II: Metacognition Flashcards
Definition of Metacognition
Thinking about thinking, Knowledge and beliefs about our mental processes
Types of Metacognition
Specific:
awareness of trying to retrieve a memory
Trying to remember a word, recall a name
General
beliefs about cognitive skills/abilities
E.g. “I have a good/bad memory,” “I am good at spatial tasks,” etc.
Relates to Self-efficacy
Metacognition in Therapy: For Clients
- -Often the goal of therapy
- -Most thinking is about physical/social world
- -Common strategy in therapy is to increase metacognition around client’s issues
- -awareness can lead to be better self-regulation/self-management
- -Hopefully can act on it, change behavior positively
- E.g., increase thinking about family interactions, ways we talk/treat each other; developing awareness that I misinterpret interactions as negative
- E.g., think about/consider early warning signs for anxiety symptoms; control, monitor
Metacognition in Therapy: For Therpists
Metacognition awareness makes for better use of client mental abilities
Not necessarily cognitive ability but ability to think in psychologically-minded way
Three Aspects of Metacognition
Knowledge—
Skills—
Beliefs—
Three Aspects of Metacognition: Knowledge
Understanding of cognitive processes
(bulk of the second half of this class)
E.g., knowing information processing, short term memory problem solving, etc.
A memory is reconstructed each time it is recalled
Three Aspects of Metacognition: Skills
Predicting, planning, monitoring, evaluating own performance relative to a specific task
E.g., Executive functions
Three Aspects of Metacognition: Beliefs
General ideas/personal theories about cognitive processes and conceptualizations of our own abilities
Greatly influence mental performance, influences mental effort exerted
- -E.g., Old people have memory problems, don’t try to retrieve information
- -E.g., ADHD kid forgot to take med, “can’t” learn
- -E.g. Attributing improvement to new antidepressant
Influence how interpret thoughts and evaluate memories
–Inaccurate theories lead to erroneous conclusions
Capable of discriminating between disorders, fueling disorder
–E.g. OCD, checking > metacognition that doesn’t have a good memory
Metacognition And Memory
Beliefs about memory may not reflect performance
Inaccurate beliefs associated with negative mood
Therapists need to understand memoir, importance
Teach clients
Memory is suggestible
Two Interacting Metacognitive Processes
1) Monitoring—awareness of our current thinking
- -E.g. client who could notice his anx symptoms but couldn’t control/do anything about it
2) Controlling—using awareness to direct/control thinking efforts
Monitoring
Tied closely to learning and memory
Judgments about learning and recall fairly accurate but imperfect (r = .5)
Over-credit the familiar, likelihood of remembering it
E.g., Friend’s birthday
Under emphasize environmental conditions that influence memory performance
E.g., I am sure I am going to remember my friend’s birthday this December because she is my friend. I don’t remember after all because it is also the holidays and finals and I underestimated how stressed and distracted I would be
*Implications for therapy: how would a client remember homework? Challenge of prospective memory, monitoring, cuing.
Control
Get info from monitoring
Use information to control/manage behavior
Context of monitoring process influence how behavior is controlled
E.g., drew distinction between accuracy and speed, depending on what you were monitory for/focusing on
We don’t always monitor the most relevant information, leading to ineffective control
–E.g. client coming in w superstition
–Implications for Therapy: homework
Ensure clients are paying attention to right thing
Metacognitive Instruction:
Is it worth spending time trying to increase client self-monitoring and uncover metacognitive beliefs?
Parent metacognitive discussion with child while solving complex puzzle improves problem solving
–Direction and encouragement, supported kids do better
–More toys, use metacognitive discussion with selves
Metacognition can be learned
Parallels to therapy
Course Overview
Classical and Operant Conditioning Social Cognitive Theories Self-efficacy Cognitive Theories Transtheoretical Model of Change Memory Information processing model Judgment & Decision-Making Emotion & Motivation Metacognition
Therpy Arc
Hackney and Cormier (2005) Five-Stage Model 1) relationship building 2) problem identification 3) goal setting 4) counseling interventions 5) evaluation/termination
