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I know better! Emerging metacognition allows adolescents to ignore false advice
Author(s) -
MosesPayne Madeleine E.,
Habicht Johanna,
Bowler Aislinn,
Steinbeis Nikolaus,
Hauser Tobias U.
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
developmental science
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.801
H-Index - 127
eISSN - 1467-7687
pISSN - 1363-755X
DOI - 10.1111/desc.13101
Subject(s) - metacognition , psychology , independence (probability theory) , advice (programming) , quality (philosophy) , developmental psychology , decision maker , cognitive psychology , process (computing) , social psychology , cognition , management science , philosophy , statistics , mathematics , epistemology , neuroscience , computer science , economics , programming language , operating system
Adolescents aspire for independence. Successful independence means knowing when to rely on one's own knowledge and when to listen to others. A critical prerequisite thus is a well‐developed metacognitive ability to accurately assess the quality of one's own knowledge. Little is known about whether the strive to become an independent decision maker in adolescence is underpinned by the necessary metacognitive skills. Here, we demonstrate that metacognition matures from childhood to adolescence ( N = 107) and that this process coincides with greater independent decision‐making. We show that adolescents, in contrast to children, take on others’ advice less often, but only when the advice is misleading. Finally, we demonstrate that adolescents’ reduced reliance on others’ advice is explained by their increased metacognitive skills, suggesting that a developing ability to introspect may support independent decision‐making in adolescence.