Perhaps the last person to ask directly about what we should do is ourselves. To make a decision, it is important to look at the situation from a different point of view and reduce the emotional involvement in the upcoming choice. Isn’t that why the best advice is the one we give to our friends?
At first glance, the results of a study by psychologists from the University of Waterloo (Canada) and Michigan (USA) (1) resemble a well-known saying – “I will solve someone else’s misfortune with my hands, but I won’t put my mind to my own.” However, their conclusion sounds more positive. And they even know the means by which it will be easier to make a difficult choice.
The authors of the experiment asked 100 participants, each of whom was in a long-term partnership, to imagine how they would react to a situation of infidelity. In one case – if it happened to them, in the other – if it happened to their friend. Then they were asked about possible options for action: how they would act themselves and what they would advise their friend to do. Those who made decisions for themselves, as a result, made less reasonable decisions than “best friends” (deciding for themselves, the subjects “mercilessly broke with the past”: they acted more abruptly and impulsively, almost did not look for compromise solutions, did not consider various options for action with positions of the future perspective).
Then the participants were offered a second experiment, slightly changing the wording of the question. Half of the subjects were told: “Imagine yourself in a situation where you were cheated on. Ask yourself: Why am I experiencing these feelings? The rest of the group was asked the same question: “Ask yourself, ‘Why does he have these feelings?’ This seemingly purely linguistic nuance turned out to be enough for the decisions of the last participants to become more balanced and they began to look for compromises. The word “he” turned them from the subject of the action into the object, “extracted” from an unpleasant situation and allowed them to change their perspective.
From which a practical conclusion follows: in a difficult life situation, before making a decision, state the events to yourself. Write, as in school years in a notebook, a short story, starting it with the words “he” and “she”. And of course, don’t forget to ask your friend.
1. I. Grossmann, E. Kross «Exploring Solomon’s Paradox. Self-Distancing Eliminates the Self-Other Asymmetry in Wise Reasoning About Close Relationships in Younger and Older Adults», Psychological Science, публикация 8.06.2014.