Thinking about Believing: Can Metacognitive Reflection Encourage Belief Updating?

Abstract

People often cling to their beliefs even in the face of counterevidence. The current study explored metacognitive reflection as a potential driver for belief updating. In a randomized controlled experiment (n = 155), participants rated their degree of agreement with a statement regarding genetic modification in humans. Following this, participants were presented with a passage containing an argument counter to their indicated belief. Participants in the metacognition condition were asked to deeply reflect on the ways in which the passage was similar to or different from their current beliefs. Participants in the control condition were asked to engage in more shallow reflection on the composition of the passage. After reflecting on the counterevidence, participants were asked to again rate their agreement with the statement regarding human gene modification. Both groups updated their initial beliefs to be more consistent with the presented counterevidence. Although greater belief updating was observed in those who metacognitively reflected on the passage, this effect did not reach significance (p = .055). These findings suggest that reflecting on counterevidence has the potential to encourage belief updating, regardless of whether that reflection is metacognitive in nature, and provide promise for future work investigating the role of metacognition in belief updating.