Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society

The role of metacognition in creative thinking is beyond doubt, but, so far, most research has focused on just one metacognitive subcomponent – monitoring, especially idea evaluation. Less is known about the role of metacognitive knowledge and control. Here, we present an extended theoretical conceptualization of creative metacognition that distinguishes metacognitive processes associated with pre-task, during-task, and post-task phases, followed by an empirical examination of this process-oriented approach based on an online study (N = 425). We examine effects of creative knowledge, monitoring (metacognitive feelings and discernment of others’ ideas), and control on creative performance and explore relationships with surface (creative self-concept) and core personality characteristics (openness, narcissism). Our findings indicate the involvement of various predicted metacognitive processes in creative ideation and thereby provide initial empirical support for the proposed model of creative metacognition.