Posted by By Tuhin Das $
Our lives mostly run on an auto-pilot mode. We make millions of small and big decisions and actions every single day. For example, what to eat, how to work, how much to buy, etc. These actions are driven mostly by habit. However, thinking impulsively, instinctively, and emotionally can lead to negative consequences also, for an individual as well as collectively for the society (Croskerry, 2003). To break this habit driven decision making, metacognition may come handy. This can be more helpful especially when our decisions impact the society rather than our individual life. The simple reason being we care more for ourselves, as individual and immediate family, than the community or society. In simple terms metacognition means thinking about our own thinking (Flavell, 1979). It is actually an art of stepping outside of your own mind to observe your thoughts as a third person. This helps you to evaluate your thought in an unbiased manner.
Consider one of your health-related decision making. Eating protein-rich home-cooked food for dinner after working late in office and getting tired is not a simple task always. Execution of this takes away a lot of personal time for everyone. Most of the professionals grab whatever spices, vegetables, chicken, etc. is available at home and cook their dinner that tastes palatable. Within a week or so, the dinner that felt palatable starts feeling bland and monotonous. Some people tend to gravitate towards an easier way out. They start ordering online once or twice a week to reduce the burden of cooking and/or to add the flavours that were missing in home cooked food. Within a few months, the consequences are visible. The food ordered from outside making them feel unhealthier and lethargic. And, of course the additional spending on outside food has an added financial consequence. However, mostly continue with the same practice, especially if it does not hurt their pocket.
Most of the people opt for this practice not because it was the best choice; but because of the fact that it can be done with least amount of mental effort. It was a chosen more for convenience’s sake rather than the taste or more importantly the health.
How metacognition can help in better decision making?
Metacognition allows us to step back and be aware of our own thoughts. It helps us see things with an objective intention for a longer run rather than actions for convenience sake. By asking “Whys” and “Hows” help us to gauge how one can take actions in more apt way fulfilling an objective for a long term and sustainable perspective.
This process occurs in multiple phases (Stanton, Sebesta, and Dunlosky, 2021):
Understanding the action required and Planning – First of all we try to understand what is the actual purpose of the action required. Once we set a goal, strategizing the action, how it can be done, follows. We build multiple scenarios with likely actions to obtain a holistic view. This tells us which action to prefer based on consequences, positive or negative. As an example, having a protein-rich food, we start questioning us:
Q. How much protein is needed in a day as per one’s body weight and how much has already been consumed in that day.
Q. What spice blends are making the food more palatable, but also boosting health?
Q. How can these ingredients be procured/prepared during weekend so that it reduces daily time requirement for these basic steps for cooking?
Q. If these are done, how much time and effort can one save during working days?
Q. Does that make life easier and more pleasant so that one can invest time for hobbies and other purposes?
Monitoring the impact: Based on your action plan, we ask ourselves if it is working or not?
Q. How the new Sunday routine actually changed my life?
Q. Do I feel the same negative impacts on my health as earlier?
Q. Am I able to spend more time on hobbies or something else that is close to my heart?
Evaluation: You evaluate the positive or negative changes that happened due to this process
Q . Am I a healthier person both physically and mentally than earlier?
Q. Am I a happier person than previously for being able to relax? Q. Am I saving money than earlier to be able to spend on something more crucial than outside food?
How can society benefit from metacognition as a whole?
The problem can be scaled at the societal level. A large number of persons with better physical, mental and financial health can contribute significantly to society’s development collectively. But if all of us could start asking the “whys” and “hows” and visualize various scenarios prior to clicking on that “Add to Cart” button, a lot of macro-level issues could be addressed, especially on sustainability front.
In case we are able to opt metacognition for ourselves, perhaps a lot of problems can be tackled with less effort. We can mitigate environment and climate change impact through conscious actions towards environmental concerns; public health can be much better which in turn can reduce economic loss for households as well as the country; we can achieve higher productivity at work places; also, as consumers are generally irrational in behaviour, conscious efforts through metacognition can help out economic status to boost further. Metacognition at an individual or societal level can cause butterfly effect and help humanity and nature to co-exist together in more sustainable ways.
Metacognition can prove to be a meaningful tool achieving sustainability in industries such as aviation, healthcare, IT, agriculture, tourism etc. This can help human beings to thrive through the challenges posed in recent years, like climate change, excessive use of fertiliser for farming, mass tourism to tourist destinations causing traffic problems, landslides and flooding in hills for relentless building of physical infrastructure without care for nature. There can be numerous examples that can be cited, which metacognition may reverse if human being, the most intelligent and adaptive species on earth, can opt for it.
References:
- Croskerry (2003). The Importance of Cognitive Errors in Diagnosis and Strategies to Minimize Them.Academic Medicine. https://doi.org/10.1097/00001888-200308000-00003
- Flavell (1979). Metacognition and cognitive monitoring: A new area of cognitive-developmental inquiry.American Psychologist. https://psycnet.apa.org/doi/10.1037/0003-066X.34.10.906
- Stanton, J. D., Sebesta, A. J. and Dunlosky, J. (2021) Fostering metacognition to support student learning and performance. CBELife Science Education. https://doi.org/10.1187/cbe.20-12-0289