Feeling and thinking about the future: offline metacognition in decision-making

Strle, Toma (author)

In the article , I will argue that metacognition plays an important role in decision - making not only as direct online monitoring and control of decision - making processes but also by enabling us to influence our decisions and actions – and m e n tal states and processes, related to them – i n an offline manner. That is, offline metacognition allows us to observe, refer to and, to a certain degree, exert influence on me n tal states and proce sses related to our decisions and actions in the way of be ing removed, decoupled from the task/decision at hand and present time demands . As such , it enable s us to observe, f orm thoughts and have feelings about me n tal states and processes directly related to our future decisions , to plan our future decisions, to reflect on our past choices , and to think and have feelings about our broader goals, desires, and personal values that are indirectly related to our decisions. To illustrate the importance of offline metacognition in decision - making , I will firstly review and discuss some experimental findings on implementation intentions (“ decisions about the future” ) and anticipated emotions ( beliefs about future emotional states related to outcomes of our decisions ). Secondly , I will argue that our ability to reflect (t hink and feel) on our broader goals, desires and personal values – that represent a kind of structure into which our specific decisions are embedded – reveals how offline metacognition can exert influence on our decisions also in an indirect way . All in al l, I will try to show that our ability to refer to our own minds in an offline way – be it to mental states and processes directly or indirectly related to specific decisions – is essential for us to decide, as we decide, and act, as we act.

• Language: Slovenian
• Keywords: metakognicija
• Work type: Article
• Typology: 1.01 - Original Scientific Article
• Organization: PEF - Faculty of Education
• Publisher: Zagreb : Znanost.org society
• Year: 2016
• Number of pages: 331-343
• Numbering: 14
• PID: 20.500.12556/RUL-86841
• ISSN: 1334-4676
• COBISS.SI-ID: 11281993
• Publication date in RUL: 05.09.2017

Secondary language

• Language: English
• Keywords: anticipated emotions