The Relationship Between Executive Functions, Self-Reflection, and Insight Across Adulthood

ABSTRACT

Objective

Research suggests that executive functions and metacognitive abilities, including self-reflection and insight, may share underlying mechanisms since both rely on top-down cognitive processes and require self-regulation. However, these relationships have not been thoroughly examined by empirical research. The current study investigated the relationship between insight, self-reflection, and executive functions cross-sectionally across different stages of aging.

Methods

Participants were 1284 (655 men and 629 women) cognitively healthy community dwellers with an age range of 18–89 years (M = 47.91, SD = 19.83). The sample was divided into three groups based on age, e.g., the young adults (18–34 years-old), the middle-aged adults (35–59 years-old), and older adults (60 years and older). Participants completed multiple executive function tasks (including trail making, verbal fluency, Stroop, digit span) and a self-report insight and self-reflection measure individually in face-to-face sessions.

Results

The results show that education, age, digit span forward, which is a measure of short-term memory and phonemic fluency were significant predictors of self-reported insight. Furthermore, insight, but not self-reflection, had significant positive correlations with short-term memory and phonemic fluency across three age groups.

Conclusions

Overall, the results indicate that performance on executive function measures and self-reported self-reflection and insight are relatively independent cognitive abilities.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data Availability Statement

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author, [YSI], upon reasonable request.

Additional information

Funding

The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.