristen Fischer writes about health, careers and more for publications such

as Healthline, LifetimeMoms and SheKnows.

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