Selected Media

Why your most important relationship is with your inner voice

The Guardian

Your internal monologue shapes mental wellbeing, says psychologist Ethan Kross. He has the tools to improve your mind’s backchat

Why You Should Talk to Yourself in the Third Person

VICE

Evidence suggests that there are real benefits of talking to yourself in the third person—in your head, not out loud.

How to Stop the Negative Chatter in Your Head

The Wall Street Journal

A neuroscientist explains how to curb unhelpful thoughts.

What to Do When You Can’t Catch a Break

The New York Times

Researchers say the key to breaking the cycle is to detach yourself from the frustrations you feel — without pretending the pain doesn’t exist.

Facebook Is Changing. What Does That Mean for Your News Feed?

The New York Times

Lab research motivates changes to Facebook’s newsfeed.

Why Talking About Yourself in the Third Person Could Help Control Your Emotions

World Economic Forum

During stressful times, talking to yourself in the third person could help you control your emotions.

The Power of Pretending: What Would a Hero Do?

The Wall Street Journal

We tend to think of self-control and will power as if they were intrinsic, as if some people just have more control than others. But our attitude, what psychologists call our “mind-set,” may be as important as our abilities.

Have Smartphones Destroyed a Generation?

The Atlantic

More comfortable online than out partying, post-Millennials are safer, physically, than adolescents have ever been.

The ‘How Are You?’ Culture Clash

The New York Times

Psychologists at the University of Michigan have shown that, while Russians are, indeed, more prone to brooding than Americans, their open embrace of negative experiences might ultimately be healthier, resulting in fewer symptoms of depression.

The Benefits of Talking to Yourself

The New York Times

The fairly common habit of talking aloud to yourself is what psychologists call external self-talk. And although self-talk is sometimes looked at as just an eccentric quirk, research has found that it can influence behavior and cognition.

Pain, Heat, and Emotion with Functional MRI

New England Journal of Medicine

The studies conducted by Wager and colleagues serve as an example of how functional neuroimaging may help clinicians assess clinical symptoms, such as somatic and emotional pain, that were previously thought to be impenetrable.

‘Self Talk’: When Talking to Yourself, the Way You Do It Makes a Difference

The Wall Street Journal

Is Facebook Luring You Into Being Depressed?

Nautilus

In many ways, social networking sites are giant experiments on one of our species’ most essential characteristics: our social nature. So it shouldn’t be a surprise there are unintended consequences. “No one constructed something to make people feel bad or good,” says Ethan Kross, a social psychologist at the University of Michigan. “But, what we’re looking at is, how does it actually play out and impact people in daily life?”

The Voice of Reason

Psychology Today

Everyone engages in self-talk. But much depends on the way we do it. Scientists now find that the right words can free us from our fears and make us as wise about ourselves as we often are about others.

On Instagram, the Summer You’re Not Having

The New York Times

A recent study measured the emotional effects of Facebook use, finding that passively using the platform (scrolling through your feed and looking at people’s posts the way you would on Instagram) enhances envy, which in turn makes people feel worse over all.

Pronouns Matter When Psyching Yourself Up

Harvard Business Review

Some people seem to have an amazing ability to stay rational no matter what. They efficiently make good, clear decisions while the rest of us waste energy doing things like panicking about upcoming tasks, ruminating pointlessly, or refusing to move on from our failures. What makes these people so different and can we be more like them?

Introspective or Narcissistic?

The New York Times

Psychologists and others have given some thought to this question. The upshot of their work is that there seems to be a paradox at the heart of introspection. The self is something that can be seen more accurately from a distance than from close up. The more you can yank yourself away from your own intimacy with yourself, the more reliable your self-awareness is likely to be.

Is the World More Depressed?

The New York Times

We have recently learned that Facebook leads people to feel less good in the moment and less satisfied with their lives. The authors of a University of Michigan study speculate that what drives that outcome is social comparison. Other people post flattering photographs and funny comments while your own life just feels so dull.