In this era, people’s minds have reached a new height, but no one understands the process.
-Aristotle
Usually, you find that you hate a colleague, and it is easy to argue with him, but you can’t understand why. Your negative emotions affect his work communication. Through introspection and thinking, you realize that this disgust is because he looks like a classmate who bullied you many years ago.
Then you consciously adjusted your view of this colleague: “He is actually a very good person, and my dislike for him has nothing to do with him.” From then on he will never cause your anger and disgust again. Your work can proceed smoothly. This introspection and reflection on one’s thought process is actually using “metacognition”.
I. Metacognition
The so-called metacognition refers to a person’s cognition and monitoring of his own thinking process and learning activities. It is an individual’s self-awareness, self-evaluation, and self-regulation of his own cognitive processing. In layman’s terms, it is a reflection on one’s thought process.
For example, students’ recognizing, rethinking, and making active adjustments to their cognitive activities such as perception, memory, thinking, and imagination also belong to the scope of metacognition. Metacognition is a unique ability of human beings. It helps us to get rid of the problem and re-examine the event itself from the perspective of an observer. The problem is often solved.
The role of metacognition
Although the Bible says that everyone is equal, people’s ability to use metacognition is indeed very different. Because it comes from the hard work of the day after tomorrow, if you want to master the skills, you must have continuous thinking training. Whenever we reflect on our own thinking process and acquired knowledge, we are actually using metacognition, which is the most powerful way to adjust our thinking and improve our thinking.
1. Impact on the feedback loop
In recent years, the fusion and development of cognitive science and behavioral science have led to many new discoveries about brain research. Among them, the most important discovery is that the human brain contains a series of never-ending “feedback loops “. These “feedback loops” together Run, forming an engine that drives thought and behavior .
The feedback loop is a necessary condition to ensure the operation of any system. The human brain is the most complex system in the world. The feedback loop directs the operation of the entire body . Metacognition is the most powerful internal force we have that can change the feedback loop.
Going back to the example at the beginning of the article, you have discovered the potential reason to hate colleagues after reflection. This kind of interpretation will be passed back to the brain feedback loop, and the brain emotion management module will be modified. You will not feel angry the next time you meet your colleagues Already.
2. Discovering “stubborn thinking” in the brain
Everyone has their own easy thinking mistakes. We can easily fall into the wrong automated thinking. If the wrong thinking persists for a long time, it will form a fixed feedback loop in the brain. We may unknowingly fall into negative emotions. Path, subjective speculation, or random labeling, or the pathway of emotional reasoning, because these pathways have formed neural structures in the brain, we are unconsciously led, thinking along these pathways, gradually becoming inertia Thinking mode.
For a long time, the inertial thinking mode has formed a stubborn closed cycle in your brain, which has always automatically led you to irrational behavior and negative emotions, hindering the achievement of goals and problem solving, and affecting your work and life.
Why do smart people make mistakes? Often it is because people tend to accumulate a large number of rigid conclusions and attitudes, and they don’t often reflect on reviews and are even more reluctant to make changes.
In cognitive psychology, exaggerated or illogical ideas cause cognitive distortions. The process of refuting these ideas is called “cognitive reconstruction.” If you have a strong metacognitive ability, you can discover your own cognitive distortions and perform cognitive reconstruction through questioning and self-verification.
3. Promote changes in the nervous system
Cognitive neuroscience believes that the axons of neurons are selectively connected with the axons of other neurons to form neural circuits. Different neural circuits have different effects on people. Metacognition can help us build benign neural circuits. system.
Methods to Improve Metacognitive Ability
1. Daily reflection and meditation
Keeping a diary every day is a great way to reflect. The content of the diary can be the thinking process of making decisions on the day, the main content of learning, the knowledge points and the connections between them, the concepts that are easy to be confused and the errors that are easy to occur, and the progress and shortcomings of their own. Meditate: Free yourself, think about your day’s gains and problems, think about how you can improve your learning and thinking processes, and rebuild your cognition.
2. Ask yourself questions often
The self-questioning method is a very effective way in metacognitive training. Through a series of self-observation, self-monitoring, and self-evaluation question lists, such continuous questions, self-feedback, self-evaluation, and self-organization can help Optimize the thinking process to achieve the intended learning goals. Metacognitive monitoring capabilities have also been improved and developed.
For example: When reading a book , I can always ask questions. Why do I read this book? Do I really understand the author’s point of view? What do I disagree with? What new concepts are there? What can I do? Monitor your learning at any time.
3. Master more rational knowledge
Munger once said: “If you want to be a rational thinker, you must cultivate a mind that crosses the boundaries of the discipline.” The grid thinking of different discipline combinations is a promoter of reason. Psychology, economics, etc. will greatly enhance our self-reflection and help us overcome the “rational obstacles” in our lives.
Exercise the brain like muscles. If dumbbells and barbells are our machinery for muscle training, then high-quality books and articles are our tools for thinking training. And “brain-building” is the same as fitness. It is a visible and real change. The area of your cerebral cortex will become larger and larger, and the sulci of your brain will increase.
