What is the secret of the success of the brilliant stars of art, in gathering within them the ability for steadfastness and determination, to enable them to stand on stage and face the masses, despite their feelings of tension and anxiety, for fear that their performance will not come to the desired level?
For stars like Beyoncé and Adele, the secret is to create what is known as a "me-other" or "me-against" for each of them.
Beyonce chose for this "alter ego" or "alternate personality" her name "Sasha Fierce", and made her - in her imagination - a firm and strong personality. This enabled her to perform her singing performances with a greater sensitivity and more self-confidence as well.
In an interview she gave to the famous presenter Oprah Winfrey in 2008, the brilliant singer said: “When I listen to the sounds of musical instruments reverberating, and I put on my high heels, that is, in those moments just before feeling nervous, Sasha Fierce usually appears `And then my posture and even the way I speak, and everything else, will be different.'
This was Beyoncé's strategy until 2010, when she felt that she had reached a stage of psychological maturity that would prevent her from relying on psychological tricks of this kind.
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Adele was inspired by the same idea, during a meeting with Beyoncé. The result of this was, as she said in an interview with Rolling Stone magazine in 2011, that she created an “other me” for herself, this time bearing the name “Sasha Carter”, and it was a mixture of the features of “Sasha Ferris”, the fictional Beyoncé character, and a real person. June Carter is an American singer-songwriter with a long history in what is known as "country music". Adele said that this method helped her to give her best performance ever, during the most successful years of her artistic career so far.
Although visualizing the existence of such fictional characters seems to be a trick that pop stars can only resort to, a recent study suggests that this may be a strategy that brings real psychological benefits to people in general.
The person's perception of the existence of an "other ego" for him is an extreme pattern of "dissociating himself from self-absorption" while dealing with different situations. Resorting to this method would enable us - while we are going through a situation - to take a step back and strip ourselves of the feelings that we usually experience during this situation, which allows us to monitor it in a more neutral way.
This strategy "gives you a little more opportunity to think rationally about any situation," says Rachel White, an assistant professor of psychology at Hamilton College at New York State University, as it makes us able to rein in our unwanted feelings like anxiety, and increases stress. Our ability to stand firm in difficult situations enhances our potential for success with self-control.
Changing Perspective
Over the past decade, researcher Ethan Cross, a professor of psychology at the University of Michigan, has led the majority of studies conducted on this matter, which have shown that even a slight change in the angle of view of a situation It can help a person gain more control over their impulses and emotions.
In one of these studies, the research sample was asked to think about a thorny situation full of difficulties that they might face in the future, such as taking a difficult exam, for example. The sample was divided into two groups, one of which had to visualize the situation from the inside, as if its members were actually "immersed" in it, while the other was asked to contemplate it from a "distance" as if those who fall under its banner are just flies on the wall.
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The results revealed striking differences between the visions of the two groups. Those who looked at the situation from afar felt less anxiety about it, compared to their counterparts in the "immersed" group. It has also been shown that looking at difficult situations, from a distance, makes a person feel "self-efficacy". In other words, to feel that he can deal positively with the situation, and to take the initiative to take steps in this regard without being satisfied with adopting the reaction method, and ultimately achieving his goal as well.
In another experiment, the respondents were asked to speak in front of an audience for a short time. Before proceeding with this, the researchers asked each of them to reflect deeply on his feelings about the challenge he is about to face, by thinking about it using what is known as the "third person form", that is, by saying to himself that "So-and-so feels this. As if he is talking about someone other than himself, not thinking about the situation in a way that makes him part of it and immersed in it, using the formula “I feel like this…”. Similar to what happened in the previous experiment, urging the respondents to look at the situation from a distance was aimed at encouraging them to see it from outside it, in a more abstract way.
This experiment, in turn, showed that creating such a "psychological distance" helped the respondents to control their feelings of anxiety, and reduced their rates of evaluation in a personal and subjective manner of their feelings and the physiological changes that occurred to them, such as the change in heart rate, the level of Blood pressure, two things that usually accompany a person's passing through threatening events. According to independent arbitrators, they were asked to evaluate the performance of the respondents during their public speaking later; These people felt more confident, which was reflected in their ability to present their ideas and speak better.
"Always keep the prize in mind"
Hence, it seems that distancing a person mentally from the situation he is going through gives him the ability to reap benefits like those we talked about in the previous lines, by pushing him to focus on the bigger picture. In this case, it is possible for each of us to see the events surrounding him as part of a broader scene, rather than getting stuck in the feelings that overwhelm him at once. This has led some researchers to ask whether such an approach enhances traits such as self-control, steadfastness, and determination by ensuring that we never deviate from our focus, no matter what the distractions.
With this in mind, one study tested the hypothesis, whether resorting to the method of thinking about the situation from a distance without indulging in it, before solving complex “crossword” quizzes, will make us more able to focus on solving it or not. In the framework of this study, the respondents were asked to give advice to themselves in the form of addressees, as if each of them says to himself: "You will have to focus on each element of the competition." In addition to what the results revealed of an improvement in the overall performance of the respondents who tried this method; Its positive effects also appeared, through questionnaires that measured their attitudes towards this task. These questionnaires showed that they were more willing to improve their performance.
By promoting a sense of self-control; Taking the approach of thinking outside of situations without dwelling on them mentally can improve our healthy behaviors. This could lead - for example - to an increase in our desire to exercise, and to help us resist the temptation to eat junk food. Not easy, by the way, says Selina Furman, a researcher in social psychology at the University of Minnesota: "So far, there are very few self-control strategies that have succeeded in achieving positive results in terms of improving the types of food we eat." .
In a study in which I collaborated with Ethan Cross; Furman asked the respondents to adopt a strategy of "looking at the situation from the outside", when they were offered to choose between two types of foods, one of which was healthy, such as fruit, and the other, which was less beneficial to the body, such as candy. The study revealed that the chances of the participant in the study choosing the healthy option increased when he looked at the situation from the perspective of the "third person" and asked himself a question saying: "What does so-and-so want to eat?" Instead of saying, "What do I want to eat?"
Although testing the long-term benefits of this approach will require further studies, Furman believes it could be made part of a broader strategy, including a variety of different approaches to weight loss, for example. "The ease with which one can speak to oneself, as a separate entity from oneself, opens the door to the potential for interesting potential uses of that technique," she says. For example, we could include a feature in a smartphone app that triggers a notification every time you plan a meal, prompting you to think about it "from the outside, from a third-person perspective", making you inclined to make healthier choices.
The "Batman" Effect
On the other hand, the possibility of enhancing one's willpower by following a method of "mentally distancing oneself from oneself" is an interesting matter for researchers in the field of child psychology in particular, given that It is believed that the ability of young people to be self-disciplined is an important factor in determining the level of their academic performance, as is the IQ of each of them.
A few years ago, researcher Rachel White subjected a group of six-year-olds to a test aimed at determining their level of concentration, by quickly displaying a series of pictures in front of them, on a computer screen, and asking them to press a specific keyboard button, whenever it appeared. Cheese in any of these shots. The experiment was designed to deliberately bore the children involved. At the same time, however, they were told that it was "very important" and that they would be of "valuable help" if they continued doing the task for as long as possible, which reinforced their motivation to persevere.
The study authors were keen to find a potential distraction factor for the children, as they left each of them an iPad tablet, with a game much more interesting and entertaining than their task, in order to draw their attention away from it.
Before embarking on the experiment, the children were told that it might sometimes be helpful for them to think about their feelings if they felt the task had become unbearably boring. The children were divided into three groups, the members of the first group were asked to ask themselves questions in the first person, such as “Am I working hard?”, While those belonging to the second group were encouraged to think from the outside and from a third-person perspective, so that their question in this case becomes in Formula "Does so-and-so work hard?" As for the third, its members were left with the option to completely change their personalities, and assume the characters of their favorite fictional heroes, such as "Batman" or "Dora the Explorer Child".
And it went as far as giving the children of this group the clothes of the characters they chose to embody. And when they felt bored during the performance of the task, they were asked to consider the behavior emanating from them in this regard as actually emanating from the fictional character they wear, and to ask themselves in this case, saying, for example: "Is Batman working hard?"
The results of the study we are talking about here confirmed the validity of what the researchers had expected, that a person's perception of the existence of an "other me" or "a different me" to him constitutes a very extreme pattern of the idea of "mentally distancing himself from himself", and his view of it. as a separate entity. While it turned out that the children who thought about the task assigned to them from the perspective of the "third person"; They continued to perform it for a 10 percent longer time than their peers who contemplated the situation in the usual way, that is, from the perspective of the first person. The results showed that the longest period in this regard was for the third group of youngsters, who were “indulged” in the “other ego” of each of them. , by dressing them as the imaginary character of their choice.
Rachel White has found that the visualization of this "other ego" can help children focus on a complex card game in which they have to follow complex and ever-changing rules. This showed, again, that what could be described as the "Batman effect" increased children's determination and focus, and improved the "executive functions" of their brains.
While everything we talked about previously represented laboratory experiments, White hopes that simple exercises like this will make many situations that require self-control easier. The experiment we referred to, which tests children's ability to persevere, may be very similar to what they face when they have to do their homework, in the presence of the temptation to watch television or use a mobile phone.
This researcher believes that it is useful for one to seek to avoid feeling frustrated when faced with new challenges. And she says in this regard: "A person's pretending that he is more efficient and keen to move away (mentally and emotionally) to a distance from the situations he is going through, can help him overcome the feelings of frustration that he experiences when he is in the process of learning something new."
What could Beyoncé do in this situation?
In the light of the results of these studies and in light of the benefits that generally result from having the ability to detach emotionally and mentally from the situations that one goes through; White believes that we may all be able to enhance our ability to regulate emotions, self-control, and maintain balance in general, by imagining the existence of an "other me" for each of us, in the form of a character like "Sasha Ferris", for example.
The researcher advises whoever wants to try this method himself, to choose in each situation the personality that suits his nature and the goal he wants to achieve through it. When you are solving a personal dilemma, you may have to choose to be that character, like your wise relative. In the event that you deal with a professional problem, you may choose a person whom you consider to be your guide in the field of work.
In this regard, Rachel White says: “When I was a postdoctoral researcher, we had a saying in our lab that if you are an undergraduate, you have to imagine that you are a graduate, and if you are a graduate, pretend that you are a researcher.” Postdoc, or if you're already there, pretend you're in charge of the lab."
In any case, whatever character you choose for this purpose; Your selection should give you some “psychological distance” from distracting feelings, and your selection should remind you of the behaviors you want to emulate. In the end, regardless of the identity of this fictional character, and whether it is for a friend, a religious figure, or even Beyoncé herself, having a little imagination may make you closer to the person you wish to be.