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.  

Will a messy desk make you more creative?

It may be time to mess things up.

If you’re looking to boost your creativity, it may be time to forgo neat and clean, to dispense with the notion that a tidy desk always equates to higher productivity. 

In a series of experiments, University of Minnesota marketing professor Kathleen Vohs and colleagues found that individuals experience a creative boost when working in a messy environment (what Vohs calls “visual disorder”). The takeaway, of course, is that when it comes to productivity – at work, at home, in school – messy has its place, alongside neat and clean. In Vohs’ research paper: “The Psychology of Messiness: How Disorder Can Make You More Creative,” her abstract emphasizes that: “. . . different environments suit different outcomes.”

So aside from “visual disorder,” what other elements promote creativity?

Drink Wine, Create a Mind Map, Keep Moving

These are three of a series of ideas shared by The Young Entrepreneurs Council, which reached out to its members to suggest ways to boost creativity.

1.      Drink Wine – Urged Erika London, founder of iAdventure.com: “Allow your employees to unleash their ideas outside the confining walls of an office over a glass or two of wine. You’ll be surprised how quickly the combination of a relaxed environment, and some vino will transform a casual hang out into an innovative meeting . . . .”

2.      Create a Mind Map – Explained Nathalie Lussier, foundation of Nathalie Lussier Media: “Start with a topic or question, and mindmap your way around it. Don’t censor yourself as you come up with all the surrounding topics and bubbles that go with your initial topics. This type of ‘hyperlinked’ thinking is what allows us to come up with new ideas. You can also go really deep on a thread, which can help spur creativity in other threads of your mindmap.  Mindmap as a group, and this takes on a whole new life!”

3.      Keep Moving – Shared Erica Dhawan, co-founder of Galahads: “To think creatively, keep moving. . . . Simply taking a walk while talking about important things makes the conversation more meaningful, so why do we sit in conference rooms instead of walking and talking? To think creatively. . . . What do I do? Bollywood dance breaks! Seriously — I have Bollywood-inspired Innovative Moves workshops.”

Thetinylife.com offered 10 tips of its own, we share three here:

1.      “Extend your social circle. . . . We often find ourselves in the company of very similar people with overlapping viewpoints on things . . . But I have found some of the most growth occurs when two groups of people come together. . . . The other viewpoint can also tease out weaknesses that need to be addressed.”

2.      “Take a shower. I thought I was the odd one when I said my best thinking happens in the shower.  I don’t know what it is about taking a shower, but it brings a clarity and peace that can be hard to find in the modern world.  Well it turns out that I am not as weird as I thought, because a study has been done about the power of showers to spur creative thinking.”

3.      Get tactile – try a white board, in place of a computer screen. “I am standing, writing fast [in a] stream of consciousness. When I am mulling something over, I am pacing, tossing a ball, doing something other than sitting still.  I think the big space of the white board and hand writing are key.  Often after a session like this, I will copy the board into a mind map on my computer.”

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Do you have a winning mentality?

“It’s time that each and every one of us make our decisions out of what we stand to gain, not what we might lose.” – Ian Robertson, “The Winning Effect”

If you’re a professional athlete, winning is clearly a priority. Take the current NBA or NHL playoffs, it's win and advance. Lose and go home. It’s a simple formula – for pro athletes, their livelihood depends on it.

But in many ways, so does ours.

Psychologists affirm what we know intuitively, that each of us is genetically programming to strive, to seek, to excel.  In the world of sports, the lines are clearly drawn, yet these same competitive forces guide our relationships, our careers, our decisions and our thoughts.

Competing - in sports and in business – has always been a central part of my life. I can still remember the day, many years ago, when a close friend told me, point-blank: “You’re the most competitive person that I’ve ever met.” I didn’t take kindly to the remark, and soon came to regard my burning desire to win as a negative force (I rated winning as a +1, and losing a -9, so I was highly motivated to win, to avoid losing!). Over time, however, I’ve come to realize that the competitive drive inside all of us – if harnessed in the right fashion – can help us grow, contribute and succeed.    

Two types of life success

In his book “The Winning Effect,” author and psychology professor Ian Robertson explains two types of life success (in an interview with bgtrustonline.com):

 “Success has two main elements to it . . . The first is objective success, that is you win a gold medal or a Nobel Prize or you get an Oscar nomination – by external standards you are successful. The second aspect is success in achieving goals which are authentic in terms of your own values and aspirations in life. By definition, only a few people can be successful vis-à-vis the first type of success but, potentially, everyone can feel successful in the second type.”

The desire to win, according to Robertson, is brain-altering: “Success increases testosterone in both men and women [which] in turn increases the brain’s chemical messenger dopamine, and that alters brain function.” So striving to win – on or off the court – is part of our physiological makeup. 

How can we fully harness, and appreciate, our desire to excel?

1.      Realize that planning and technical skills come first. Jeffrey Spencer, in a piece for psychologytoday.com, notes that: “All prolific winners know that life structure and soundness of action always precede talent and will in creating success. Just look around, there’s no shortage of people with incredible talent and will that have dismal, unfulfilled lives because they never developed the planning and technical skills to manifest their ambitions.” 

2.      Avoid trying to emulate a high achiever (if you’re a parent, don’t “hide the ladder”). Robertson maintains that trying to “follow in the footsteps” of a mentor or parent is a dangerous path. Explained Robertson, in the interview with bgtrustonline.com: “If your parent is very successful, but doesn’t accurately portray the bumps along the way to that successful stage [referred to as ‘hiding the ladder’] then, particularly if you admire your parents, you have an enormously high goal for yourself.”

3.      Embrace your desire to win (however you define it). Offered J. Patrick Dobel, in his blog “Point of the Game”: “The desire to win leads to testing oneself against others as a way to increase one's own development as a human and athlete. The outcome of these encounters can be . . .  personal growth . . . . These tests also generate innovation . . . .”

4.      Improve your success skills. Robertson emphasized, in that same interview, that: “Becoming a consistent winner is a learned skill anyone can learn at any time. We should never shy away from practicing or improving on our success skills as every time we succeed we pay homage to the gift of our talents, the opportunity to succeed, to our mentors, and the chance to inspire others to become their own champions . . . It’s time that each and every one of us make our decisions out of what we stand to gain, not what we might lose.”

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