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Many college students reduce hazardous drinking (HD) following graduation without treatment. Identifying cognitive mechanisms facilitating this “natural” reduction in HD during this transition is crucial. We evaluated drinking identity as a potential mechanism and tested whether within-persons changes in one’s social network’s drinking were linked to within-persons changes in drinking identity and subsequent within-persons changes in HD. A sample of 422 undergraduates reporting HD was followed from 6 months before graduation until 2 years after graduation. Their drinking, drinking identity, and social networks were assessed online. Within-persons changes in drinking identity did not mediate the relationship between within-persons changes in social-network drinking and personal HD, although significant positive between-persons associations among all constructs were found. Instead, there was some evidence that within-persons changes in drinking identity followed changes in HD, which suggests that drinking identity may function as a marker versus mechanism of “natural” HD reduction during transition out of college.

Research indicates that a subtle shift in language—silently referring to oneself using one’s own name and non–first-person-singular pronouns (i.e., distanced self-talk)—promotes emotion regulation. Yet it remains unclear whether the efficacy of distanced self-talk depends on the intensity of the negative experience reflected on and whether the benefits extend to emotionally vulnerable individuals. Two high-powered experiments addressed these issues. Distanced as opposed to immersed self-talk reduced emotional reactivity when people reflected on negative experiences that varied in their emotional intensity. These findings held when participants focused on future and past autobiographical events and when they scored high on individual difference measures of emotional vulnerability. The results also generalized across various types of negative events. These findings illuminate the functionality of language for allowing people to regulate their emotions when reflecting on negative experiences across the spectrum of emotional intensity and highlight the need for future research to examine the clinical implications of this technique.

Because of the rise of social networking sites (SNSs), social comparisons take place at an unprecedented rate and scale. There is a growing concern that these online social comparisons negatively impact people’s subjective well-being (SWB). In this paper, we review research on (a) the antecedents of social comparisons on SNSs, (b) the consequences of social comparisons on SNSs for SWB and, (c) social comparison as a mechanism explaining (mediator) or affecting (moderator) the relationship between SNSs and SWB. The occurrence of social comparisons on SNSs depends on who uses the SNS and on how the SNS is being used with passive use in particular resulting in increased levels of social comparison. Moreover, social comparison on SNSs may occasionally result in an increase in SWB but typically negative effects are found as people tend to engage in contrasting upward social comparisons. Finally, several studies show that social comparison is a key mechanism explaining the relationship between use of SNSs and SWB and that users with a tendency to engage in social comparison are especially likely to be negatively impacted by SNSs. The dynamic, cyclical processes that result from this pattern of findings are discussed.

According to common sense, successful self-control requires “willpower.” Psychology often models willpower as the effortful inhibition of temptation impulses—a process theorized to require sufficient motivation and resources. This article challenges the centrality of willpower in self-control. Instead, successful self-control relies on a variety of strategies beyond effortful inhibition: diminishing the influence of immediately available rewards and bolstering motivation toward more abstract, distant rewards. Furthermore, self-control is better conceived as a “toolbox” of strategies; success entails finding the tools that work best for a given individual at a given time. In other words, improving self-control is not about becoming stronger, but rather about becoming smarter. This approach has policy implications and suggests priorities for research.

Attempts to make healthier food choices often fail, particularly for people who are actively trying to diet. Distanced self-talk—using one’s name and non-first-person-singular pronouns (vs. first-person pronouns) to reflect on the self—provides a relatively effortless self-control tool that enhances goal pursuit. We investigated whether distanced (vs. immersed) self-talk would enhance goal pursuit to eat healthier using a novel experimental design (N= 244). Findings indicated that dieters benefited the most from the combined use of distanced self-talk and a health prime. Nondieters made healthier choices when using distanced self-talk regardless of whether they were primed with a health goal or not. These findings suggest that distanced self-talk may constitute a self-control strategy that encourages healthier eating and highlight the need for future research to examine its translational potential.

Pediatric cancer caregivers are typically present at their child’s frequent, invasive treatments, and such treatments elicit substantial distress. Yet variability exists in how even the most anxious caregivers cope. Here we examined one potential source of this variability: caregivers’ tendencies to self-distance when reflecting on their feelings surrounding their child’s treatments. We measured caregivers’ self-distancing and trait anxiety at baseline, anticipatory anxiety during their child’s treatment procedures, and psychological distress and avoidance 3 months later. Self-distancing buffered high (but not low) trait anxious caregivers against short- and long-term distress without promoting avoidance. These findings held when controlling for other buffers, highlighting the unique benefits of self-distancing. These results identify a coping process that buffers vulnerable caregivers against a chronic life stressor while also demonstrating the ecological validity of laboratory research on self-distancing. Future research is needed to explicate causality and the cognitive and physiological processes that mediate these results.

Although it is well established that bipolar I disorder (BD) is characterized by excessive positive emotionality, the cognitive and neural processes that underlie such responses are unclear. We addressed this issue by examining the role that an emotion regulatory process called self-distancingplays in two potentially different BD phenotypes—BD with versus without a history of psychosis—and healthy individuals. Participants reflected on a positive autobiographical memory and then rated their level of spontaneous self-distancing. Neurophysiological activity was continuously monitored using electroencephalogram. As predicted, participants with BD who have a history of psychosis spontaneously self-distanced less and displayed stronger neurophysiological signs of positive emotional reactivity compared with the other two groups. These findings shed light on the cognitive and neural mechanisms underlying excessive positive emotionality in BD. They also suggest that individuals with BD who have a history of psychosis may represent a distinct clinical phenotype characterized by dysfunctional emotion regulation.

Both common intuition and findings from multiple areas of research suggest that when faced with distressing experiences, it is helpful to understand one’s feelings. However, a large body of research also indicates that people’s attempts to make sense of their feelings often backfire, leading them to ruminate and feel worse. In this article, we describe a program of research that focuses on disentangling these seemingly contradictory sets of findings. The research program we describe proposes that psychological distance from the self plays a key role in determining whether people’s attempts to understand their feelings lead to adaptive or maladaptive self‐reflection. It suggests that people’s attempts to understand their feelings often fail because they analyze their feelings from a self‐immersedperspective rather than a self‐distancedperspective. Empirical evidence from multiple levels of analysis is presented to support this prediction. The basic science and clinical implications of these findings are discussed.

The article reports on a study which showed that people can help lessen their anxiety by using a second or third person pronoun, such as you, he or she, or their first names, instead of using the personal pronouns I and me, when talking to themselves to get psyched up.