Behavioral New World
June 1, 2026
Don’t quite feel like yourself today? That could be a huge plus.
Research published in 2017 (link) examined methods for increasing perseverance in children.[1] The subjects, four- and six-year-olds, were given a tedious, repetitive task—pressing a key when the image of cheese appeared on a laptop screen. The children were asked to continue as long as possible, but were also allowed to take a break to play a game on an iPad, a more enjoyable activity, a break from the tedious task.
The researchers divided the children into three groups: 1) those who were told to think about someone really good at working hard; 2) those who were told to think of themselves in the third person (e.g., “Calista is working hard”); and 3) those who were told to think of themselves in the first person (e.g., “I am working hard”). The first two are a form of “psychological distancing” from oneself.
They were asked to work as long as possible on the tedious task. The authors summarize their findings as follows: “…children who impersonated an exemplar other—in this case, such as Batman—spent the most time working, followed by children who took a third-person perspective on the self, and finally, a first-person perspective.”
In short, psychological distancing improved the children’s performance.
Can psychological distancing be of value to adults as well? A recent article (link), titled “Why some of the best athletes in the world pretend to be someone else,” suggests that the answer is Yes. It recounts the story of 13-year-old Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, later to become an NBA superstar, who emulated and tried to “become” Allen Iverson, an NBA superstar at the time.
On a personal note, I—an avid tennis player—have used this approach when I am struggling with my serve. I imitate a professional whose serve I admire. Among others, I “use” John Isner’s serve, including bouncing the ball between my legs before serving and putting my cap on backwards. I think of this as a type of “mind meld” with a far superior server, much like method actors identify with their characters.
My interpretation: By “using” someone else’s serve, I am not responsible for the outcome, even though I am the one hitting it. In turn, this reduces stress, anxiety, and overthinking, thus creating psychological distance from the act of serving. (I am unaware of any research that examines this conjecture in the context of competitive tennis.)
Psychological self-distancing might well improve performance in many settings, e.g., public speaking.[2] (In the original Batman TV series, there were times when Robin adopted Batman’s persona.)
Readers, have you used psychological self-distancing (whether you knew it was called that or not)? Share your experiences in the Comments below.
[1] There are some nuanced differences between perseverance, persistence, resilience, and “grit” (as popularized by Angela Duckworth in her book Grit). For the strangely curious among you, here’s a good discussion (link) of these topics and their relatedness and differences.
[2] Research (link) shows that psychological flexibility is associated with lower levels of public speaking stress. If psychological self-distancing increases psychological flexibility (admittedly just a conjecture on my part), it will be useful to those who fear public speaking.
Yes, I think that thinking about your yourself in the third person as part of a story, can be a good way to distance yourself from the stress of a given situation. I probably need to do that more :)