Why Saying Is Believing — The Science Of Self-Talk

http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2014/10/07/353292408/why-saying-is-believing-the-science-of-self-talk

My note: Can “3rd person” of Facebook posts help our self image? Or hurt it?

David Sarwer is a psychologist and clinical director at the Center for Weight and Eating Disorders at the University of Pennsylvania. The goal, he says, is to remove “negative and pejorative terms” from the patient’s self-talk. The underlying notion is that it’s not enough for a patient to lose physical weight — or gain it, as some women need to — if she doesn’t also change the way her body looks in her mind’s eye.

Branch Coslett, a cognitive neuroscientist at the University of Pennsylvania. It’s clear that we all have an internal representation of our own bodies, Coslett says. imagining a movement over and over can have the same effect on our brains as practicing it physically — as well as lead to similar improvements in performance.

Research published this year suggests that talking to yourself and using the word “I” could stress you out instead of bringing on waves of self-love and acceptance. Psychologist Ethan Kross of the University of Michigan led the work, studying the pronouns people use when they talk to themselves silently, inside their minds. “What we find,” Kross says, “is that a subtle linguistic shift — shifting from ‘I’ to your own name — can have really powerful self-regulatory effects.”

Considering the research of David Sarwer, Branch Coslett, and Ethan Kross, it will be interesting to explore how FB posts affect us and mold our self image or mental self. FB posts are by default 3rd person. Most of us use nevertheless “I,” but each of us has moments when we used FB default and narrated about ourselves from 3rd person. 

Related articles:
Crerand, C. E., Infield, A. L., & Sarwer, D. B. (2007). Psychological Considerations in Cosmetic Breast Augmentation. Plastic Surgical Nursing, 27(3), 146. http://login.libproxy.stcloudstate.edu/login?qurl=http%3a%2f%2fsearch.ebscohost.com%2flogin.aspx%3fdirect%3dtrue%26db%3dedo%26AN%3d27253313%26site%3deds-live%26scope%3dsite

Buxbaum, L. J., & Coslett, H. (2001). Specialised structural descriptions for human body parts: Evidence from autotopagnosia. Cognitive Neuropsychology, 18(4), 289-306. doi:10.1080/02643290042000071  http://login.libproxy.stcloudstate.edu/login?qurl=http%3a%2f%2fsearch.ebscohost.com%2flogin.aspx%3fdirect%3dtrue%26db%3dkeh%26AN%3d4434458%26site%3deds-live%26scope%3dsite