RAPID: Collaborative Research: Harnessing Language to Reduce Anxiety and Enhance Rational Perspectives and Decision-Making in the Face of Ebola Concerns

埃博拉病毒的威胁席卷了我们的国家，引发了一场对公共卫生和政策产生深远影响的危机。这提供了一个重要而及时的机会，可以同时(a)推进有关在后果重大的高风险环境中自我控制如何起作用的科学知识，以及(b)将这一领域的现有研究转化为加强围绕埃博拉和未来涉及类似威胁的危机的公共卫生和政策。拟议中的研究将利用这些机会，利用神经科学和社会心理学的方法，检验一种经过充分研究的、促进自我控制的简单语言转变，是否可以用来减少焦虑，增强与埃博拉相关的短期和长期决策和行为。本项目是响应NSF 15-006关于埃博拉病毒的致同事信而提交的。PI（密歇根大学的伊桑·克罗斯）和同事们之前的研究表明，在内省过程中，用自己的名字来指代自己（比如，“为什么伊桑会有这种感觉？”），而不是第一人称代词“我”（例如，“为什么我有这种感觉？”）。，有力地提高了人们在压力下控制自己思想、感情和行为的能力，促进了情商决策，而且毫不费力地做到了这一点。这些语言上的变化通过提供心理距离来促进自我控制，从而使人们能够冷静地处理有压力的想法和事件。在这项工作的基础上，拟议的研究将操纵人们是否用第一人称或第三人称的视角来反思他们对埃博拉的想法和感受，并检查这些语言上的转变是否会减少与埃博拉相关的焦虑和非理性决策和行为。

The threat of Ebola gripping our nation has incited a crisis that has far-reaching implications for public health and policy. This poses an important and timely opportunity to simultaneously (a) advance scientific knowledge concerning how self-control works in consequential, high-stakes contexts, and (b) translate existing research in this area to enhance public health and policy surrounding Ebola and future crises involving similar threats. The proposed research will capitalize on these opportunities by using methods from neuroscience and social psychology to examine whether a well-studied, simple linguistic shift that promotes self-control can be harnessed to reduce anxiety and enhance short- and long-term Ebola-related decision-making and behavior. This project was submitted in response to NSF 15-006 Dear Colleague Letter on the Ebola Virus. Previous work by the PI (Ethan Kross, University of Michigan) and colleagues has shown that using one's own name to refer to the self during introspection (i.e., "Why is Ethan feeling this way?"), rather than the first person pronoun "I" (i.e., "Why am I feeling this way?"), powerfully enhances people's ability to control their thoughts, feelings, and behavior under stress, facilitates emotionally intelligent decision-making, and does so effortlessly. These shifts in language facilitate self-control by providing the psychological distance needed to calmly navigate stressful thoughts and events. Building on this work, the proposed research will manipulate whether people reflect on their thoughts and feelings about Ebola using 1st or 3rd person perspectives, and examine whether these shifts in language reduce Ebola-related anxiety and irrational decision-making and behavior.