I Know Better! Emerging Metacognition Allows Adolescents to Ignore False Advice

Overview

Journal Dev Sci

Specialty Psychology

Date 2021 Mar 9

PMID 33686737

Citations 12

Authors

Madeleine E Moses-Payne

Johanna Habicht

Aislinn Bowler

Nikolaus Steinbeis

Tobias U Hauser

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Adolescents aspire for independence. Successful independence means knowing when to rely on one's own knowledge and when to listen to others. A critical prerequisite thus is a well-developed metacognitive ability to accurately assess the quality of one's own knowledge. Little is known about whether the strive to become an independent decision maker in adolescence is underpinned by the necessary metacognitive skills. Here, we demonstrate that metacognition matures from childhood to adolescence (N = 107) and that this process coincides with greater independent decision-making. We show that adolescents, in contrast to children, take on others' advice less often, but only when the advice is misleading. Finally, we demonstrate that adolescents' reduced reliance on others' advice is explained by their increased metacognitive skills, suggesting that a developing ability to introspect may support independent decision-making in adolescence.

Citing Articles

Neural Tracking of Perceived Parent, but Not Peer, Norms Is Associated with Longitudinal Changes in Adolescent Attitudes about Externalizing Behaviors.

Do K, Prinstein M, Lindquist K, Telzer E J Cogn Neurosci. 2024; 36(6):1221-1237.

PMID: 38579244 PMC: 11095915. DOI: 10.1162/jocn_a_02152.

Seeking versus receiving help: How children integrate suggestions in memory decisions.

Selmeczy D, Kazemi A, Ghetti S Child Dev. 2023; 95(2):515-529.

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Probing apathy in children and adolescents with the Apathy Motivation Index-Child version.

Hewitt S, Habicht J, Bowler A, Lockwood P, Hauser T Behav Res Methods. 2023; 56(4):3982-3994.

PMID: 37537490 PMC: 11133129. DOI: 10.3758/s13428-023-02184-4.

Spontaneous Thought Characteristics are Differentially Related to Heightened Negative Affect vs. Blunted Positive Affect in Adolescents: An Experience Sampling Study.

Webb C, Tierney A, Brown H, Forbes E, Pizzagalli D, Ren B JCPP Adv. 2023; 2(4).

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Computational Mechanisms of Addiction and Anxiety: A Developmental Perspective.

Goldway N, Eldar E, Shoval G, Hartley C Biol Psychiatry. 2023; 93(8):739-750.

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