The strategic or deliberate adoption of a cognitively distanced, third-person perspective
is proposed to adaptively regulate emotions. However, studies of psychological disorders
suggest spontaneous adoption of a third-person perspective reflects counter-productive
avoidance. Here, we review studies that investigate the deliberate adoption of a
third- or first-person vantage perspective and its impact on affect in healthy people,
“sub-clinical” populations and those with psychological disorders. A systematic search
was conducted across four databases. After exclusion criteria were applied, 38 studies
were identified that investigated the impact of both imagery and verbal instructions
designed to encourage adoption of a third-person perspective on self-reported
affect. The identified studies examined a variety of outcomes related to recalling
memories, imagining scenarios and mood induction. These were associated with specific
negative emotions or mood states (dysphoria/sadness, anxiety, anger), mixed or neutral
affect autobiographical memories, and self-conscious affect (e.g., guilt). Engaging a
third-person perspective was generally associated with a reduction in the intensity
of positive and negative affect. Studies that included measures of semantic change,
suggested that this is a key mediator in reduction of affect following perspective change.
Strategically adopting a “distanced,” third-person perspective is linked to a reduction
in affect intensity across valence, but in addition has the potential to introduce new
information that regulates emotion via semantic change. Such reappraisal distinguishes
deliberate adoption of a distanced perspective from the habitual and/or spontaneous
shift in perspective that occurs in psychopatholog
