Speaking to oneself in the third person makes one wiser

Blog entry #99

Socrates said, "The unexamined life is not worth living." The path to true wisdom lies in knowing oneself. While my previous post talked about the various introspective questions to ask oneself, this one suggests a method to delve into self-reflection. Ruminating over your thoughts and concerns is discouraged because it drives you into a rut and would probably lead you astray rather than help you narrow down the root issues. Research depicts that people prone to rumination often succumb to depression due to their inability to make decisions under pressure. 

Enter 'Illeism'. Change your perspective slightly and reiterate your problem out loud, but this time, in third person. It helps you circumvent the biases in your head when you reframe 'I am frustrated...' to 'Mary is frustrated...' Take a specific situation, such as changing your job. Adopting this zoomed-out perspective will not only help you see the pros and cons more clearly, but also weigh the risks in a distanced, nonchalant manner.

Researcher Igor Grossmann found that illeism, as exemplified by Julius Caesar, resulted in people having better emotional regulation and stability. Keeping a third-person diary had the participants experience muted negative feelings and more accurate predictions of their positive emotions. It was found that wiser reasoning allowed them to find enhanced mechanisms of coping with their thoughts and feelings.

Though it is tough to improve intelligence in a generic manner via brain-training, the above research more than hints that wise reasoning and better decision making are indubitably within one's power, if one sought to do so.