The metacognitions questionnaire is a self-report scale assessing different dimensions of metacognitive beliefs (beliefs about thinking). Examples of metacognitive beliefs are; "Worry is uncontrollable", "I have little confidence in my memory for words and names", and "I am constantly aware of my thinking". The development of the

questionnaire A questionnaire is a research instrument that consists of a set of questions (or other types of prompts) for the purpose of gathering information from respondents through survey or statistical study. A research questionnaire is typically a mix of ...

was informed by the Self-Regulatory Executive Function model (Wells & Matthews, 1994) which is the metacognitive model and theory of

psychological disorder A mental disorder, also referred to as a mental illness, a mental health condition, or a psychiatric disability, is a behavioral or mental pattern that causes significant distress or impairment of personal functioning. A mental disorder is ...

. This model is the foundation for

metacognitive therapy Metacognitive therapy (MCT) is a psychotherapy focused on modifying metacognitive beliefs that perpetuate states of worry, rumination and attention fixation. It was created by Adrian Wells based on an information processing model by Wells and G ...

developed by

Adrian Wells Adrian Wells, CPsychol, is a British clinical psychologist who is the creator of metacognitive therapy. He is Professor of Clinical and Experimental Psychopathology at the University of Manchester, U.K. and is also Professor II of Clinical Psych ...

(see e.g. Wells, 2009). There are two versions of the metacognitions questionnaire. # The Metacognitions questionnaire (MCQ) first developed by Sam Cartwright-Hatton and Adrian Wells (1997), consist of 65 items and has a five-factor structure: 1) Positive

worry Worrying is the mental distress or agitation resulting from anxiety, usually coming from a place of anticipatory fear (terror) or fear coming from a present threat (horror). With more understanding of the situation, worry becomes concern, the ...

beliefs, 2) Beliefs about uncontrollability and danger of worry, 3) Meta-cognitive efficiency, 4) General negative beliefs, and 5) Cognitive

self-consciousness Self-consciousness is a heightened sense of awareness of oneself. It is not to be confused with consciousness in the sense of qualia. Historically, "self-consciousness" was synonymous with " self-awareness", referring to a state of awareness th ...

. Responses are required on a four-point scale ranging from 1 (do not agree) to 4 (agree very much), high scores reflect more reported problems with the item in question. # The Metacognitions questionnaire 30 (MCQ-30; Wells & Cartwright-Hatton, 2004) is a 30-item version of the MCQ consisting of the same five-factor structure, but the subcategories were renamed: 1) positive beliefs about worry; 2) negative beliefs about the controllability of thoughts and corresponding danger; 3) cognitive confidence; 4) negative beliefs about thoughts in general/need to control thoughts; and 5) cognitive self-consciousness. MCQ-30 uses the same four-point scale as MCQ. These questionnaires have established

reliability Reliability, reliable, or unreliable may refer to: Science, technology, and mathematics Computing * Data reliability (disambiguation), a property of some disk arrays in computer storage * Reliability (computer networking), a category used to des ...

and validity, are widely used and have informed research on the importance of metacognitive beliefs and metacognitive knowledge in psychological disorders. They are elevated across psychological disorders. However, there is also evidence that more specific metacognitive beliefs exist in different disorders. Following this work several questionnaires have been developed to measure more disorder-specific metacognitive beliefs. E.g. Wells proposed that obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is associated with a specific type of metacognitive belief concerning the dangerousness and significance of

intrusive thought An intrusive thought is an unwelcome, involuntary thought, image, or unpleasant idea that may become an obsession, is upsetting or distressing, and can feel difficult to manage or eliminate. When such thoughts are paired with obsessive–compulsi ...

s. These meta-beliefs are termed thought-fusion beliefs, and can be measured by the 14 item Thought Fusion Instrument (TFI; Wells, Gwilliam, & Cartwright-Hatton, 2001). There is an adolescent version of the MCQ that has been used in research on children (Cartwright-Hatton et al. 2004).

References

* Cartwright-Hatton, S., & Wells, A. (1997). Beliefs about worry and intrusions: The meta-cognitions questionnaire and its correlates. Journal of Anxiety Disorders, 11, 279–296. * Cartwright-Hatton, S., Mather, A., Illingworth, V., Brocki, J., Harrington, R. & Wells, A. (2004). Development and preliminary validation of the Meta-cognition Questionnaire- Adolescent version. Journal of Anxiety Disorder, 18, 411–422. * Wells, A. (2009). Metacognitive therapy for anxiety and depression. New York: Guilford Press. * Wells, A., & Cartwright-Hatton, S. (2004). A short form of the metacognitions questionnaire: properties of the MCQ-30. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 42, 385–396. * Wells, A., Gwilliam, P., & Cartwright-Hatton, S. (2001). The Thought Fusion Instrument (TFI). Manchester, UK: University of Manchester. * Wells, A., & Mathews, G. (1994). Attention and emotion. A clinical perspective. Hove, UK: Lawrence Erlbaum & Associates.

External links

MCT Institute
* Metacognition Questionnaire-30 (MCQ-30) https://betterworldhealthcare.com/metacognition-questionnaire-30-mcq-30/{{Moved resource, date={{CURRENTMONTHNAME {{CURRENTYEAR Cognitive therapy