Know Thyself (Stephen M Fleming)

When it comes to how we learn, confidence is key. If we feel confident in our ability to perform a task we’re much more likely to pull it off. Psychologist Bandura came up with a concept that explains is “self-efficacy.” It is your overall belief in your talents and abilities. Learners with high ...

What happens when someone isn’t willing to engage with other people’s viewpoints? Log on to Twitter or Facebook and you’ll likely see for yourself. A skewed sense of self-awareness may be contributing to the increasingly extreme political content, at both ends of the spectrum, that is so prevalen...

When we approach a decision with a high level of confidence that we’re correct, we tend to be assertive and efficient in our choices. Once they’re made, we’ll likely stick to them. When we approach a decision with a lower level of confidence in our choice, we’re likely to make slower, more judici...

So, you might think you know how a lightbulb works but when you try and explain it out loud to someone else, you might quickly realize there are some crucial gaps in your understanding. What’s more, we humans have a weird quirk – we’re much more likely to identify and correct mistakes when other ...

The lesson? If you want to be a flexible, adaptive thinker, try and interact with people whose beliefs and opinions differ from yours. You don’t have to agree with everything they say – simply interacting with them will help boost your metacognitive sensitivity.

These days, this capacity for self-awareness is a field of neuroscientific study in its own right: the field of metacognition. Understanding metacognitive processes can actually help us think better, make sharper decisions, and avoid critical errors. Luckily, you don’t have to be a trained neuros...

Explaining a concept or articulating a process to someone else can make your own knowledge and limits explicit. There’s a phenomenon known as the illusion of explanatory depth – basically, we often think we know more than we actually do.

Let me ask you a question: What’s Elton John’s real name?

Now, there are three ways you might respond.

One: “I have absolutely no idea.”

Two: “Reginald Dwight, obviously!”

Three: “I know that I know that! It’s on the tip of my tongue, but I can’t seem to remember it.”

We’re all self-aware to some degree. Our aptitude for metacognition is hardwired into our brains and many key metacognitive processes are actually performed automatically. If you’ve ever set a drink down on the table, missed the table by an inch or two, and reflexively caught your glass before it...

We can build on the metacognitive instincts hardwired into our brain by cultivating more explicit metacognitive strategies. Research has shown that some people are more naturally prone to metacognition than others; neuropsychologists call these people “metacognitively gifted.” But we’re all capab...