The Effect of Social Influences and General Metacognitive Knowledge on Metamemory Judgments

This study investigated whether social information can affect Ease-of-Learning (EOL), Judgments-of-Learning (JOL), and Feeling-of-Knowing (FOK) and their accuracy. Participants first learned associated word pairs and made the above-mentioned judgments. They were later divided into two groups of metacognitive ability in order to assess if they had been affected differently by the social cues, which consisted of information about previous performances of college students. Results revealed that the magnitude of the metamemory judgments assessed was significantly affected by the social cues and that participants with a Low level of metacognitive ability were more influenced than those with High metacognitive ability. Concerning accuracy, however, only the recall accuracy of JOL judgments was affected. Further, different patterns of influence across the three judgments were observed for the two ability groups. Results and educational implications were discussed. Copyright 2001 Academic Press.