Challenging Narratives and Improving Metacognition

As individual persons, we are constantly engaged in a practice of sense-making. Narrative describes our processes of organizing meaning into the form of stories. Our stories bring together various themes, emotions and perceptions of the world, and their plots provide events with meaning.  This process of story-ing is to be initially understood apart from whether or not our narratives are true/false or right/wrong. While preconceived notions of truth may inform how we organize meaning, we often do not question the accuracy of our narratives since we would be placing doubt on how we are understanding others and the world around us. Our confidence in our narratives allows us to move through life in a cohesive way, or a forecastable way, the same way narratives typically have an arc to them. However, the way we organize meaning can go awry when we lean confidently into a narrative plot that is rooted in fear, anxiety, low self-esteem, etc. When this happens, we experience narrative impoverishments. It is not that our narratives are wrong, rather they are dysfunctional and often narrow in focus with the purpose of being on the lookout for themes that we have deemed threatening. Perhaps an example will help clarify this process:

Jared typically feels uncomfortable in crowds, and so does not enjoy parties. Yet, Jared strongly values relationships and feeling connected with others. When at a social gathering, Jared finds it difficult to engage with others and often lets others initiate interactions, at which point he is usually able to reciprocate. Beyond these interactions, Jared’s experience at parties consist mostly of discomfort and wondering what other’s are thinking of him, making it hard for him to feel present and engaged.

In this brief example, we can derive some possible themes for the way Jared stories his experience. Jared’s valuing of being connected with others is a strong motivating factor, otherwise he likely wouldn’t even attend the party. Yet, it seems there is some other concern that comes up against this value, namely a fear of other’s judgments of himself. We can make sense of this tension by understanding them as connected: if Jared is seeking connectedness, he may not find it if he does something embarrassing or off-putting. Ultimately, there is something at risk when we care about an outcome. We can understand Jared’s predicament through his narrative arc of embarrassment and conflict leading to feeling alienated. If this risk of feeling alienated is given enough weight, isolation is granted a label of safety and comfort despite a need for connectedness going unmet. Narratives, even when impoverished, allow us to interpret behavior as adaptive at the subjective level: emphasizing safety over feeling connected. Moreover, the structure of narrative is suited for examining how we are organizing meaning, identifying exactly what it is in others and our environment that we are adapting to, and revealing an opportunity to explore alternate interpretations of our subjective experience.

Challenging and impacting our narratives is primarily achieved through increasing metacognition: thinking about how we think. Two important metacognitive practices are monitoring and decentering. Monitoring includes the ability to perceive our own emotions, make plausible inferences about our own thoughts and understand what factors influence our mental state. Essentially, accurately identify our current state of mind. Decentering refers to the ability to see the perspective from which others relate to the world and to realize that they may act with values and goals different from one’s own and independent from the relationship with oneself. In the example of Jared, his outlook does not give ample evidence of metacognition and heavily relies on his narrative that values risk aversion, despite it limiting him. Jared may be engaged in a relative form of monitoring, but it is occurring with too little openness to the possibility of others emotions, thoughts and mental state. As such, one gets the sense that Jared is almost waiting for others to confirm his assumptions that they are judgmental and critical.  Here, Jared is exhibiting an inability to decenter in the situation, it could be that others are nervous at the party, are less intentional about connectedness, or they may even be wondering what Jared is thinking of them. There are likely numerous options, but low metacognition can impair our ability to be open to them. 

Perhaps another way to understand metacognition, particularly monitoring and decentering, is viewing doubt as instrumental in critically examining our own narratives. Doubt, when used to take a critical stance towards our efforts to organize meaning, can help us highlight ways in which we limit our own efforts towards meaningful fulfillment of wants, needs, and desires. To access the benefit of doubt, here are some possible questions you can ask yourself to engage more intentionally in monitoring (M) and decentering (D):

• What state of mind am I in currently? What am I feeling? (M)
  

• What might I be assuming about others behaviors right now? (D)
  

• How am I understanding the role my assumptions are playing for me? (M)
  

• How am I perceiving others right now? (M)
  Can I be confident in my perceptions? (D)
  

• What do I think others are feeling right now? (M)
  What else may they be feeling? (D)
  

• What do I know of the motivations of others right now? (M)
  Are they concerned with me, themselves, or something else? (D)
  

• What do I feel is expected of me right now? (M)
  How am I arriving at that expectation? (M)
  

• How do I experience other’s acting on their own values? (D)
  

• What am I wanting from this situation? (M)
  What needs or wants am I trying to have met? (M)
  

• What narrative am I seeing this situation through? (M)