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Cognitive failures, metacognitive beliefs and aging
Personality and Individual Differences 40 (2006) 1453–1459 www.elsevier.com/locate/paid
Cognitive failures, metacognitive beliefs and aging Luciano Mecacci *, Stefania Righi Dipartimento di Psicologia, Universita` degli Studi di Firenze, via s. Niccolo` 93, 50125 Firenze, Italy Received 12 May 2004; received in revised form 9 November 2005; accepted 10 November 2005 Available online 7 Februry 2006
Abstract A sample of 1826 Italian participants (age range: 16–85 years) was administered the Cognitive Failures Questionnaire to verify the effect of aging on the self-report of cognitive lapses. Elderly people reported a lower frequency of cognitive failures than young participants. A subgroup of participants (N = 165; age range: 18–85 years) was administered the Meta-Cognitions Questionnaire and Thought Control Questionnaire to assess the relationship between the self-evaluation of cognitive abilities and the metacognitive monitoring-control as a function of aging. People with a self-reported high frequency of cognitive failures stated that they carefully monitor their cognitive activities, but this result was independent of age. Paradoxically, elderly people claimed to have remarkable worries about their own cognitive abilities, but they did not seem to be able to record the cognitive lapses that are known to become more frequent with aging. Ó 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Keywords: Cognitive Failures Questionnaire; Meta-Cognitions Questionnaire; Thought Control Questionnaire; Cognitive failures; Metacognition; Aging
1. Introduction Aging is known to have a relevant influence on cognitive processes and to change cognitive performance deeply (general reviews in Craik & Salthouse, 2000; Dixon, Backman, & Nilsson, 2004).
*
Corresponding author. Tel.: +39 55 2491628; fax: +39 55 2345326. E-mail address: [email protected]fi.it (L. Mecacci).
0191-8869/$ - see front matter Ó 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.paid.2005.11.022
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This influence may be studied on both the plan of the performance assessed by objective tests, and the plan of the subjective experience the elderly person has of their own cognitive activity. Many studies have shown that the objective performance and the self-evaluation do not always give similar results (Dixon et al., 2004). If it is true that self-evaluation cannot be used as the sole source of information on the degrees of objective performance (Rabbitt, 1990; Rabbitt & Abson, 1990, 1991), it is nevertheless certain that it is interesting to verify if and why there is a dissociation between self-evaluation and objective performance. A widespread instrument to study self-evaluation of cognitive processes is the Cognitive Failures Questionnaire (CFQ) devised by Broadbent, Cooper, Fitzgerald, and Parkes (1982). Participants are asked to indicate the frequency of minor lapses, slips or errors in perception, attention, memory, and motor functions they experience. CFQ scores correlate with performance in attention tasks (Manly, Robertson, Galloway, & Hawkins, 1999; Robertson, Manly, Andrade, Baddeley, & Yiend, 1997; Tipper & Baylis, 1987), and are related to the frequency of involvement in traffic accidents (Broadbent, Broadbent, & Jones, 1986; Klumb, 1995; Larson, Adelrton, Neideffer, & Underhill, 1997; Martin & Jones, 1983). Moreover, CFQ scores are related to personality traits, anxiety, and stress (Broadbent et al., 1982; Houston, 1989; Mahoney, Dalby, & King, 1998; Matthews, Coyle, & Craig, 1990; Matthews & Wells, 1988; Merckelbach, Muris, Nijman, & de Jing, 1996), and also to boredom, sleepiness and circadian typology (Mecacci, Righi, & Rocchetti, 2004; Wallace, Vodanovich, & Restino, 2003). Self-report of cognitive failures may be considered a process associated with metacognitive beliefs and to the ability to monitor and to control one’s own cognitive activities. Indeed a positive correlation was found between CFQ scores and scores of the Meta-Cognition Questionnaire or MCQ (Cartwright-Hatton & Wells, 1997): the higher the frequency of self-reported cognitive failures was, the greater was the confidence in one’s own cognitive processes and the more urgent was the need to control excessive or troublesome worries about them. Thus one may expect that elderly people would (a) report a higher frequency of cognitive lapses and (b) claim the urgency of a stricter cognitive self-control. To investigate these two issues, first, the trend of self-report of cognitive failures was assessed in a large sample of young and elderly participants; and, second, the relationship between self-report of cognitive failures, metacognitive beliefs and cognitive-control strategies (as assessed by MCQ, and Thought Control Questionnaire or TCQ by Wells & Davies (1994)) was investigated in a subsample of participants as a function of aging.
2. Method 2.1. Participants A sample of 1826 participants (1180 females and 646 males; age range: 16–85 years, M = 31.1 and SD = 16.2) was administered the CFQ. As regards education level, this ‘‘total’’ sample was heterogeneous: from students of high schools to University undergraduate students, from postgraduate students to aged people with different degrees of education. In order to reduce the effect of education level, a ‘‘partial’’ subgroup was drawn from the general sample and was made up of people (N = 165; 126 females and 39 males; age range: 18–85 years, M = 52.9 and SD = 21) with
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at least a secondary-school diploma. Young participants (18–29 years) were undergraduate students of the Faculty of Psychology of Florence University, the older group consisted of students of a free course in Psychology in the same University. Most of the participants were females, as is typical of the student population of psychology courses in Italian universities. 2.2. Materials 2.2.1. Cognitive Failures Questionnaire (CFQ) The CFQ consists of 25 items related to everyday slips or errors in perception, memory, and motor functions (Broadbent et al., 1982; Wallace, 2004; Wallace, Kass, & Stanny, 2002; Italian version: Mecacci et al., 2004). Participants are asked to indicate, on a 5-point scale (0 = never, 4 = always), how often they have experienced the particular error described by the question (e.g., ‘‘Do you bump into people?’’, ‘‘Do you fail to listen to people’s names when you are meeting them?’’, ‘‘Do you forget where you put something like a newspaper or a book?’’). Total scores range from 0 to 100, from total absence to highly frequent occurrence of lapses. Cronbach coefficient alpha is 0.81. 2.2.2. Meta-Cognitions Questionnaire (MCQ) The MCQ consists of 65 items related to beliefs about worry and intrusive thoughts (Cartwright-Hatton & Wells, 1997; Italian version: Wells, 2002). Participants are asked to indicate, on a 4-point scale (1 = ‘‘do not agree’’, 2 = ‘‘agree slightly’’, 3 = ‘‘agree moderately’’, and 4 = ‘‘agree very much’’), the degree of accord with a series of statements. Scores for the following scales are obtained: (1) Positive Beliefs About Worry (e.g., ‘‘Worrying helps me to get things sorted out in my mind’’ and ‘‘I need to worry in order to get things done); (2) Negative Beliefs About the Uncontrollability of Thoughts and Corresponding Danger (e.g., ‘‘Worrying is dangerous for me’’ and ‘‘My thoughts interfere with my concentration’’); (3) Cognitive Confidence (e.g., ‘‘I have a poor memory’’ and ‘‘I am easily distracted’’); (4) Negative Beliefs About Thoughts in General, including superstition, punishment and responsibility (e.g., ‘‘Not being able to control my thoughts is a sign of weakness’’ and ‘‘If a bad thing happens which I have not worried about, I feel responsible’’); (5) Cognitive Self-Consciousness (e.g., ‘‘I think a lot about my thoughts’’ and ‘‘I am constantly aware of my thinking’’). Coefficient alphas are: Positive Beliefs (0.87), Uncontrollability and Danger (0.89), Cognitive Confidence (0.84), Negative Beliefs (0.74), Cognitive Self-Consciousness (0.72). 2.2.3. Thought Control Questionnaire (TCQ) The TCQ consists of 30 items related to strategies used to control unpleasant and unwanted thoughts (Wells & Davies, 1994; Italian version: Wells, 2002). Participants are asked to indicate, on a 4-point scale (0 = never, 4 = quite always), how often they have used a special strategy for managing intrusive thoughts. Five main groups of strategies (or scales) may be extracted: (1) Distraction (e.g., ‘‘I think pleasant thoughts instead’’), (2) Punishment (e.g., ‘‘I punish myself for thinking the thought’’), (3) Reappraisal (e.g., ‘‘I analyse the thought rationally’’), (4) Worry (e.g., ‘‘I worry about more minor things instead’’), and (5) Social Control (e.g., ‘‘I talk to a friend about the thought’’). Cronbach coefficient alphas are: Distraction (0.72), Punishment (0.64), Reappraisal (0.67), Worry (0.71), Social Control (0.79).
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3. Results In the total sample a gender difference in CFQ scores was found, with females (M = 41.81, SD = 10.96) claiming a greater frequency of cognitive failures than males (M = 40.01, SD = 10.7) (t = 3.39; P < 0.01). Moreover, CFQ scores decreased significantly with aging (r = 0.177; P < 0.001). Mean scores (and SDs) for each scale for the partial sample are reported in Table 1. Correlations, among age and scores of CFQ, MCQ, and TCQ scales are reported in Table 2. As concerns age significant positive correlations were found with three MCQ scales (Positive Beliefs About Worry; Cognitive Confidence; Negative Beliefs About Thoughts in General), and three TCQ scales (Distraction; Punishment; Worry). Significant negative correlations were found between age and CFQ (r = 0.234; P < 0.001), and two TCQ scales (Reappraisal; Social Control). As concerns CFQ significant positive correlations were found with three MCQ scales (Negative Beliefs About the Uncontrollability of Thoughts and Corresponding Danger About Worry; Cognitive Confidence, Negative Beliefs About Thoughts in General). A significant negative correlations was found with one TCQ scale (distraction). Multiple regression analysis was calculated for the partial-sample scores, with the dependent variable being the CFQ-score and predictors being the age and the scales of MCQ and TCQ. Results were significant (F3,164= 31.93, P < 0.0001; R2 = 0.37), with scale Cognitive Confidence of MCQ weighting the most (b = 0.42; P < 0.0001), followed by age (b = 0.35; P < 0.0001), and scale Negative Beliefs about Uncontrollability and Danger (b = 0.23; P < 0.001). To verify whether self-reported cognitive failures are linearly related to age across the entire age range of our groups of participants, CFQ scores were regressed on age and age squared. In the total sample the effect of the variable age (linear regression) was found to be larger than the variable age squared (quadratic regression) (age coefficient = 0.1191, SE = 0.015, t = 7.692, P < 0.0001; age squared coefficient = 0.0019, SE = 0.001, t = 1.731, P = n.s.). The same result Table 1 Mean (M) and standard deviations (SD) of scores (partial sample; N = 165) for Cognitive Failures Questionnaire and for the scales of the Meta-Cognitions Questionnaire and Thought Control Questionnaire M
SD
Cognitive Failures Questionnaire
36.9
11.6
Meta-Cognitions Questionnaire Positive beliefs Uncontrollability and danger Cognitive confidence Negative beliefs about thoughts Cognitive self-consciousness
37.8 35.2 21.6 25.4 19.9
10.2 9.6 6.2 6.4 4.3
Thought Control Questionnaire Distraction Punishment Reappraisal Social control Worry
16.8 10.2 13.2 10.4 12.9
3.4 3.8 3.3 2.3 3.5
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Table 2 Pearson correlations among age and scores for Cognitive Failures Questionnaire (CFQ) and for the scales of MetaCognitions Questionnaire (PB = positive beliefs, UD = uncontrollability and danger, CC = cognitive confidence, NB = negative beliefs about thought, CSC = cognitive self-consciousness), and Thought Control Questionnaire (D = distraction, P = punishment, R = reappraisal, W = worry, SC = social control) Age Age CFQ PB UD CC NB CSC D P R W SC * **
CFQ
PB
UD
CC
NB
CSC
D
P
R
W
SC
– 0.234** – 0.263** 0.033 – 0.069 0.420** 0.189* – ** 0.247 0.452** 0.154* 0.495** – ** ** ** 0.295 0.256 0.563 0.598** 0.407** – 0.003 0.090 0.115 0.232** 0.185* 0.335** – 0.324** 0.216** 0.080 0.279** 0.099 0.073 0.102 – 0.203** 0.100 0.086 0.236** 0.190 0.287** 0.050 0.028 – 0.204** 0.031 0.000 0.062 0.117 0.040 0.110 0.023 0.080 – 0.350** 0.133 0.161* 0.354** 0.276** 0.346** 0.042 0.096 0.306** 0.062 – 0.241** 0.001 0.115 0.144 0.123 0.160* 0.092 0.018 0.123 0.223** 0.182* –
P < 0.05. P < 0.01.
was found in the partial sample (age coefficient = 0.131; SE = 0.043, t = squared coefficient = 0.0008, SE = 0.003, t = 0.289, P = n.s.).
3.068, P < 0.005; age
4. Discussion Elderly participants reported fewer cognitive failures than younger people. This result was already obtained by Rabbitt and Abson (1990). The negative correlation between age and CFQ scores is not high (r was 0.116, 0.086, 0.13 for three different samples in Rabbitt and Abson’s work; 0.177 and 0.234 for our total and partial samples, respectively), but it is statistically significant. Moreover, the trend is linear: as the age increases, the frequency of self-reported cognitive failures decreases. Although we have no data relative to the actual cognitive performance of the present sample of elderly participants, we may suppose that the known decrease of performance due to aging (Craik & Salthouse, 2000; Dixon et al., 2004) should be present in our sample too. However, for the present there is not evidence that also the decrease in performance is as much linear as self-reported failures (although in the opposite direction). It is worth of noting, for example, that the quadratic term for age was found to be significant in a test of general fluid intelligence assessed in a large sample of aged people: the decline in mean scores accelerates after the individual reaches the age of 70 (Rabbitt et al., 2004). Discussing the lack of a positive relationship in elderly people between the self-report data (drawn not only from CFQ but also from other cognitive self-report questionnaires), on one hand, and objective-test data, on the other, Rabbitt and Abson (1990) stated that self-reports should not be abandoned but have to be considered for what they give as a source of information about the self-representation more than as an index of performance. This issue has notoriously become a fundamental characteristic of
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research on aging, not only for methodological reasons but also for an adequate evaluation of the effects of self-representation on the performance itself (Schwarz, Park, Kna¨uper, & Sudman, 1998). The first interpretation one may give of the counter-intuitive inverse relation between cognitivelapse report and age is that elderly people fail to record their cognitive failures for different reasons: from the lack of interest for their cognitive abilities (once they are no longer interested or are less engaged in cognitively demanding work activities) to a transformation of their metacognitive abilities devoted to monitoring cognitive processes. Rabbitt and Abson (1990) (see also Nisbett & Wilson, 1977; Rabbitt, 1990; Schwarz et al., 1998) suggested that other factors may concur in generating this phenomenon, especially the general attitude elderly people have toward their new personal and social conditions determined by the retirement at hand or already under way. Notwithstanding the lack of a consistent evaluation of the status of their cognitive abilities in terms of reported cognitive failures, older people stated that it is correct to worry about their own psychological conditions, but that at the same time it is necessary to avoid fictitious and excessive worries. The attitude elderly people have toward their cognitive activity, as it emerges from the metacognitive questionnaires, is thus not related to a self-evaluation of the age-related increase of cognitive failures. CFQ-scores appeared to be mostly predicted by the Cognitive Confidence scale of MCQ, that is a scale similar to CFQ in the self-recording of cognitive failures. Factor age was the second good predictor, but in the inverse direction one may expect: in fact lower CFQ-scores were found in elderly participants. Metacognitive worries were more frequent in people who reported a greater frequency of cognitive failures, independently on the age. These results confirms further the hypothesis that in elderly people there is a kind of paradoxical dissociation between the self-report of cognitive abilities and their metacognitive monitoring: although they declare to be very worried and careful of their own cognitive processes, it seems that they are not able to record their own failures. We wonder therefore what the benefit of this cognitive monitoring on the actual performance of elderly people is, and in order to answer this question it will be necessary to verify the relationship between self-evaluation and objective performance in people with different degrees of metacognitive self-representation.
References Broadbent, D. E., Broadbent, M. H. P., & Jones, J. L. (1986). Performance correlates of self-reported cognitive failure and obsessionality. British Journal of Clinical Psychology, 25, 285–299. Broadbent, D. E., Cooper, P. J., Fitzgerald, P. F., & Parkes, K. R. (1982). The Cognitive Failures Questionnaire (CFQ) and its correlates. British Journal of Clinical Psychology, 21, 1–16. Cartwright-Hatton, S., & Wells, A. (1997). Beliefs about worry and intrusions: The meta-cognitions questionnaire and its correlates. Journal of Anxiety Disorders, 11, 279–296. Craik, F. I. M., & Salthouse, T. A. (Eds.). (2000). The handbook of aging and cognition. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Dixon, R., Backman, L., & Nilsson, L.-G. (Eds.). (2004). New frontiers in cognitive aging. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Houston, D. M. (1989). The relationship between cognitive failure and self-focused attention. British Journal of Clinical Psychology, 28, 85–86. Klumb, P. L. (1995). Cognitive failures and performance differences: Validation studies of a German version of the Cognitive Failures Questionnaire. Ergonomics, 38, 1456–1467.
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Larson, G. E., Adelrton, D. L., Neideffer, M., & Underhill, E. (1997). Further evidence on dimensionality and correlates of the Cognitive Failures Questionnaire. British Journal of Psychology, 88, 29–38. Mahoney, A. M., Dalby, J. T., & King, M. C. (1998). Cognitive failures and stress. Psychological Reports, 82, 1432–1434. Manly, T., Robertson, I. H., Galloway, M., & Hawkins, K. (1999). The absent mind: Further investigations of sustained attention to response. Neuropsychologia, 37, 661–670. Martin, M., & Jones, G. V. (1983). Distribution of attention in cognitive failure. Human Learning, 2, 221–226. Matthews, G., Coyle, K., & Craig, A. (1990). Multiple factors of cognitive failures and their relationship with stress vulnerability. Journal of Psychopathology and Behavioral Assessment, 12, 49–65. Matthews, G., & Wells, A. (1988). Relationships between anxiety, self-consciousness and cognitive failure. Cognition and Emotion, 2, 123–132. Mecacci, L., Righi, S., & Rocchetti, G. (2004). Cognitive failures and circadian typology. Personality and Individual Differences, 37, 107–113. Merckelbach, H., Muris, P., Nijman, H., & de Jing, P. J. (1996). Self-reported cognitive failures and neurotic symptomatology. Personality and Individual Differences, 20, 715–724. Nisbett, R. E., & Wilson, T. De Camp (1977). Telling more than we know: Verbal reports on mental processes. Psychological Review, 84, 231–259. Rabbitt, P. (1990). Age, IQ, and recall of errors. Ergonomics, 33, 1291–1305. Rabbitt, P., & Abson, V. (1990). Lost and Found: Some logical and methodological limitations of self-report questionnaires as tools to study cognitive ageing. British Journal of Psychology, 81, 1–16. Rabbitt, P., & Abson, V. (1991). Do older people know how good they are? British Journal of Psychology, 82, 137–151. Rabbitt, P., McInnes, L., Diggle, P., Holland, F., Bent, N., Abson, V., et al. (2004). The University of Manchester longitudinal study of cognition in normal healthy old age, 1983–2003. Aging, Neuropsychology and Cognition, 11, 245–279. Robertson, I. H., Manly, T., Andrade, J., Baddeley, B. T., & Yiend, J. (1997). ‘Oops!’: Performance correlates of everyday attentional failures in traumatic brain injured and normal subjects. Neuropsychologia, 35, 747–758. Schwarz, N., Park, D., Kna¨uper, B., & Sudman, S. (Eds.). (1998). Cognition, aging, and self-reports. Hove: Psychology Press. Tipper, S. P., & Baylis, G. C. (1987). Individual differences in selective attention: The relation of priming and interference to cognitive failure. Personality and Individual Differences, 8, 667–675. Wallace, J. C. (2004). Confirmatory factor analysis of the Cognitive Failures Questionnaire: Evidence for dimensionality and construct validity. Personality and Individual Differences, 37, 307–324. Wallace, J. C., Kass, S. J., & Stanny, C. J. (2002). The Cognitive Failures Questionnaire revisited: Dimensions and correlates. Journal of General Psychology, 129, 238–256. Wallace, J. C., Vodanovich, S. J., & Restino, B. M. (2003). Predicting cognitive failures from boredom proneness and daytime sleepiness scores: An investigation within military and undergraduate samples. Personality and Individual Differences, 34, 635–644. Wells, A. (2002). Disturbi emozionali e metacognizione. Nuove strategie di psicoterapia cognitiva. Milano, Erickson. Wells, A., & Davies, M. (1994). The thought control questionnaire: A measure of individual differences in the control of unwanted thoughts. Behavior Research and Therapy, 32, 871–878.
Cognitive failures, metacognitive beliefs and aging Luciano Mecacci *, Stefania Righi Dipartimento di Psicologia, Universita` degli Studi di Firenze, via s. Niccolo` 93, 50125 Firenze, Italy Received 12 May 2004; received in revised form 9 November 2005; accepted 10 November 2005 Available online 7 Februry 2006
Abstract A sample of 1826 Italian participants (age range: 16–85 years) was administered the Cognitive Failures Questionnaire to verify the effect of aging on the self-report of cognitive lapses. Elderly people reported a lower frequency of cognitive failures than young participants. A subgroup of participants (N = 165; age range: 18–85 years) was administered the Meta-Cognitions Questionnaire and Thought Control Questionnaire to assess the relationship between the self-evaluation of cognitive abilities and the metacognitive monitoring-control as a function of aging. People with a self-reported high frequency of cognitive failures stated that they carefully monitor their cognitive activities, but this result was independent of age. Paradoxically, elderly people claimed to have remarkable worries about their own cognitive abilities, but they did not seem to be able to record the cognitive lapses that are known to become more frequent with aging. Ó 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Keywords: Cognitive Failures Questionnaire; Meta-Cognitions Questionnaire; Thought Control Questionnaire; Cognitive failures; Metacognition; Aging
1. Introduction Aging is known to have a relevant influence on cognitive processes and to change cognitive performance deeply (general reviews in Craik & Salthouse, 2000; Dixon, Backman, & Nilsson, 2004).
*
Corresponding author. Tel.: +39 55 2491628; fax: +39 55 2345326. E-mail address: [email protected]fi.it (L. Mecacci).
0191-8869/$ - see front matter Ó 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.paid.2005.11.022
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This influence may be studied on both the plan of the performance assessed by objective tests, and the plan of the subjective experience the elderly person has of their own cognitive activity. Many studies have shown that the objective performance and the self-evaluation do not always give similar results (Dixon et al., 2004). If it is true that self-evaluation cannot be used as the sole source of information on the degrees of objective performance (Rabbitt, 1990; Rabbitt & Abson, 1990, 1991), it is nevertheless certain that it is interesting to verify if and why there is a dissociation between self-evaluation and objective performance. A widespread instrument to study self-evaluation of cognitive processes is the Cognitive Failures Questionnaire (CFQ) devised by Broadbent, Cooper, Fitzgerald, and Parkes (1982). Participants are asked to indicate the frequency of minor lapses, slips or errors in perception, attention, memory, and motor functions they experience. CFQ scores correlate with performance in attention tasks (Manly, Robertson, Galloway, & Hawkins, 1999; Robertson, Manly, Andrade, Baddeley, & Yiend, 1997; Tipper & Baylis, 1987), and are related to the frequency of involvement in traffic accidents (Broadbent, Broadbent, & Jones, 1986; Klumb, 1995; Larson, Adelrton, Neideffer, & Underhill, 1997; Martin & Jones, 1983). Moreover, CFQ scores are related to personality traits, anxiety, and stress (Broadbent et al., 1982; Houston, 1989; Mahoney, Dalby, & King, 1998; Matthews, Coyle, & Craig, 1990; Matthews & Wells, 1988; Merckelbach, Muris, Nijman, & de Jing, 1996), and also to boredom, sleepiness and circadian typology (Mecacci, Righi, & Rocchetti, 2004; Wallace, Vodanovich, & Restino, 2003). Self-report of cognitive failures may be considered a process associated with metacognitive beliefs and to the ability to monitor and to control one’s own cognitive activities. Indeed a positive correlation was found between CFQ scores and scores of the Meta-Cognition Questionnaire or MCQ (Cartwright-Hatton & Wells, 1997): the higher the frequency of self-reported cognitive failures was, the greater was the confidence in one’s own cognitive processes and the more urgent was the need to control excessive or troublesome worries about them. Thus one may expect that elderly people would (a) report a higher frequency of cognitive lapses and (b) claim the urgency of a stricter cognitive self-control. To investigate these two issues, first, the trend of self-report of cognitive failures was assessed in a large sample of young and elderly participants; and, second, the relationship between self-report of cognitive failures, metacognitive beliefs and cognitive-control strategies (as assessed by MCQ, and Thought Control Questionnaire or TCQ by Wells & Davies (1994)) was investigated in a subsample of participants as a function of aging.
2. Method 2.1. Participants A sample of 1826 participants (1180 females and 646 males; age range: 16–85 years, M = 31.1 and SD = 16.2) was administered the CFQ. As regards education level, this ‘‘total’’ sample was heterogeneous: from students of high schools to University undergraduate students, from postgraduate students to aged people with different degrees of education. In order to reduce the effect of education level, a ‘‘partial’’ subgroup was drawn from the general sample and was made up of people (N = 165; 126 females and 39 males; age range: 18–85 years, M = 52.9 and SD = 21) with
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at least a secondary-school diploma. Young participants (18–29 years) were undergraduate students of the Faculty of Psychology of Florence University, the older group consisted of students of a free course in Psychology in the same University. Most of the participants were females, as is typical of the student population of psychology courses in Italian universities. 2.2. Materials 2.2.1. Cognitive Failures Questionnaire (CFQ) The CFQ consists of 25 items related to everyday slips or errors in perception, memory, and motor functions (Broadbent et al., 1982; Wallace, 2004; Wallace, Kass, & Stanny, 2002; Italian version: Mecacci et al., 2004). Participants are asked to indicate, on a 5-point scale (0 = never, 4 = always), how often they have experienced the particular error described by the question (e.g., ‘‘Do you bump into people?’’, ‘‘Do you fail to listen to people’s names when you are meeting them?’’, ‘‘Do you forget where you put something like a newspaper or a book?’’). Total scores range from 0 to 100, from total absence to highly frequent occurrence of lapses. Cronbach coefficient alpha is 0.81. 2.2.2. Meta-Cognitions Questionnaire (MCQ) The MCQ consists of 65 items related to beliefs about worry and intrusive thoughts (Cartwright-Hatton & Wells, 1997; Italian version: Wells, 2002). Participants are asked to indicate, on a 4-point scale (1 = ‘‘do not agree’’, 2 = ‘‘agree slightly’’, 3 = ‘‘agree moderately’’, and 4 = ‘‘agree very much’’), the degree of accord with a series of statements. Scores for the following scales are obtained: (1) Positive Beliefs About Worry (e.g., ‘‘Worrying helps me to get things sorted out in my mind’’ and ‘‘I need to worry in order to get things done); (2) Negative Beliefs About the Uncontrollability of Thoughts and Corresponding Danger (e.g., ‘‘Worrying is dangerous for me’’ and ‘‘My thoughts interfere with my concentration’’); (3) Cognitive Confidence (e.g., ‘‘I have a poor memory’’ and ‘‘I am easily distracted’’); (4) Negative Beliefs About Thoughts in General, including superstition, punishment and responsibility (e.g., ‘‘Not being able to control my thoughts is a sign of weakness’’ and ‘‘If a bad thing happens which I have not worried about, I feel responsible’’); (5) Cognitive Self-Consciousness (e.g., ‘‘I think a lot about my thoughts’’ and ‘‘I am constantly aware of my thinking’’). Coefficient alphas are: Positive Beliefs (0.87), Uncontrollability and Danger (0.89), Cognitive Confidence (0.84), Negative Beliefs (0.74), Cognitive Self-Consciousness (0.72). 2.2.3. Thought Control Questionnaire (TCQ) The TCQ consists of 30 items related to strategies used to control unpleasant and unwanted thoughts (Wells & Davies, 1994; Italian version: Wells, 2002). Participants are asked to indicate, on a 4-point scale (0 = never, 4 = quite always), how often they have used a special strategy for managing intrusive thoughts. Five main groups of strategies (or scales) may be extracted: (1) Distraction (e.g., ‘‘I think pleasant thoughts instead’’), (2) Punishment (e.g., ‘‘I punish myself for thinking the thought’’), (3) Reappraisal (e.g., ‘‘I analyse the thought rationally’’), (4) Worry (e.g., ‘‘I worry about more minor things instead’’), and (5) Social Control (e.g., ‘‘I talk to a friend about the thought’’). Cronbach coefficient alphas are: Distraction (0.72), Punishment (0.64), Reappraisal (0.67), Worry (0.71), Social Control (0.79).
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3. Results In the total sample a gender difference in CFQ scores was found, with females (M = 41.81, SD = 10.96) claiming a greater frequency of cognitive failures than males (M = 40.01, SD = 10.7) (t = 3.39; P < 0.01). Moreover, CFQ scores decreased significantly with aging (r = 0.177; P < 0.001). Mean scores (and SDs) for each scale for the partial sample are reported in Table 1. Correlations, among age and scores of CFQ, MCQ, and TCQ scales are reported in Table 2. As concerns age significant positive correlations were found with three MCQ scales (Positive Beliefs About Worry; Cognitive Confidence; Negative Beliefs About Thoughts in General), and three TCQ scales (Distraction; Punishment; Worry). Significant negative correlations were found between age and CFQ (r = 0.234; P < 0.001), and two TCQ scales (Reappraisal; Social Control). As concerns CFQ significant positive correlations were found with three MCQ scales (Negative Beliefs About the Uncontrollability of Thoughts and Corresponding Danger About Worry; Cognitive Confidence, Negative Beliefs About Thoughts in General). A significant negative correlations was found with one TCQ scale (distraction). Multiple regression analysis was calculated for the partial-sample scores, with the dependent variable being the CFQ-score and predictors being the age and the scales of MCQ and TCQ. Results were significant (F3,164= 31.93, P < 0.0001; R2 = 0.37), with scale Cognitive Confidence of MCQ weighting the most (b = 0.42; P < 0.0001), followed by age (b = 0.35; P < 0.0001), and scale Negative Beliefs about Uncontrollability and Danger (b = 0.23; P < 0.001). To verify whether self-reported cognitive failures are linearly related to age across the entire age range of our groups of participants, CFQ scores were regressed on age and age squared. In the total sample the effect of the variable age (linear regression) was found to be larger than the variable age squared (quadratic regression) (age coefficient = 0.1191, SE = 0.015, t = 7.692, P < 0.0001; age squared coefficient = 0.0019, SE = 0.001, t = 1.731, P = n.s.). The same result Table 1 Mean (M) and standard deviations (SD) of scores (partial sample; N = 165) for Cognitive Failures Questionnaire and for the scales of the Meta-Cognitions Questionnaire and Thought Control Questionnaire M
SD
Cognitive Failures Questionnaire
36.9
11.6
Meta-Cognitions Questionnaire Positive beliefs Uncontrollability and danger Cognitive confidence Negative beliefs about thoughts Cognitive self-consciousness
37.8 35.2 21.6 25.4 19.9
10.2 9.6 6.2 6.4 4.3
Thought Control Questionnaire Distraction Punishment Reappraisal Social control Worry
16.8 10.2 13.2 10.4 12.9
3.4 3.8 3.3 2.3 3.5
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Table 2 Pearson correlations among age and scores for Cognitive Failures Questionnaire (CFQ) and for the scales of MetaCognitions Questionnaire (PB = positive beliefs, UD = uncontrollability and danger, CC = cognitive confidence, NB = negative beliefs about thought, CSC = cognitive self-consciousness), and Thought Control Questionnaire (D = distraction, P = punishment, R = reappraisal, W = worry, SC = social control) Age Age CFQ PB UD CC NB CSC D P R W SC * **
CFQ
PB
UD
CC
NB
CSC
D
P
R
W
SC
– 0.234** – 0.263** 0.033 – 0.069 0.420** 0.189* – ** 0.247 0.452** 0.154* 0.495** – ** ** ** 0.295 0.256 0.563 0.598** 0.407** – 0.003 0.090 0.115 0.232** 0.185* 0.335** – 0.324** 0.216** 0.080 0.279** 0.099 0.073 0.102 – 0.203** 0.100 0.086 0.236** 0.190 0.287** 0.050 0.028 – 0.204** 0.031 0.000 0.062 0.117 0.040 0.110 0.023 0.080 – 0.350** 0.133 0.161* 0.354** 0.276** 0.346** 0.042 0.096 0.306** 0.062 – 0.241** 0.001 0.115 0.144 0.123 0.160* 0.092 0.018 0.123 0.223** 0.182* –
P < 0.05. P < 0.01.
was found in the partial sample (age coefficient = 0.131; SE = 0.043, t = squared coefficient = 0.0008, SE = 0.003, t = 0.289, P = n.s.).
3.068, P < 0.005; age
4. Discussion Elderly participants reported fewer cognitive failures than younger people. This result was already obtained by Rabbitt and Abson (1990). The negative correlation between age and CFQ scores is not high (r was 0.116, 0.086, 0.13 for three different samples in Rabbitt and Abson’s work; 0.177 and 0.234 for our total and partial samples, respectively), but it is statistically significant. Moreover, the trend is linear: as the age increases, the frequency of self-reported cognitive failures decreases. Although we have no data relative to the actual cognitive performance of the present sample of elderly participants, we may suppose that the known decrease of performance due to aging (Craik & Salthouse, 2000; Dixon et al., 2004) should be present in our sample too. However, for the present there is not evidence that also the decrease in performance is as much linear as self-reported failures (although in the opposite direction). It is worth of noting, for example, that the quadratic term for age was found to be significant in a test of general fluid intelligence assessed in a large sample of aged people: the decline in mean scores accelerates after the individual reaches the age of 70 (Rabbitt et al., 2004). Discussing the lack of a positive relationship in elderly people between the self-report data (drawn not only from CFQ but also from other cognitive self-report questionnaires), on one hand, and objective-test data, on the other, Rabbitt and Abson (1990) stated that self-reports should not be abandoned but have to be considered for what they give as a source of information about the self-representation more than as an index of performance. This issue has notoriously become a fundamental characteristic of
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research on aging, not only for methodological reasons but also for an adequate evaluation of the effects of self-representation on the performance itself (Schwarz, Park, Kna¨uper, & Sudman, 1998). The first interpretation one may give of the counter-intuitive inverse relation between cognitivelapse report and age is that elderly people fail to record their cognitive failures for different reasons: from the lack of interest for their cognitive abilities (once they are no longer interested or are less engaged in cognitively demanding work activities) to a transformation of their metacognitive abilities devoted to monitoring cognitive processes. Rabbitt and Abson (1990) (see also Nisbett & Wilson, 1977; Rabbitt, 1990; Schwarz et al., 1998) suggested that other factors may concur in generating this phenomenon, especially the general attitude elderly people have toward their new personal and social conditions determined by the retirement at hand or already under way. Notwithstanding the lack of a consistent evaluation of the status of their cognitive abilities in terms of reported cognitive failures, older people stated that it is correct to worry about their own psychological conditions, but that at the same time it is necessary to avoid fictitious and excessive worries. The attitude elderly people have toward their cognitive activity, as it emerges from the metacognitive questionnaires, is thus not related to a self-evaluation of the age-related increase of cognitive failures. CFQ-scores appeared to be mostly predicted by the Cognitive Confidence scale of MCQ, that is a scale similar to CFQ in the self-recording of cognitive failures. Factor age was the second good predictor, but in the inverse direction one may expect: in fact lower CFQ-scores were found in elderly participants. Metacognitive worries were more frequent in people who reported a greater frequency of cognitive failures, independently on the age. These results confirms further the hypothesis that in elderly people there is a kind of paradoxical dissociation between the self-report of cognitive abilities and their metacognitive monitoring: although they declare to be very worried and careful of their own cognitive processes, it seems that they are not able to record their own failures. We wonder therefore what the benefit of this cognitive monitoring on the actual performance of elderly people is, and in order to answer this question it will be necessary to verify the relationship between self-evaluation and objective performance in people with different degrees of metacognitive self-representation.
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