Ethan Kross
Ethan Kross is an experimental psychologist at the University of Michigan, where he directs the Emotion and Self Control Laboratory and holds appointments in psychology and at the Ross School of Business. The inner voice is his central subject. His own first-authored contribution is the research on self-talk: how you refer to yourself while thinking through a stressful situation changes how well you handle it. He is also second author on Solomon's paradox, and popular accounts routinely credit him for it. This page credits Igor Grossmann.
Who they are
Kross studies how people regulate their own emotions, and he is best known outside the field for Chatter, his book on the voice in our head, which has not been read for this page.
His first-authored work is on self-distanced self-talk: addressing yourself by name, or as "you", rather than as "I", while thinking about something stressful. The 2014 paper found that the pronoun makes a difference. The 2017 paper, with Jason Moser as first author, found that third-person self-talk regulates emotion without engaging cognitive control, meaning it does not appear to cost the mental effort that deliberate regulation strategies usually demand.
Credit where it belongs. Grossmann and Kross (2014) is Grossmann's paper. In retellings the finding is attached to Kross, whose bestselling book made him the better-known name, and that is exactly the error this publication's credit rule exists to prevent. Kross's own contribution is substantial enough that it does not need to borrow.
Key papers
Kross, E., Bruehlman-Senecal, E., Park, J., Burson, A., Dougherty, A., Shablack, H., Bremner, R., Moser, J., & Ayduk, O. (2014). "Self-talk as a regulatory mechanism: How you do it matters", Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 106(2), 304 to 324. First author. His own line of work.
Grossmann, I., & Kross, E. (2014). Psychological Science, 25(8), 1571 to 1580. Second author. Credit Grossmann.
Moser, J. S., Dougherty, A., Mattson, W. I., et al., & Kross, E. (2017). "Third-person self-talk facilitates emotion regulation without engaging cognitive control", Scientific Reports, 7, 4519.
Key ideas
Distancing is not the same thing as naming, and the two are constantly merged. Naming a feeling puts a word on it. Distancing changes the vantage point you are looking at it from. They are different mechanisms and the evidence for them runs in different directions.
Solomon's paradox is a reasoning gap, not a harshness gap. People reason less wisely about their own problems than about other people's. That is a claim about the quality of the thinking, not about how cruel anybody is to themselves.
The pronoun result is unusually cheap to act on. Switching from "why am I so anxious about this" to "why are you so anxious about this" costs nothing, and appears to cost no mental effort either.
A third-person voice is a way of borrowing the distance you already have when a friend tells you their problem.
Concepts on this site
Find them elsewhere
Nothing confirmed. A search was run and no website or account could be tied to this person with enough certainty to publish. A name match on its own is not evidence, and a wrong link here would be worse than none.
Checked 2026-09-11. Handles and affiliations go out of date, so treat this block as a snapshot rather than a standing fact.
Sources
- Kross, E., et al. (2014). Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 106(2), 304 to 324.
- Grossmann, I., & Kross, E. (2014). Psychological Science, 25(8), 1571 to 1580. Second author.
- Moser, J. S., et al., & Kross, E. (2017). Scientific Reports, 7, 4519.
- Chatter: The Voice in Our Head. Not read here.
- Affiliation confirmed 2026-09-11 against the University of Michigan Department of Psychology faculty record.