What if I told you that you already possess all the wisdom you need to solve your toughest problems? You will need to learn to step outside yourself and apply this wisdom to your life.
King Solomon of ancient Israel (970-931 BC) was known the world over for his wisdom and fair justice. His kingdom was the most prosperous and peaceful that had ever been known. Yet, although King Solomon was notable for his remarkable wisdom in managing the affairs of his kingdom, his personal life was a total disaster.
Today, we will examine a core strategy for stepping outside yourself, known as self-distancing. This is a mental shift that reduces emotional bias, allowing us to make more rational and objective decisions.
Psychology
Solomon’s paradox describes the human tendency; we reason more wisely about the conflicts or dilemmas of others than those we face personally. Most of us have experienced this, offering confident advice to a friend (Why don’t you leave him? You should ask for a raise!) versus paralysis when facing a similar personal dilemma. This introduces the central conflict: the gap between our interpersonal wisdom and often clouded intrapersonal decision-making.
Emotional distance grants clarity: self-involvement complicates it.
In contemporary psychology, Solomon’s Syndrome extends the idea in a different direction. In its informal sense, it describes individuals who struggle with low self-confidence and depend heavily on external validation to guide their choices. Their decisions are influenced less by internal conviction and more by the perceived expectations or judgments of others. This is an extreme form of a tendency; however, underlying dynamics influence everyday behavior.
Solomon’s paradox is a well-studied cognitive phenomenon, showing that people tend to offer wiser, more objective guidance to others than to themselves. Mainly because they are not entangled in the emotional stakes of the problem.
The informal take on Solomon’s syndrome is a modern nonclinical description of low self-esteem, a fear of standing out, and a reliance on external approval. This pattern is getting more attention in relation to social media, adolescence, and social isolation.
Solomon’s Paradox
Psychologists Igor Grossman and Ethan Kross introduced the idea of Solomon’s paradox. Their research reported two things. One was that people are generally wiser when reasoning about other people’s problems compared with their own.
This brings us to a widespread social cognitive bias, which means we are much better at dealing with other people’s lives and problems than our own.
The second idea they noted was that when we try to eliminate preoccupation and distance ourselves from our own problems, we are much better at making sensible decisions.
We possess two types of wisdom: general wisdom, which is interpersonal, and what we see between ourselves and someone else. Then we have personal wisdom, which is intrapersonal, focusing on our own lives.
Our personal issues become clouded by emotions, biases, past experiences, and extra details, which can lead to poor decisions. Overcoming it involves creating a personal distance from the self, adopting a third-person perspective. What would I tell my friend?
Why it happens
When we face challenges and personal issues, they trigger strong emotions (such as fear, envy, and insecurity) that can cloud our judgment and impair our ability to make informed decisions. These are not concerns when we are advising others. When we think about others, we use different neural pathways, allowing us more wisdom when detached.
We bring all our lived experiences, which can be messy and have hidden details, making objective analysis more challenging. We are too close.
Emotional overload clouds your judgment
Personal connections can cloud judgment through our focus, emotional attachment, and bias. This overwhelms our cognitive capacity with self-related information. It compromises impartiality, reduces objective analysis, and leads to more extreme evaluations.
The closer someone is to an event or person, the more likely their judgment is swayed by sentiment rather than objective facts or moral principles. This closeness makes us less accurate; we apply fewer moral principles and focus on immediate feelings. Again, reinforcing those emotions and lived experiences can cloud our judgment.
Deep feelings for one party can alter the sense of fairness for all involved. This is a significant issue in professional contexts such as the legal system, where impartiality is crucial.
People who feel emotions intensely tend to make more extreme judgments, whether positive or negative. Strong feelings can bypass careful consideration and may lead to rash decisions, often described as those made “in the heat of the moment.”
When individuals are psychologically or emotionally close to an event, they tend to focus more on situation-specific circumstances and less on general moral principles. This greater distance leads to judgments based more on abstract moral rules.
Emotional states prompt us to seek out, interpret, and remember information that confirms our existing feelings. This is the confirmation bias we discussed in last week’s blog. Being angry with a loved one can cause you to view their behavior in a negative light, confirming your negative beliefs.
A person’s present emotional state determines what memories are retrieved. Past experiences are influencing and amplifying present emotions.
How to overcome it
Think about your problems as if you were advising a friend. What should he do? This adopts a third-person view. Providing distance from the self.
Often, when dealing with problems, all we can see is the problem. Cato the Elder (Roman soldier, senator, and historian) said, “An angry man opens his mouth and shuts his eyes.” Zoom out, see the bigger picture, and the scale of your problems will seem more trivial.
How to use “Solomon’s paradox” to give yourself good life advice, by Jonny Thomson (Big Think)
Escaping Solomon’s Paradox, by Sahil Bloom (Curiosity Chronicle)
“The key to success is to act on the advice you give to others.”
– Fortune Cookie
One of the most powerful strategies to bypass Solomon’s Paradox is distant self-talk. A psychological technique where you talk to yourself using your own name or non-first-person pronouns (you, he, she) instead of I. This creates a psychological distance, helping you manage your emotions and develop better problem-solving skills. It promotes self-control, allowing you to gain perspective on stressful situations.
Instead of asking: “What should I do about this situation?” Ask, “What should Linda do about this?”
- Create distance to gain clarity
- Embrace the insights you uncover
- Translate insights into decisive actions
Self-Distancing: What It Is and How You Can Use It to Make Better Decisions, by Itamar Shatz, Ph.D.
Something to consider
What is one problem you are currently too close to see clearly? What would you tell a friend in your situation?
Grossmann’s research provides a powerful scientific foundation for our exploration of intentional living and self-authorship. His research confirms that wisdom is not a mysterious aura that only a few can achieve. It is a trainable strength, shaped by how we think, how we relate to others, and how we position ourselves within our lives. His work reinforces the idea that emotional distance improves judgment and that our environments shape what we perceive as problems, conflicts, and moral choices.
Reflective tools, psychological clarity, and personal transformation validate this year’s theme, The Unexamined Life. By examining how we perceive the world, we can adjust, learn new strategies, and gain more control of our lives.
While emotions are a crucial part of human cognition, emotional closeness can disrupt the balance between emotion and logic, resulting in biased and potentially irrational judgments.
Recommended reading
The SOLOMON SEDUCTION: What You Can Learn from the Wisest Fool in the Bible, by Mark Atteberry
Through A Paradox Lens: An Introduction To Paradoxical Thinking And Problem Solving, by Jeff Flesher
Distancing: How Great Leaders Reframe to Make Better Decisions, by L. David Marquet, and Michael A. Gillespie
You are not Your Thoughts: Distancing yourself From Unhelpful Thinking Patterns, by Mr. Sathyamoorthy Buma Sridhar
How Our Brains Betray Us: Change the Way you Think and Make Better Decisions by Understanding the Cognitive Biases and Heuristics that Destroy Our lives!, by Magnus McDaniels
Citations
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