Introspection: are you doing it right?

When it comes to making ourselves feel better, by talking to ourselves or thinking through a problem, it’s easy to believe that we know what we’re doing. 

Perhaps not.

Let’s take self-talk. Research out of Ann Arbor maintains that we’re probably not doing it right. A study conducted at the University of Michigan’s Self-Control and Emotion Laboratory reveals that using your name – that is, your actual name – when you talk to yourself has a world of benefits (e.g., “I need to let that go” vs. “Steve, you need to let that go”).  Said the research abstract: 

“. . . These findings demonstrate that small shifts in the language people use to refer to the self during introspection . . .  influence their ability to regulate their thoughts, feelings, and behavior under social stress, even for vulnerable individuals.”

The research was led by Director Dr. Ethan Kross, and through seven exhaustive studies he and his colleagues concluded that talking to yourself in the third person “promotes self-distancing” and “may be useful in helping people cope not only with depression and anger related to ruminating over the past but also social anxiety surrounding the future.”

Why such a difference? Said a Bitofnews.com report, analyzing the Kross findings: “Self-advice delivered the through the first person ‘I’ . . . puts you in dangerously close proximity to your inherently egocentric self of sense . . . and thus hinders your ability to maximize your competency potential.” Kross and colleagues frame it this way: self-talk that uses your own name “allows people to transcend egocentric viewpoints.”*

The Limits of Introspection

Self-talk aside, what about our internal thought processes? Said author David Sze, in a stirring piece for the Huffington Post: “We give great weight to our introspections, but psychological research tells us that introspection is often a highly inaccurate source of self-knowledge.” Sze added: “An over-reliance on introspection trips one up – decreasing performance, reducing decision quality and even undermining self-insight.”

Sze identified three areas which inhibit introspection:

1.      Biases corrupt introspection. “We go through life with rose-tinted glasses glued to our faces, and we often forget that they are there,” said Sze. “Significant biases include the inclination to see oneself in a positive and socially desirable way (positivity bias), the tendency for people to interpret events in accordance to their previous beliefs and expectations (perceptual confirmation), and the need for self-consistency.”

2.      We cannot perceive or correct biases. Noted Sze: “These subconscious biases cannot be identified through the lens of introspection [and] even if we become aware of our skewed judgments, we find it hard to determine the specific level by which the bias had affected us.”

3.      We cannot penetrate our unconscious. Why can’t we access certain thoughts? It’s not because we repress them, it’s because of how our brain is constructed, and operates, maintains Sze. He explained: “Many researchers adopt the idea of the adaptive unconscious. These processes are not unconscious due to Freudian repression; they are unconscious due to the architecture of the mind.”

What to do?

Sze urges us to focus on two elements: 1. Education; and 2. Process Time. On the former, Sze encourages us to educate ourselves about various cognitive biases (and the situations where they may occur), and learn about possible corrections for these biases.  He notes: “We need to avoid underestimating our susceptibility to biases and overestimating the amount of control we has over our mental processes.”

Second, Sze recommends that we give ourselves the gift of time: “Researchers found that people who had limited time for reflection, or were under cognitive load (e.g., running out of mental RAM) were more likely to display positivity bias. . . . We are much better introspecters when we have sufficient time, energy, and focus (e.g., no multitasking).”

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* Reportedly, according to the bitofnews.com report, when we use our actual name it activates the brain’s cerebral cortex (the brain area linked to thought, awareness and perception). By comparison, when we use “I” in a sentence it activates the brain’s amygdalae, the brain’s emotional center.