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Having an alter ego can reduce anxiety, benefit confidence: research

bbc.com

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Re: Having an alter ego can reduce anxiety, benefit confidence: research

#21

Post by save_ferris »

lefstathiou wrote: post #14

True Story: the guy who leads our sales team is a super star named John (legal name). He’s fearless, organized, focused, determined “and Canadian” as he would say. Any way, while he was a rising junior his GF came to the office one day and I heard her call him Jake (nowhere in his name legal name). I asked “who the hell is Jake?” to which she replied “oh, that’s what we call John back home”. I looked at him and he sa…

I'm reminded of the bit in Silicon Valley where Jared turns into Ed Chambers. Of course that was a pretty dramatic character swing, but I had no idea that this was a real thing people did.

Re: Having an alter ego can reduce anxiety, benefit confidence: research

#22

Post by dmuth »

ben_w wrote: post #7

I wonder how much this applies to furries. How often is a fursona “the real me” vs roleplay? I’ve witnessed both in different individuals, and also both within a single person (primary ‘sona and some other separate ones which are just role playing). Adjective Species probably had an article on this, though it also reminds me of the discussions about therianthropy, contherianthropes, and New Age discussions of the use…

Yep, this is the comment I came here for!

On a related note, I attended Dr. Gerbasi's research results at Anthrocon a few years ago, and she noted from her furry survey that the experimental group (furries) rated themselves higher in response to questions such as "I feel good about myself" versus the control group. (her college students)

Re: Having an alter ego can reduce anxiety, benefit confidence: research

#24

Post by Consultant32452 »

IncRnd wrote: post #20
hanoz wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What, John liked cold calls so much that he had to invent alter ego Jake, who didn't like cold calls, in order to get a girlfriend?

It's often the other way around... Many times, salespeople use different names on the phone than in real life.

I always assumed it was to make it more difficult for me to hunt down and kill cold callers.

Re: Having an alter ego can reduce anxiety, benefit confidence: research

#25

Post by aloisdg »

anoncake wrote: post #18

How do I refer to myself in the third person without feeling like Gollum?

Two ideas:

* Create duplicate account with different persona and make them talk. Fun on reddit.

* Start roleplaying and mostly dming. One of my favorite experience in life.

Re: Having an alter ego can reduce anxiety, benefit confidence: research

#26

Post by AltruisticGap2 »

There are interesting correlations with the research on the sense of self, and how it relates to spiritual teachings which equate much of suffering with the sense of being a separate "self" entity (rather than seeing oneself as an indivisible part of a whole).

Maybe this trick helps reduce the activity of the DMN (default mode network) which is attributed to much of our worry based thinking, which is self centered?

https://jeffwarren.org/articles/neuroscienceofsuffering/

Re: Having an alter ego can reduce anxiety, benefit confidence: research

#28

Post by nate »

I've done a lot of this as a writer. I'll actually take an article from a favorite writer of mine and paste it on the page. Then'll I'll go through that article and write my own article on top of it paragraph by paragraph. None of the content or subject matter is the same. I'm not "rewriting the original article". But it helps keep the patterns similar. I can see how I might want to change pace, structure the story, etc.

But even more importantly it helps me imagine being that other, successful, famous author.

Re: Having an alter ego can reduce anxiety, benefit confidence: research

#30

Post by tug0fwar »

lefstathiou wrote: post #14

True Story: the guy who leads our sales team is a super star named John (legal name). He’s fearless, organized, focused, determined “and Canadian” as he would say. Any way, while he was a rising junior his GF came to the office one day and I heard her call him Jake (nowhere in his name legal name). I asked “who the hell is Jake?” to which she replied “oh, that’s what we call John back home”. I looked at him and he sa…

My name is.. my name is... my name is Slim Shady

Edit: Don't know why the downvotes. Maybe the song 'all-solo-founders-please-stand-up' does not relate to as many of us as I thought.

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