Metacognition in teams and organizations

Metacognition is cognition about cognition, thinking about thinking, know-ing about knowing, and feeling about thinking (Alter & Oppenheimer, 2009; Petty, Briñol, Tormala, & Wegener, 2007; Schwarz, Sanna, Skurnik, & Yoon, 2007). In the case of teams and groups, metacognition is team members thinking about how their team processes information, works on problems, and feels about the team process (Hinsz, 2004; Hinsz, Tindale, & Vollrath, 1997). Similarly, in the case of organizations, metacognition is members of organizations thinking about how their organization functions and feels about the way their organization functions. We use the distinction between primary and secondary cognition to guide our review (Petty et al., 2007). Primary thoughts are those that occur at a direct level of cognition and involve people’s initial associations. Following a primary thought, people can also generate secondary thoughts (i.e., metacognitions) that occur as reections on the rst-level thoughts or the processes that generated the primary thoughts.