Contributions of Metacognition to Creative Performance and Behavior
Year: 2024
Type: article
Study design: Observational Study
Abstract: ABSTRACT How are ideas born? Contrary to commonly held beliefs, creative performance, like any goal‐oriented action, requires understanding and managing one's own cognitive processes – thus, efficient metacognition. Recently, a systematic framework of creative metacognition (CMC) has been proposed, assuming the relevance of metacognitive knowledge, monitoring, and control in creative performance. Here, we provide the first comprehensive empirical examination of this conception. Specifically, an online sample ( N = 425) performed divergent thinking (DT) tasks and gave insight in relevant aspects of metacognitive processes during task performance. The study revealed that all three proposed components of CMC played independent roles in enhancing creative cognitive performance, including divergent thinking creativity and fluency. Among these components, metacognitive control showed the strongest positive association with creative cognitive performance. As expected, CMC was especially relevant to imminent creative task performance but showed some association with real‐life creativity. These findings provide the first empirical evidence that all three postulated components of CMC support creative performance and, to a lesser degree, to creative behavior. In the discussion, we delve deeper into the specific roles of these metacognitive subcomponents in enhancing creative cognitive performance and touch upon the differences between the roles of self‐regulation and metacognition in creativity.
Source: The Journal of Creative Behavior
DOI: 10.1002/jocb.652
Authors: Izabela Lebuda, Mathias Benedek
Institutions: University of Graz, University of Wrocław
Language: English
Subfield: Experimental and Cognitive Psychology
Field: Psychology
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
Estimated APC paid: $2,760
OpenAlex ID: W4396548841