“The ease of distanced self-talk does offer exciting potential applications,” she says. When participants had practiced self-distancing (asking “What does David want?”, rather than “What do I want?) they were more likely to choose the healthier option.Īlthough further studies will be needed to test the long-term benefits of the approach, Furman thinks that it could be incorporated into a variety of different weight-loss schemes. Working with Kross, Furman recently asked participants to practice self-distancing as they were faced with the choice of various kinds of food – for example, fruit compared to candy. And this has led some researchers to wonder whether it could also improve elements of self-control like determination, by making sure that we keep focused on our goals even in the face of distraction. Self-distancing seems to enable people to reap these positive effects by leading them to focus on the bigger picture – it’s possible to see events as part of a broader plan rather than getting bogged down in immediate feelings. And those feelings of greater confidence were reflected in the quality of the presentation itself, according to the judgement of independent observers asked to rate their performance. Once again, the creation of the psychological distance helped the participants to master their anxiety, reducing both their subjective ratings of the emotion and objective measures, such as the changes in heart rate and blood pressure that usually accompany threatening events. Like the distanced visualisation, this advice was designed to encourage the person to see the situation from an outside perspective. Beforehand, they were advised to think through their emotions about the challenge using the third person (for example, “David feels…”) as if they were a separate entity, rather than the more immersive first person (for example, “I feel”). In other experiments, participants were asked to give a small public talk. It allows us to rein in undesirable feelings like anxiety, increases our perseverance on challenging tasks, and boosts our self-control. “Self-distancing gives us a little bit of extra space to think rationally about the situation,” says Rachel White, assistant professor of psychology at Hamilton College in New York State. Adopting an alter ego is an extreme form of ‘self-distancing’, which involves taking a step back from our immediate feelings to allow us to view a situation more dispassionately. Adele said the strategy helped her give her best to every performance during her breakout year.Īlthough the embodiment of a fictional persona may seem like a gimmick for pop stars, new research suggests there may be some real psychological benefits to the strategy. The persona was a combination of Beyoncé’s Sasha Fierce persona and the (real) country music star June Carter. Inspired by an emotional meeting with Beyoncé herself, Adele followed suit, telling Rolling Stone magazine in 2011 about her creation of ‘Sasha Carter’. It was a strategy that she continued to use until 2010, when she felt she had matured enough to avoid the psychological crutch. “Usually when I hear the chords, when I put on my stilettos, like the moment right before when you’re nervous… then Sasha Fierce appears, and my posture and the way I speak and everything is different,” she told Oprah Winfrey in 2008. How do the world’s top stars muster the poise and determination to stand on stage, despite the nerves and anxiety of having a bad performance? For both Beyoncé and Adele, the secret has been the creation of an alter ego.īeyoncé’s was the assertive and empowered ‘Sasha Fierce’, who allowed her to perform with extra self-confidence and sensuality.
Alter ego game play full#
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