The determinants of metamemory beliefs: the effect of Self-relevance and Friend-relevance. How important is anxiety?

Abstract

Background Metacognitive beliefs (beliefs about one’s own possibilities) are an object of research in several clinical groups. Personality characteristics determine the contents of such beliefs. Participants and procedure In the study of the general population, judgment of learning (JOL) techniques were used. This technique is based on estimating the level of material (words) memorized, then learning and memorizing. There were two types of tasks used: for Self-relevance and Friend-relevance. The task was to express judgments about a friend’s (he/she) beliefs ( I think he/she thinks...) and about the friend’s performance ( I think he/she will perform...) in the described task. Results A higher level of trait anxiety led to negative self-evaluations of one’s capabilities. Higher levels of state anxiety promoted more positive assessment of the friend’s possibilities. Conclusions Anxiety analyzed as an isolated variable does not explain the character of metacognitive self-beliefs and beliefs regarding a friend. Both our findings and the results of previous studies (3) suggest that the tendency to under-evaluate one’s abilities is a frequent characteristic of metacognitive beliefs, being independent of anxiety levels. Future research should center around similar analyses of persons diagnosed with specific types of anxiety-related disorders.