Twin study on metacognition and its related traits

Research in psychopathology has now well established that mental disorders, which are usually divided into internalizing (related to the self) and externalizing (occurring in interaction with the social environment), often occur together in the same individual. Therefore, it is likely that they share the same activating factors. This observation has progressively led scholars to consider them no longer as separate symptom domains but as portions of a continuous spectrum, at the base of which there would be a single susceptibility factor, known as the p factor. Although the existence of this single factor has been widely demonstrated statistically, what it represents at a psychological level is still a mystery. One possible explanation for this mystery could be metacognition. Metacognition means thinking about thinking, and it has been seen that when these thinking styles are dysfunctional, they can play an important role in worsening the symptoms of both internalizing and externalizing disorders. Despite this, no research so far has tried to relate metacognition to the p factor. In general, research on metacognition is still in its early stages, especially concerning childhood and adolescence. We still know very little about the factors that give rise to dysfunctional metacognitive thoughts and how these are transmitted from parents to children. It is assumed that the environment mainly shapes these beliefs because no one has studied the genetic factors yet. It is also unclear if aging affects metacognition. To fill these gaps, this study aims at estimating how much metacognition is inherited, as well as to understanding the latent factors contributing to the transmission of metacognitive beliefs from one generation to the next. It will also examine the genetic and environmental contributions to the relation between metacognition and traits linked to internalizing and externalizing disorders. Additionally, the study will look for age-related differences in these relations. A twin study will be conducted to achieve these aims. This method compares identical twins, who share all their genes, with fraternal twins, who share about half their genes. By looking at how similar the twins are in terms of metacognition and mental health traits, one can estimate the influence of genetics and the environment. The study will include two age groups: 8-12 and 13-18 years old. No previous studies have combined genetic and environmental data to explore metacognition in children and adolescents. Understanding the relation between metacognition and mental health traits could help us learn more about the true nature of the p factor, explaining why mental disorders develop and how to effectively intervene or even prevent them.