There is space between senses & thoughts, which changes perspectives… a lot

First, there is what we observe and do – the sensory stuff. Then, there is a perception of what we sense in our heads. Holding an apple while looking at it (that’s sensing) into a mental image or a connection of ideas (that’s the perception). There is a figurative distance between the two, and that distance affects what you perceive and how detailed your perception is. This is isn’t just an odd quirk of our existence; it affects our emotions, thoughts, and even creativity.

There is a meme – people with bad eyesight are intelligent because everything is blurred and their brain works on overdrive.

I’m not saying it is false (or true), but it captures the essence of psychological distance. Bad eye sight essentially adds a metaphorical distance between your sensation and your perception.

The closer you are to your sensations, the more you focus on the details; and the further you are, the more you focus on the big picture – like standing next to a bunch of trees and then moving away till all you see is a forest or a bunch of trees as a green smudge in concrete.

This aspect of our mind is very much like a camera zooming in and out. But that only applies to the visual aspects. The mind has more types of distances: psychological, spatial, temporal, personal. However, they are often clubbed together as psychological distance even though each category is different.

One example of psychological distance is how talking in the 3rd person about your own anxiety can reduce anxiety. First person sentences are directly referencing yourself. That is the sensation of being yourself, but changing that to 3rd person language like he/she/they (or a name) increases the distance. As if you are being removed from your thought and being put far away. Essentially, “I suck” is a statement that happens in your unique coordinates on this grand psychological map. Changing it to “He sucks” (even if it is about you), moves the object of conversation to other coordinates on this psychological map – an outsider’s perspective. This removal – aka the distance – dilutes emotions because they are less related to your sense of self as per the change in perception by switching from I to HE.

This was a purely cognitive distance. Then there is a temporal distance that has an effect on emotions and creativity.

Temporal distance is the reason why people say “time will heal and time will make things easy to deal with.” When you look back, it feels like that was true. Events from the past begin to lose their emotional weight. That’s also why we end up thinking of amazing comebacks and witty remarks long after the moment goes away. The temporal distance helps us create this creative insight by letting the brain process and reprocess information in the background. The French have a word for it – L’esprit de l’escalier (pronounced leh-spree duh les-kal-yeh).

Another one is spatial distance – changing the perceived location of a problem. In one study^[1], researchers gave participants some creative problem-solving tasks. The researchers manipulated spatial distance by telling some participants that they were gathering data for a nearby university (3.2km away) or a faraway university (3200km away). Participants who were “gathering data” for the faraway university produced significantly more creative solutions.

Personal distance is interesting as well. Research shows^[2] that humans tend to be more creative in solving problems for other people than for themselves. The concept of self is closer to yourself than it is to other people. Thinking for other people tends to increase the distance and deter personal/emotional barriers to creativity.

This problem is well demonstrated by people who feel they give excellent advice but can’t seem to implement it for themselves.

These examples of psychological distance emerge from what researchers call “the construal level theory^[3]“. Psychological distance changes the construal level of an object or idea; construal level meaning the level of details at which a concept is processed. High construal level is processing something abstractly – like seeing a house and just focusing on its overall shape and ignoring the minute details. Low construal level is processing something concretely – like seeing the windows and finding out who is behind the window looking back at you.

Psychological distance essentially changes the abstractness level or concreteness level of an object and idea.

In psychological distance, with the 3rd person sentences diluting emotions, we see that 3rd person talking makes the concept of “I” more abstract by using “He”. In temporal distance, the past is more abstract than the current. In spatial distance, the far away things are more abstract than those nearby. In personal distance, other people are more abstract than the self.

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The takeaway here is – the moment you manipulate this “distance”, your perspective changes because the associated emotions and thoughts change.

So, if it’s an idea you want to re-analyze, you can get a new perspective by changing all the distances. Example below.

Suppose, you have a business idea about selling home-made art.

1. Gain new perspective with psychological distance – replace the I statements with he/she/they as if you are talking about an outsider.
2. Gain a new perspective with temporal distance – think about it after your idea again after a few weeks.
3. Gain a new perspective with spatial distance – mentally implement your idea in a different location.
4. Gain a new perspective with personal distance – assume the plan is made by your friend and reevaluate it.

Sources