The key ideas

Chatter: The Voice in Our Head, Why It Matters, and How to Harness It

Ethan Kross, 2021

A psychologist who studies emotions spends two nights standing in a dark living room with a baseball bat after receiving a threatening letter, unable to stop his own thoughts. Ethan Kross explains why the inner voice can help and hinder, why we solve others’ problems more wisely than our own, and how one pronoun changes our view of a situation.

Who it is for

For anyone who catches themselves endlessly replaying thoughts before sleep, after an argument, or before something important, and wants to understand what they can do about it.

The mind is flexible, if we know how to bend it.

About the book

Spring 2011. Psychologist Ethan Kross has recently discussed a study on the CBS evening news: emotional and physical pain look similar in the brain. Soon a letter arrives at his University of Michigan work address, containing threats, violent drawings, and insults.

Everyone around him says such threats usually lead to nothing. But for two nights in a row, Kross stands in his pajamas in the dark living room holding a child’s baseball bat and watching the window. He cannot eat, discusses the letter with his wife again and again, and jumps at every sound from the nursery.

A scientist studying emotions cannot manage his own thoughts. One word he said to himself in the middle of the night helped him get out. You will learn which word later. The book is Kross’s account of what science knows about our conversations with ourselves.

Idea 1. The voice that is almost never silent

According to research Kross cites, we spend between a third and half our waking hours outside the present: remembering, replaying, planning. Much of this involves talking to ourselves.

The author emphasizes that the inner voice itself is useful: it helps us keep a plan in mind, rehearse a difficult conversation, and regulate ourselves. Children often comment aloud on their actions, which the author considers a normal part of their development.

The problem begins when the voice becomes trapped in a loop. Kross calls this loop chatter; Livria uses a translated label in Russian for these repetitive negative thoughts and feelings that are hard to escape.

You lie awake at night rehearsing for the fifth time what you should have said to your boss. The answer gets no better, and sleep slips away.

Reflecting on yourself is useful while thought moves forward. When it goes in circles, the same tool may begin working against you.

Read in Livria

About the author

Ethan Kross is an American psychologist and University of Michigan professor who directs the Emotion and Self-Control Laboratory. He studies how people talk to themselves and manage their emotions.

All books by this author: Ethan Kross

Terms from the book

  • Chatter: The author’s term, given a translated label by Livria in Russian: repetitive negative thoughts and feelings that go around in circles. An image from the book rather than a diagnosis.
  • Solomon’s paradox: The name Igor Grossmann and Ethan Kross gave in 2014 to the tendency to reason more wisely about other people’s problems than our own.
  • Distanced self-talk: A technique Kross studies: addressing yourself by name or as “you,” like another person. In experiments, it helped reduce anxiety on average, but does not work equally for everyone.
  • Mental time travel: A technique from the book: imagine how you will feel about a situation in a month, a year, or ten years.
  • Invisible support: Help someone receives without noticing it. In a study the author cites, such help was associated with lower stress.
  • Compensatory control: An idea from psychology: when people lack a sense of control, they may seek it in order and structure around them.

All terms

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