Exploring the Power of Referring to Yourself in the Third Person

Main Points

In modern pop culture, this behavior is referred to as "the Jimmy"—the peculiar habit of speaking about oneself in the third person, inspired by the character from "Seinfeld" who boasted about his basketball abilities as though he were his own biggest supporter. "Oh yeah, Jimmy played pretty good."

In both sports and politics, there are real-life Jimmys—larger-than-life personalities who can't resist referring to themselves by name. Senator Bob Dole became a target for mockery on "Saturday Night Live" because of his signature Bob Dole-isms. LeBron James, defending his move from Cleveland to the Miami Heat, infamously declared, "I wanted to do what was best for LeBron James... to make him happy."

The U.S. has its own "Jimmy in Chief." President Donald Trump often used "Trump" or "Donald Trump" to refer to himself in interviews, debates, and of course, on Twitter. When dismissing allegations about Russian collusion during the 2016 election, Trump tweeted in 2017: "Perhaps Trump just ran a great campaign?"

This comment sparked a response from author J.K. Rowling.

The formal term for referring to oneself in the third person is illeism, and armchair psychologists have plenty of theories about why some celebrities are avid illeists. The simplest explanation? Ego. Their egos become so inflated they take on a life of their own. It's similar to narcissism—these individuals adore themselves to such an extent that they must refer to themselves by name.

Despite the common assumption, there has been no substantial research exploring why some famous athletes, actors, and politicians can't resist speaking about themselves in the third person. Interestingly, there is compelling evidence suggesting that ordinary people, like you and me, can actually increase our self-confidence by simply thinking about ourselves in the third person.

Ethan Kross is a psychology professor at the University of Michigan, where he directs the Emotion and Self-Control Laboratory. Kross focuses on how people manage their emotions, including the useful strategy of psychological distancing, which involves stepping back from intense emotions like anger or pain and considering the situation from an outsider's perspective.

"What we've discovered is that language offers a tool for people to distance themselves psychologically," says Kross, "including language that many people instinctively use without even thinking about it."

Third-person Self-talk Is an Emotional Booster

It turns out that we all, not just celebrities, use what Kross refers to as "third-person self-talk" when we need an emotional or psychological lift. Perhaps it happens at the gym when we're tempted to give up with five minutes remaining on the elliptical. "Come on, Dave. Push through!" Or when we're gearing up to ask our boss for a raise. "You deserve this, Dave!"

And it works. In his lab, Kross ran experiments comparing the performance of two groups in a stressful situation, one group that was prompted to psych itself up with "I" statements, and a second group which used "you" 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, Kross took fMRI brain scans of people engaged in first-person versus third-person self-talk. The scans revealed that "I"-centered thinking triggers the areas of the brain associated with "negative self-referential processes," while Jimmy-style thinking doesn't. In addition, third-person self-talk appears to bypass the cognitive or "effortful" parts of the brain. In other words, the positive effect is automatic.

"Compared to other [emotional regulation strategies], third-person self-talk might be a little bit easier for people to implement," says Kross, who recommends that everyone give it a try next time they're stressed or emotionally wrought. "The costs are minimal and the potential upshot is valuable."

Does all this mean that the LeBrons, Jimmys and Trumps of the world are talking about themselves in the third person because they are trying to establish psychological distance from stressful situations? Maybe, says Kross, but it's not something that he or anyone else has studied.

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 to, as he put it, do what's best for LeBron James, not necessarily himself.

One key distinction between lab experiments and self-name-dropping is that participants in Kross's study never verbalized their self-talk. All of it was internal or written down. This suggests that while celebrity self-talkers may not be emotionally enlightened, they could, like Jimmy, simply be obnoxious.