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In both cases, they found that participants displayed less brain activity in the region most associated with storing emotional experiences when speaking in the third-person than when speaking in the first-person.

"Essentially, we think referring to yourself in the third person leads people to think about themselves more similar to how they think about others, and you can see evidence for this in the brain," Jason Moser, one of the MSU researchers, said in a statement. "That helps people gain a tiny bit of psychological distance from their experiences, which can often be useful for regulating emotions."

They believe their findings imply that self-talk could be a way to effortlessly control emotions. However, more research needs to be done.

That’s why MSU and U-M are planning to continue collaborating “to explore how third-person self-talk compares to other emotion-regulation strategies.”

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