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Spontaneous Self-Distancing and Adaptive Self-Reflection Across Adolescence

Year: 2015

Type: article

Abstract: Experiments performed primarily with adults show that self-distancing facilitates adaptive self-reflection. However, no research has investigated whether adolescents spontaneously engage in this process or whether doing so is linked to adaptive outcomes. In this study, 226 African American adolescents, aged 11-20, reflected on an anger-related interpersonal experience. As expected, spontaneous self-distancing during reflection predicted lower levels of emotional reactivity by leading adolescents to reconstrue (rather than recount) their experience and blame their partner less. Moreover, the inverse relation between self-distancing and emotional reactivity strengthened with age. These findings highlight the role that self-distancing plays in fostering adaptive self-reflection in adolescence, and begin to elucidate the role that development plays in enhancing the benefits of engaging in this process.

Source: Child Development

DOI: 10.1111/cdev.12370

Authors: Rachel E White, Ethan Kross, Angela L Duckworth

Institutions: University of Pennsylvania, University of Michigan

Language: English

Topic: Identity, Memory, and Therapy

Subfield: Developmental and Educational Psychology

Field: Psychology

Domain: Social Sciences

Open Access status: green

Funders: John Templeton Foundation, National Institute on Aging

Awards: Fostering Self-Control: Strategies that Facilitate Working, Waiting, and Emotion Regulation, The Economics and Psychology of Self-Control