University of Michigan psychologist Ethan Kross has studied the impact of self-distancing on reasoning, attitudes, and behaviors-and has found that all three can be enhanced by encouraging individuals to create psychological distance from their problems.¶¶In one paper, originally published in 2011, Kross and co-researcher Igor Grossman used the backdrop of the Great Recession to examine whether self-distancing would improve the reasoning skills of college seniors and recent graduates facing a dire job market.¶¶They specifically picked senior students and recent graduates who weren’t successful in obtaining a job post-graduation, and asked them about how the recession would influence their future careers.¶¶The participants were told to “take a few minutes to think about how the current economic climate will impact you personally,” and then were asked to explain how the recession would affect their careers from either an “immersed perspective”-such as imagining the “events unfolding before your own eyes as if you were right there”-or from a “distanced perspective,” which would involve imagining the “events unfolding as if you were a distant observer.”¶¶The researchers then analyzed the participants’ responses and looked for intellectual humility and dialectical thinking, which recognizes that the world is constantly changing. Taken together, these two components form what the researchers dub “wise reasoning.” With wise reasoning, we are able to understand that our own narrow view of the world may have its own shortcomings.¶¶What they found is that “participants in the distanced group were significantly more likely to recognize the limits of their knowledge . . . and recognize the future was likely to change.” They were more easily able to shift into wise reasoning that de-personalized the impact of the recession in a way that would allow for them to attain a calmer emotional state.¶¶Essentially, by engaging in self-distancing, the participants were better able to produce a mental state that allowed room for healthy optimism about their economic futures.