Hearing voices might not be a bad thing. A newly released study in Acta Psychologica has found that talking to oneself with an ‘inner voice’ is a beneficial aid in impulse control.
“We give ourselves messages all the time with the intent of controlling ourselves — whether that’s telling ourselves to keep running when we’re tired, to stop eating even though we want one more slice of cake, or to refrain from blowing up on someone in an argument,” said Alexa Tullett, a researcher at the University of Toronto.
Tullett conducted a series of impulse control tests in a controlled environment using a simple computer application. In the control test, participants were directed to either press or abstain from pressing a button when directed as such. Because there were more incidents where the participants were asked to press the button, participants had to show restraint from continuing the impulsive behavior. In the experimental test, participants were instructed to continually repeat a word in their mind, while performing the computer test.
It was expected that this would block their inner voice and their ability to deter impulses. The research seems to substantiate the hypothesis.
“Our research suggests that people can use their inner voice to curb unwanted impulses, like outbursts of rage,” said Tullett.
“Through a series of tests, we found that people acted more impulsively when they couldn’t use their inner voice or talk themselves through the tasks. Without being able to verbalize messages to themselves, they were not able to exercise the same amount of self control as when they could talk themselves through the process.”
Tullet believes there is much more to uncover in this area. “It would be great to extend our research to explore other scenarios that have a greater resemblance to the situations we often face in our day-to-day lives. For instance, it would be fascinating to see whether the inner voice plays a role in people’s perseverance when running on a treadmill, or in their ability to resist greasy foods.”
Tullet also wishes to explore a behavioural perspective with this research and “explore aggression in the lab, by having people play games where they can punish their opponents with unpleasant bursts of loud noise. Our research suggests that, in all of these scenarios, you might be able to resist these unwanted impulses.”
“The logical extension of this research, I think, is to examine what kinds of vocalizations actually help us to control our actions. Currently, we know that blocking the inner voice can impair self-control, but it would also be nice to explore what kinds of self-talk helps people to resist temptation.”
