Sometimes, the most
important mental activity is not what you think, but what you think about what
you think. Let's unpack that contention.
Suppose you are walking
along the avenue, and a friend drives past. You wave and your friend does
not acknowledge you. Your automatic thought is "What's wrong with
him?" You then proceed to thinking: "The last time we talked, he
asked me to come over to his house to help him, and I declined. I bet he's
still irritated about that” You then might think about something else while
retaining the belief in your friend's irritation. You also could ruminate about
your friend not-waving-to-you problem for minutes, hours, or days. When you see
your friend again, you mention that you waved and he did not respond, and he
answers, "Oh, I don't remember seeing you." At that point you could
accept his explanation, be satisfied, and banish the not-waving-incident from
your mind. However, it also is possible that you do not believe his
"excuse" and consider him merely to be avoiding an uncomfortable
discussion.
As I have written in
several previous blog postings, psychologists use the term
"metacognition" to describe one's thoughts about their own thoughts. It is important for you to understand that metacognition can operate unconsciously
and/or consciously. Most often it is unconscious, and, therefore, outside
your deliberate control. So, when you wave to your driving-by friend you
might not be aware of details of the thoughts that briefly raced through your
mind. Instead, you might only experience a vague, negative, fleeting
sensation. In that case, you are unlikely to be able to rationally
process the experience. Even if you are conscious of the entire cognitive and
emotional experience, your enduring or current personality condition could make
rational processing difficult for you.
Those who are savvy
about metacognition could be at an advantage in processing the
non-waving-friend situation. Yes, no, maybe? As you might guess,
that is a "maybe."
Although I, of course,
cannot cite research directly relevant to your personal, idiosyncratic
metacognitive style, I can mention a study that illustrates some important
metacognitive considerations. First, let's think briefly about research by
Sabnam Basu and Shikha Dixit (2022). Their study included139 male and
female MBA students from top tier business schools in India. Analysis of their
data underscored the importance of knowledge about cognition and regulation of
cognition in explaining the decision-making styles. That is, whether knowing
about decision processes and being able to control your cognition are singly or
jointly important for decision outcome.
They suggested the while
knowledge about cognition was positively associated with intuitive and
spontaneous decision-making styles, regulation of cognition emerged to be
positively related to rational decision-making style. Both knowledge and
regulation of cognition could explain these decision-making styles over and
above the demographic variables of age, gender and work experience. The
maladaptive decision styles of dependent and avoidant decision-making, however,
could neither be explained by knowledge about cognition nor regulation of
cognition. For example, those with knowledge of cognition who usually
depended on their intuition and spontaneous “feeling” performed better than
other intuitive and spontaneous types who had poor cognition knowledge.
And those with good regulation of cognition who usually depended on their
rational analysis skills performed better than other rationally-oriented types
who had poor regulation of cognition skills. In short, a strong
regulation of cognition orientation was not enough; one needed to be able to
actively apply rationality in ways directly relevant to the decision task at
hand.
My point in introducing
these ideas is to suggest implications for everyday interpersonal interactions
and relationships. When someone says or does something that involves you
substantively, at that moment you consciously or unconsciously decide how to
respond. If you are more of an intuitive and spontaneous type, you are inclined
to respond without much deliberation. Your intuition and/or spontaneity
has the best chance of producing a constructive outcome when you have had a
great amount of experience with the particular person and particular context
present. On the other hand, if you are more rationally oriented, you will seek
“data” on which to make your interpersonal decision. The critical issue
then is whether there is data that is valid and reliable. You might think that
you methodically have performed all the necessary “calculations “to decide
rationally, but be sorely mistaken. Imagine that someone failed to
deliver on what you perceived as their promise to you, and after parsing the
available information, you conclude that they deliberately lied. However,
they might never have made an explicit promise; your data was faulty.
So, whether you attempt
to reach interpersonal decisions via intuition, spontaneity, or rationality,
you will arrive at the most adaptive conclusions by first seeking feedback and
testing your tentative conclusions before speaking or acting upon them.
You must use internal and external metacommunication as effectively as
possible. As for what Sabnam Basu and Shikha Dixit called the “maladaptive
decision styles of dependent and avoidant decision-making,” you know that there
are particular people and particular contexts when a dependent or avoidant
strategy can be useful, if only in the short-term.
The bottom line
suggestion is for you neither to presume you know what other people are
thinking or why they are thinking what they are, in fact, thinking. An
easy recommendation for me to make; a difficult behavior for you to
enact. So, it might be an interpersonal strategy that you are willing to
apply to interactions involving only the most important people and important
people-oriented decisions. If you do, you will find it well worth the
effort.
Reference
Basu, S. & Dixit, S. (2022). Role of metacognition in explaining decision-making
styles: A study of knowledge about cognition and regulation of cognition.
Personality and Individual Differences, Volume 185, February 2022, 111-318
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