Affective influences on metacognitive experiences

Abstract

This thesis sought to explore the relationship between affective states and metacognitive experiences. Based on theories of mood congruence, it was predicted that participants induced into a positive mood would make more optimistic metacognitive judgments regarding their own knowledge and learning than those induced into a negative mood. In addition, drawing upon theories of the processing effects of mood, it was predicted that negative mood would reduce participants’ reliance on internal metacognitive cues (such as processing fluency), increase comprehension monitoring behaviours, and improve the accuracy of judgments of knowing and learning, relative to positive mood. Studies 1 and 2 investigated the possible interactive effects of mood states and processing fluency on evaluations of hypothetical pharmaceutical products. Though mood and fluency independently influenced product evaluations, there was no interaction between the two variables. Studies 3 and 4 turned to examine mood effects on metacognitive judgments of knowing and learning. In these studies, mood did not affect the extent of feelings of knowing for answers to general knowledge questions, or feelings of learning for recently studied word lists. However, negative mood did increase the relative accuracy of judgments of knowing compared to positive mood. In Study 5, participants studied a passage on Greek religion. Here, negative mood increased strategic comprehension monitoring behaviours, eliciting longer reading times and more re-reads of sentences, whilst positive mood increased judgements of familiarity. Finally, Study 6 evaluated the effects of internal embodiment cues on social judgments by participants seated at either physically stable or physically unstable workstations. The results indicated that positive mood promoted a reliance on physical stability as a metacognitive cue, with participants giving greater judgments of social stability when seated at a stable workstation. In contrast, negative mood eliminated this effect of physical stability. Overall, the findings of this thesis are partially consistent with the theorised assimilative / accommodative processing effects of mood states (Bless & Fiedler, 2006). They suggest that negative mood can elicit more careful, systematic processing of metacognitive cues and experiences. These results have important implications for theories of mood and metacognition, and a range of educational, consumer, and decision-making contexts.