The frequency, form, and function of self-talk in everyday life

Talking to oneself is a common phenomenon; yet research on spontaneous self-talk overlooks nuances in the self-perspective people adopt when engaging in this process. Laboratory research suggests that distanced (vs. immersed) self-talk has regulatory benefits, but we know little about how often and to what effect people use distanced (or immersed) self-talk in daily life, and whether this varies based on individual differences. We conducted a two-week ecological momentary assessment study (12,966 surveys from 208 participants) to examine distanced and immersed self-talk use in response to four situation types: feeling critical of oneself, needing to prepare for what to say or do, wanting to feel better, or feeling pleased with oneself. Distanced self-talk was less common than immersed self-talk across all situation types, and neither were associated with trait-level emotional distress or narcissism. Distanced (vs. immersed) self-talk was associated with improved momentary affect when implemented in the context of needing to prepare what to say or do, but results did not indicate similar functionality in other situations. These findings shed light on how people intuitively adopt different perspectives in self-talk to navigate their daily lives and suggest that distanced self-talk may have emotion regulation benefits for preparatory situations.