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Distancing (Psychology)

Physiological distancing is the process by which an individual separates himself or herself from what is around them, be it people, situations or memories. This concept was conceived after the work of developmental psychologist Heinz Werner and Bernard Kaplan. Traditionally psychologist has used the process of distancing in order to help patients discover their own identity and in turn understand symbols the basis for cognition and language. Recently work has been done in physiological distancing in terms of development, personality and behavior.

Language Development
Distancing in the context of language development is the increase in “qualitative” dissimilarity between the referenced object (referent) and the way by which it is referenced (vehicle). Young children, initially imitate any sounds they hear and than begin to use some of these sounds to express their needs. As they designate a sound to a need there is a “shift in function” from imitation to depicted imitation. A slight distance between the sounds uttered to represent an event occurs. This is known as naturalistic onomatopoetic depiction. As the distance between the referent and vehicle grows, children transition from speaking a “baby” language to standard language. This transition occurs in two directions, in distancing the referent from the vehicle and vehicle from the referent. As the distance between the reference and vehicle grows there is a decrease in concreteness between the reference and vehicle. For example a sound that has come to represent a particular cat would than be applied to all cats.

The increased distance in the vehicle from the reference occurs in four types of transitional forms of linguistic representations. In the first type children use their own onomatopoetic expressions but in conventional ways. For example forming the verb “bumer” (= to fall) from the original word bum (boom). The second type is when children modify their words to form composite forms, like using the infantile word poch for hammering and forming the word pochmaker to mean workman. In the third type, children use a combination of their own words and conventional words like bah-sheep. The fourth type is when children are asked to repeat standard words they respond with their own equivalent word. Children transition into normal speech when the words they use become symbols instead of signals. For example, Helen Keller was often told of what the word w-a-t-e-r represented by her teacher Miss Sullivan. It was not until she placed her hand under the spout that she was able to understand what the word water meant.

The development of dialogue allows children to understand the difference between their thoughts and another’s. The physiological distance is the difference in these thoughts. In turn, physiological distancing allows for greater physiological complexity such as allowing for the representation of motivation, multiple meanings, invention, intention, deceit, and lying.

The Breakdown of Distancing
Kaplan and Wiley also use physiological distancing to describe dreaming and schizophrenia states. During dreaming the distance between an individual to others, words, and objects they are referring decreases. With decreasing distance between words and what they are referring to, the words begin to carry the object of reference. As a result polsemy is riddled throughout dream speech as individuals merge imagery and gestures together. For example the phrase “commando-red” reported during a dream means she sang (commando) at dawn (red). Schizophrenia is an extreme shrinkage of physiological distance because the waking individual is no longer able to discern the difference between themselves and others, referential object and symbolic vehicle. The decrease in distance between the schizophrenia patient and the object of reference causes these individuals to believe that the objects are an extension of themselves reflecting the person’s emotions.

Self-Distancing Perspective
Self-distancing occurs when an individual views their experience as observer. In contrast to self-distancing, self-immersed individuals recall events in first-person. Current research has shown that in self-immersed there is increase activity in emotion, autobiographical memory recall, and self-reflecting neural networks in the brain such as the medial prefrontal cortex, and brodmann area 10 (BA10). Additionally self-immersed individuals have increased activity in subgenual anterior cingulated cortex and brodmann area 25 (BA25). Over activity in the BA25 has been linked to depression. A self-distancing perspective can be adopted spontaneously and has been shown to negatively correlate with emotional activation. Individuals adopting a self-distancing perspective were also shown to be able to reconstruct events as oppose to recalling the event. Viewing events from a self-distancing perspective has the potential to allow people to work through their experiences and provide insight as well as closure to traumatic events.

Rumination is when a person continues to focus on the causes and consequences of their stress. Studies have indicated that rumination delays the amount of time it takes for a person to recover from negative events physiologically because they are continually reliving their past experiences. When, individuals adopt a self-distancing perspective they have been found to have lower blood pressure to those with self-immersed perspective both at the time initial time of reflection and over time recounting the experience. Suggesting that self-distancing may impact physical-health as well.

Cooping Mechanism
The term distancing is also applied as an attachment style. Attachment theory is a theory describing the formation of emotional bonds between people and the effects of a person’s attachment history on emotion regulation and other aspects of personality. Studies have shown that a person’s attachment style (secure, anxious, or avoidant) becomes stable with age. Attachment style is assessed by what kind of insecurity an individual has, either through attachment-related anxiety or attachment-related avoidance (distancing). Secure individuals, those with low levels of anxiety and avoidance, cope well with stress because they seek support from trusted attachment figures or use mental depictions of support from the past. Insecure individuals, those with high levels of anxiety or avoidance, do not feel as confident in the availability and responsiveness of others.

Subcallosal cingulated cortex (SCC), anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC) and lateral prefrontal cortex (LPFC) are areas of the brain associated with regulation and suppression of thoughts and emotions. In a neuro-physiological study it was found that both anxious and avoidant individuals activate the ACC and MPFC regions when told not to think about an event. Avoidant individuals though were found to have an increase in levels of activation of the SCC as oppose to anxious participants. Anxiety individuals also had lower levels of activation in the SCC and the LPFC areas, in line with previous studies, which have shown a decrease in blood flow to prefrontal areas during task-induced deactivation. Avoidant individuals failed to fully deactivate LPFC and SCC regions while suppressing thoughts and emotions. This is comparable to behavioral studies in which these individuals failed to maintain suppression when under cognition load (such as remembering seven numbers) as oppose to the non-avoidant people who could maintain suppression.

Other Dimensions of Distancing
Distance also has temporal, spatial, social, and probabilistic dimensions. For example, increased distance between words and what they refer in terms of time and space allows for mental travel into the past and future. In the beginning of development there is a short distance between words and what they mean and children are only able to comprehend and speak about the concrete. As the distance widens children are able are able to comprehend location, past, present and future. Language then allows for the communication of abstract and remote ideas. Additionally, being able to look backwards and forwards allows for the formation of basic cognition such as prediction, evaluation, and action.

The dimensions of distancing move together as people remember events from the past also have a unified sense of distance in the future. Politeness implies formal social distance where speaking less formally implies closeness. Participants that read a formal description of an event perceive that the event will happen in the future, implying spatial distance. Probabilistically people anticipate common occurrence to occur to those close to them as opposed to rare circumstances. In these instances each dimension of distancing influences the other.