The inner speech of behavioral regulation: Intentions and task performance strengthen when you talk to yourself as a You

People often talk to themselves using the first-person pronoun (I), but they also talk to themselves as if they are speaking to someone else, using the second-person pronoun (You). Yet, the relative behavioral control achieved by I and You self-talk remains unknown. The current research was designed to examine the potential behavioral advantage of using You in self-talk and the role of attitudes in this process. Three experiments compared the effects of I and You self-talk on problem solving performance and behavioral intentions. Experiment 1 revealed that giving self-advice about a hypothetical social situation using You yielded better anagram task performance than using I. Experiment 2 showed that using You self-talk in preparation for an anagram task enhanced anagram performance and intentions to work on anagrams more than I self-talk, and that these effects were mediated by participants’ attitudes toward the task. Experiment 3 extended these findings to exercise intentions and highlighted the role of attitudes in this effect. Altogether, the current research showed that second-person self-talk strengthens both actual behavior performance and prospective behavioral intentions more than first-person self-talk. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. One of the fascinating phenomena in the study of the self is that, in the course of their daily lives, human beings talk not only with other people but also with themselves. Ninety-six percent of adults report engaging in an ongoing internal dialogue, and self-talk, particularly covert, is reported in over a quarter of sampled experiences (Heavey & Hurlburt, 2008; Winsler, 2009). Despite its omnipresence, knowledge about the form and effects of this internal discourse remains elusive. Students preparing for exams, speakers approaching lecterns, depressed and anxious individuals, and exercisers all commonly talk to themselves. They often repeat sentences such as You/I can do it! or Stay focused!, which are widely believed to help people “psych” themselves up, stay focused, maintain motivation, and ultimately perform better. People can talk to themselves using either the firstor second-person pronoun (I vs. You), but they appear to favor You in situations that require explicit self-regulation (Zell, Warriner, & Albarracín, 2012). Yet the performance effects of self-talk using the second-person pronoun have surprisingly never been demonstrated. When people covertly discuss their thoughts, goals, plans, and moves, does self-addressing using the second-person, You, strengthen performance, attitudes, and behavioral intentions? As psychologists move forward in their understanding of conscious life and self-regulation, a precise explication of these cognitive and linguistic processes seems essential. These phenomena are likely to be important to researchers in social, cognitive, clinical, health, and sports *Correspondence to: Sanda Dolcos, Department of Psychology 603 E Daniel Stre E-mail: [email protected] Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. psychology, as well as practitioners in clinical, educational, and work settings. Fragmented You/I Self-Talk Previous evidence suggests that people prefer second-person self-talk when engaging in action and in difficult situations requiring self-regulation (Gammage, Hardy, & Hall, 2001; Zell et al., 2012), but select first-person self-talk when talking about their feelings (e.g., “I don’t like doing this”) (Oliver, Markland, Hardy, & Petherick, 2008). For example, in self-talk related to their fitness activities, exercisers tend to address themselves as You more frequently than as I (Gammage et al., 2001). Further, people address themselves as You when making autonomous rather than externally constrained choices, and in situations that challenge self-control and require selfregulation (Zell et al., 2012). The use of the second-person pronoun seems closely tied to the more imperative statements invoked when people engage in action (Zell et al., 2012) and when they are confronted with a difficult task requiring their full attention (Hermans & Hermans-Konopka, 2010). This point is illustrated in actress Anne Hathaway’s description of filming “I Dreamed a Dream” in one take for “Les Misérables”: “I closed my eyes and I remember thinking, ‘Hathaway, if you do not do this in this moment, you have no right to call yourself an actor. [...] just do your job.’ I opened my eyes and I’m like (snaps fingers): ‘Let’s go.’ And I did it.” Given that situations et, University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign, Champaign, IL 61820, USA. Received 21 November 2013, Accepted 26 May 2014 Self-talk person and self-regulation 637 that require self-regulation elicit the use of You, it is critical to find out if using You increases success at a task. Therefore, a fundamental question is whether the use of the second-person actually enhances self-regulation, as judged by performance in intellectual tasks and behavioral intentions. Moreover, general forms of thought implicitly elicited through the grammatical structure of self-talk are capable of influencing behavior and intentions (Albarracín, 2010, October; Albarracín, 2011, January; Senay, Albarracin, & Noguchi, 2010), suggesting that mere exposure to the word You could influence individuals’ attitudes toward a goal. There are several reasons why the use of You should facilitate self-regulation, performance, and behavioral intentions. First, successful self-regulation is likely to derive from successful social regulation. The sociogenetic perspective suggests that the meanings processed in the interpersonal dialogue begin as social, but over time, they become personalized and internalized into self-regulation (Clowes, 2007; Vygotsky, 1987). Through internalization, individuals gradually integrate parental and societal values, ideals, or standards into their selfsystem. During ontogeny, significant others (e.g., parents and teachers) help direct children’s behavior using second-person instructions and encouragements (e.g., You need to stay focused, You can do it). In time, children become used to responding to directions provided in the second person. The language used in self-talk can be modeled from others (Lantolf, 2006), and thus, the initial external guidance associated with behavior regulation could have been internalized in the second person and may be appropriated and applied in a similar fashion when encountering situations that require self-regulation. This idea is confirmed by evidence showing that narrations using second-person pronouns looked as if they were described by significant others (such as parents or advisors) who were having a conversation with the self in the background (Jin, 2005, 2010). The internalization perspective is consistent with the habit theory and research (for a review, see Gardner, de Bruijn, & Lally, 2011), which shows that the repetition of a behavior upon encountering contextual cues leads, through associative learning, to the automatic activation of that behavior upon subsequent exposure to those contextual cues (Lally, van Jaarsveld, Potts, & Wardle, 2010). The habitual behavior is likely to persist even in the absence of external triggering cues. Initiation of the behavior might be “transferred” to internal, self-generated cues, which might enable people to acquire the means to manage their own activities using control mechanisms originally developed to respond to external commands (Clowes, 2007; Vygotsky, 1987). As a result, external encouragements expressed using You may become internalized and later engaged automatically in self-talk applied to similar situations requiring self-direction. Further evidence supporting the idea that personal perspective can change the mental representations, attitudes toward, and outcomes of upcoming events is offered by the cognitive appraisal theories, which suggest that people have different responses (e.g., attitudes and emotions) to the same event depending on how they interpret the event along a number of appraisal dimensions (Alter, Aronson, Darley, Rodriguez, & Ruble, 2010; Blascovich, Seery, Mugridge, Norris, & Weisbuch, 2004; Jamieson, Mendes, Blackstock, & Schmader, 2010; Jamieson, Nock, & Mendes, 2012; Wood Brooks, Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. 2014). Common appraisal dimensions include, for example, evaluating interest, pleasantness/happiness/enjoyment, and available resources for dealing with an event, and appraising events as relevant or important (Lazarus, 1991; Roseman, 2001; Scherer, 2001). Recent research shows that subtle changes in self-talk induced by adopting the secondor third-person perspectives (compared with the first-person perspective) are associated with more optimistic appraisals of upcoming stressful events and more positive mindsets (Kross et al., 2014). Optimistic appraisals occur when people perceive their personal resources as exceeding situational demands. They are characterized by positive attitudes toward future experiences (e.g., Folkman & Lazarus, 1985; Jamieson et al., 2012) and can have strong impacts on people’s thoughts, feelings, and performance (Alter et al., 2010; Jamieson et al., 2012; Wood Brooks, 2013). Optimistic (challenge) appraisals are positively associated with appraisals of interest, which are positively associated with the perceived importance of the event and appraisals of happiness or joy (Ellsworth & Smith, 1988). Likewise, the second-person self talk may trigger positive attitudes and emotions, such as interest or excitement/happiness (Smith & Lazarus, 1993), which can in turn influence behavioral intentions and task performance. When using the second-person pronoun, people tend to adopt a broader perspective, considering how a significant other might view the event (Jin, 2005, 2010). This may allow people to acquire the benefits of social support without directly interacting with another person, enabling them to reproduce encouragements and appraisals previously received from others and to generate more positive attitudes, intentions, and behaviors. Adopting the perspective of significant others may also influence people’s appraisals of perceived importance or relevance of an activity or event. Events appraised as relevant are further evaluated (Silvia, 2005) and elicit positive attitudes such as interest and joy (Ellsworth & Smith, 1988; Kreibig, Gendolla, & Scherer, 2010). These positive attitudes might, in turn, improve performance and behavioral intentions. The current research was designed to examine the potential performance advantage of using You in self-talk and the role of attitudes in this process. Three experiments compared behaviors and behavior intentions following the use of the second and first grammatical person as part of giving self-advice in an unrelated situation (Experiment 1) and as part of self-preparation/selfadvice for an upcoming task (Experiments 2 and 3). The first two experiments compared intellectual performance following the use of the second and first grammatical person as part of giving self-advice in an unrelated situation (Experiment 1) and as part of self-preparation for an upcoming task (Experiment 2). Furthermore, Experiments 2 and 3 assessed participants’ attitudes toward the task.