Psychological Distancing As A Tool

The executive functioning also allows us to perform the following processes important for psychological distancing.

• Shifting: The ability to redirect our attention to another aspect of a problem, or from one item to another.
• Response inhibition: The ability to restrain our emotional response.
• Updating: The ability to 'update' the information we are using after shifting our attention and inhibiting our initial response.

The act of psychological distancing is mostly atheoretical, meaning very little research describes how psychological distancing as a tool develops and functions in humans.