Solomon’s Paradox and the Third-Person Mind Hack

Ryan Halloran

So, I, I was looking back at this historical figure, King Solomon, right? Third ruler of Israel. And the, the guy is legendary for wisdom. You know the split the baby story, right? To find the real mother? But then you look at his, his actual life. His personal life was, uh, let us say, a complete train wreck. Seven hundred wives, massive overtaxing of his people, basically set the stage for a civil war that tore his kingdom apart. He, he had all the answers for everyone else, but when it came to his own life, zero capability to follow his own advice.

Dr. Maya Chen

Seven hundred wives. Talk about an, uh, an optimization problem. But it, it really is the ultimate example of what psychologists Igor Grossmann and Ethan Kross ended up calling Solomon's Paradox back in 2014. We are just spectacular at solving other people's problems and, and completely, utterly blind to our own.

Ryan Halloran

It is so true. I mean, I, I see this in executive coaching all the time. A CEO will walk in and lay out a brilliant, elegant strategy for a competitor's bottleneck, and then they turn around and do the, the exact same self-destructive behavior in their own boardroom. And Grossmann and Kross actually, they, they put this to the test, right? In that 2014 study. It was in Psychological Science, with, uh, let is see, 693 participants. They wanted to measure wise reasoning, which they defined by things like intellectual humility, realizing your own limits, seeing other perspectives, looking for compromise.

Dr. Maya Chen

Right, and, and the way they did it was so simple but so telling. They had people imagine a scenario where their partner was cheating on them, or, in the other group, a scenario where their friend's partner was cheating. And when people reasoned about their friend's relationship conflict, their wisdom scores were through the roof. But when it was their own partner? Total, total drop off. The wisdom just evaporated.

Ryan Halloran

Wait, didn't they also test, uh, age cohorts in that study? Like, because we always hear that with age comes wisdom, right? The, the old, wise sage on the mountain.

Dr. Maya Chen

Yes! They compared younger adults, aged 20 to 40, to older adults, aged 60 to 80. And contrary to the adage, you know, with age comes wisdom, their findings suggest that there are no age differences in this at all. None. Older adults were just as vulnerable to Solomon's Paradox as the younger group. They struggled equally to apply wise reasoning to their own dilemmas without some kind of specific intervention. Age does not save us from our own blind spots.

Ryan Halloran

Wow. So the sage on the mountain is just as mess, messy as the rest of us when his own roof is leaking. That is, uh, that is kind of comforting, actually, but also deeply depressing. Why, why does this happen? What is the, the actual mechanism in the brain that causes this drop off?

Dr. Maya Chen

Well, it is what we call first person immersion. When we are dealing with our own stuff, our ego is on the line. It activates our evolutionary threat response networks. It is a threat to our identity, our safety, our future. And when that happens, we get this cognitive tunneling. Our field of vision narrows, we get defensive, and we, we just can't see the full picture. But when we look at a friend's problem, we have psychological distance. There is no threat to our ego. So we can actually access those higher level cognitive processes. We can see the forest because we are not currently trying to survive inside one of the burning trees.

Ryan Halloran

The burning trees. Yeah, that, that makes complete sense. You, you are too close to the heat to think about forestry management.

Dr. Maya Chen

Exactly. But the exciting thing that came out of Grossmann and Kross's subsequent research is that you can actually trick your brain into getting that distance. You can wipe out the wisdom gap. They found that if you instruct people to self-distance, their wise reasoning scores on their own personal problems shoot right up to the exact same level as if they were giving advice to a friend.

Ryan Halloran

And how, how do you actually do that in real life? What does it, uh, what does it sound like?

Dr. Maya Chen

It is surprisingly simple. It is a linguistic shift called illeism. Speaking about yourself in the third person. So, instead of me saying, "Why am I feeling so anxious about this podcast?" I would ask myself, "Why is Maya feeling anxious about this?" It sounds, I know, it sounds a little bit ridiculous, like you are acting like a cartoon character, but it works.

Ryan Halloran

No, it really does. I, I use this myself when I have a high-stakes meeting. I will literally say to myself, "Okay, Ryan is feeling defensive right now because he thinks his authority is being challenged. What does Ryan need to do next?" And just, just changing that one word, "I" to "Ryan," it is like stepping back three paces. You become an observer of your own drama rather than the lead actor sweating under the spotlights.

Dr. Maya Chen

It really is like a mental cheat code. And for anyone listening who wants to try this, there is a very low risk personal experiment you can run. I call it the fly on the wall writing prompt. Take a current personal decision you are struggling with, maybe a career pivot or a tough boundary conversation you need to have, and set a timer for five minutes. Write about the situation strictly in the third person. Use your own name, describe yourself as a character. Like, "Ryan is trying to decide whether to leave his job." And then, at the end, write down what advice you would give to that character.

Ryan Halloran

That is incredibly powerful. Just five minutes of writing about yourself like a character in a book. It, it forces that shift from emotional immersion to objective appraisal. But, okay, we have to talk about the limits here. Because we don't want people walking around talking like Julius Caesar all day, or, or worse, using this to dissociate from their actual lives.

Dr. Maya Chen

Absolutely. This is a tool for decision making and cognitive clarity. It is not a cure for clinical anxiety, and it is definitely not a way to bypass your emotions. If you are constantly using third person self talk to avoid actually feeling your feelings, that is emotional avoidance. You are just distancing yourself to avoid the discomfort, rather than processing it. You have to know when to put the distance away and just sit with the grief or the anger or whatever is there.

Ryan Halloran

Right. Use it to make the decision, but don't use it to hide from the reality. Well, this has been incredibly helpful, Maya. I am going to go talk to Ryan about his schedule now.

Dr. Maya Chen

Tell Ryan I say hi, and that he should probably take a break. Alright, good chatting, talk soon.