Beforehand, they were advised to think through their emotions about the challenge using the third person (for example, “David feels…”) as if they were a separate entity, rather than the more immersive first person (for example, “I feel”). In other experiments, participants were asked to give a small public talk. It allows us to rein in undesirable feelings like anxiety, increases our perseverance on challenging tasks, and boosts our self-control. “Self-distancing gives us a little bit of extra space to think rationally about the situation,” says Rachel White, assistant professor of psychology at Hamilton College in New York State. Adopting an alter ego is an extreme form of ‘self-distancing’, which involves taking a step back from our immediate feelings to allow us to view a situation more dispassionately. Adele said the strategy helped her give her best to every performance during her breakout year.Īlthough the embodiment of a fictional persona may seem like a gimmick for pop stars, new research suggests there may be some real psychological benefits to the strategy. The persona was a combination of Beyoncé’s Sasha Fierce persona and the (real) country music star June Carter. Inspired by an emotional meeting with Beyoncé herself, Adele followed suit, telling Rolling Stone magazine in 2011 about her creation of ‘Sasha Carter’. It was a strategy that she continued to use until 2010, when she felt she had matured enough to avoid the psychological crutch. “Usually when I hear the chords, when I put on my stilettos, like the moment right before when you’re nervous… then Sasha Fierce appears, and my posture and the way I speak and everything is different,” she told Oprah Winfrey in 2008. How do the world’s top stars muster the poise and determination to stand on stage, despite the nerves and anxiety of having a bad performance? For both Beyoncé and Adele, the secret has been the creation of an alter ego.īeyoncé’s was the assertive and empowered ‘Sasha Fierce’, who allowed her to perform with extra self-confidence and sensuality. Read our full list of the year’s top stories here. As we head into 2021, Worklife is running our best, most insightful and most essential stories from 2020.

Alter ego game personality test