Welcome to brain Stuff from How Stuff Works, Hey, brain Stuff, Lauren bog obam Here. In pop culture parlance, it's known as the Jimmy, the odd conversational quirk of referring to yourself in the third person, named after the Seinfeld character who bragged about his basketball skills as if he was his own biggest fan. Jimmy's ready dud check. Oh yeah, Jimmy played pretty good. Professional sports and politics are full of real life Jimmy's outsized personalities with the off putting
habit of talking about themselves by name. Senator Bob Dole was mocked relentlessly on Saturday Night Live for his Bob doll Is ums. Lebron James, defending his controversial move from his hometown of Cleveland to the Miami Heat, famously said I wanted to do what was best for Lebron James to make him happy. And now the United States has a Jimmy in chief. President Donald Trump has repeatedly referred to himself as Trump or Donald Trump in debates, interviews,
and tweets. For example, dismissing the allegations of collusion with Russia in the presidential elections, Trump tweeted in perhaps Trump just ran a great campaign which prompted this reaction from author J. K. Rowling. I wonder whether Trump talks to Trump's self in the third Trump person when Trump's alone. The real term for talking about yourself the third person is ilioism, and every armchair psychologist has a theory for
why certain celebrities are rabbid iliasts. The easiest explanation is ego. Essentially, their ego gets so big and inflated that it takes on a life of its own. Same for narcissism. These folks love themselves so much that they need to address the object of their affection by name. But the truth is that no substantial research has been done on the question of why some A list athletes, actors, and politicians
can't keep their own name out of their mouth. Interestingly, though, there is convincing evidence that regular folks like you and me can actually boost ourself confidence through the simple trick of thinking of ourselves in the third person. Ethan Cross is a psychology professor at the University of Michigan, where
he runs the Motion and Self Control Laboratory. Cross studies the ways in which people regulate their emotions, including the handy trick of psychological distancing, taking a step back from intense anger or pain to think about the situation as an objective outsider. Cross said, what we've learned is that language provides people with a tool to distance themselves psychologically, including language that many people use spontaneously without even thinking
about it. It turns out that all of us, not just celebrities, engage in what Cross calls third person self talk when we need a little emotional or psychological boost. Maybe it happens at the gym when we feel like quitting with five minutes left on the elliptical, Come on, Lauren, pushed through, or when we're trying to work up the nerve to ask our boss for a raise. You deserve this, Lauren,
And as weird as that just felt it works. In his lab, Cross ran experiments comparing the performance of two groups in a stressful situation. One group that was prompted to psych itself up with eye statements and a second group that used use statements and their own name. When the participants were asked to give an extemporaneous speech in public, a true stress bomb. The Jimmy group came in with a healthier attitude performed better and was less critical of
itself afterward. In a later study, Cross took fm R I brain scans of people engaged in first person versus third persons self talk. The scans revealed that I centered thinking it triggers the areas of the brain associated with negative self referential processes, while Jimmy style thinking does not. In addition, the third persons self talk appears to bypass the cognitive or effortful parts of the brain. In other words,
the positive effect is automatic. Cross recommends that everyone give it a try the next time they're stressed or emotionally wrought. He said, compared to other emotional regulation strategies, third person self talk might be a little bit easier for people to implement, the costs are minimal, and the potential upshot
is valuable. Does this mean that all the Lebrons, Jimmy's and Trumps of the world are talking about themselves in the third person because they're trying to establish psychological distance from stressful situations, maybe, says Cross, But it's not something that he or anyone else has study. Interestingly, in the famous clip of Lebron James defending Lebron James, he also tells the interviewer, What I didn't want to do was
make an emotional decision. Maybe for James, the best way to distance himself emotionally and make an objective decision was too, As he put it, do what's best for Lebron James, not necessarily himself. One important difference between the lab experiments and examples of celebrity self name dropping is that the participants in Crosses study never spoke out loud. All of the self talk was internal or written out on paper. So there's still a possibility that when it comes to
celebrity self talkers, that first theory we mentioned still applies. However, we'll leave you with an interesting case study soccer legend Pel was a world class Jimmy, but for an interesting reason, Born Edson arounts Pile, the person didn't identify with the global superstar that had crowds chanting his name. He told the Guardian, Edson is the person who has the feelings, who has the family, who works hard, and Pile is the idol. Pile doesn't die, Pele will never die. Pile
is going to go on forever. Today's episode was written by Dave Ruse and produced by Tyler Clang for more on this and lots of other topics, but none of which make me feel so weird about starting out every episode by stating my name. Visit our home planet, how stuff Works dot com