A new look at perspective: Novel insights into the function of first-person and third-person imagery

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For many reasons, people might want to think or feel differently about events in their lives. Examples include wanting to move beyond past negative experiences or optimally preparing for upcoming challenges. The research in this project explores how people can use a common feature of their thoughts about life events to achieve these desired ends. When recalling past experiences or imagining future ones, people frequently "see" those events in their mind's eye. Often people see events from their own first-person perspective, looking out at the situation through their own eyes. However, other times people see events in their mind's eye from a third-person perspective, seeing themselves in the image from an observer's vantage-point. The proposed research develops and tests a new model suggesting that visual perspective in mental imagery fundamentally shapes how people interpret and respond to the events they picture. These unique insights into the function of imagery perspective will help to develop practical imagery tools that people can use, with minimal training, to modify their emotional responses in desired ways, strengthen their close relationships, and motivate themselves to act consistent with their values.This research tests hypotheses about the core functions of first-person and third-person imagery by experimentally manipulating which of these perspectives individuals adopt as they picture target events. According to the proposed model, third-person imagery leads people to reflect on the broader implications and coherent meaning of the pictured event. A series of experiments tests whether this coherence-building function of third-person imagery clarifies and focuses people's emotional reactions, relative to the undifferentiated emotional reactions people experience with first-person imagery. Other experiments explore how this predicted effect of third-person imagery may be used to improve the performance of individuals in threatening situations. The model further indicates that first-person imagery functions to heighten people's awareness of their gut reactions and implicit evaluations. A series of experiments tests whether this enhanced self-insight with first-person imagery can be used to help individuals recognize implicit feelings of trust towards close others and thereby strengthen commitment to those relationships. A final series of experiments tests whether first-person imagery can give people insight into gut reactions that conflict with their explicit values, thereby helping them exercise self-control and behave in line with their values in situations of conflict.