The influence of maladaptive metacognitions in education: Rethinking proness toward addiction

Abstract

Metacognition plays a role in motivation, executive function, declarative and procedural knowledge, and has been found to develop as early as three years of age (Marulis & Nelson, 2021). Metacognition is “thinking about thinking” (Flavell, 1992), operates across ordered levels of concepts (Seow et al., 2021), and is the knowledge and cognitive process that involves the appraisal, control, and monitoring of thinking (Flavell, 1979). Dysregulation of metacognition has the potential to develop into maladaptive coping rather than healthy self-regulation skills (Wells & Matthews, 1996), which in turn, can develop into mental illness or addiction (Chen, et al., 2021). Maladaptive metacognitions have been implicated in the learning of associations between stimuli, modification of behavior through motivation, and performance of an action to obtain a reward (Liljeholm & O’Doherty, 2012). To what extent pornography exposure and use that began in adolescence interfere with metacognitions in the adult population is lacking in research, therefore, this study aimed to identify associations between pornography use and maladaptive metacognitions in a sample of adults who actively used, or were attempting to quit, using pornography. A survey was created and posted in several Facebook groups, on twitter, and sent through messages. It was also posted on sites dedicated to those who are attempting to quit using pornography. A total of 3301 responses were recorded, however, only 877 were used for the purpose of this study, the rest were omitted due to being incomplete. Results confirmed that pornography use was a predictor of maladaptive metacognitions.