TITLE:
Overthinking in Producing Arts and Crafts: A Metacognitive Analysis
AUTHORS:
Ali Redha Hussain
KEYWORDS:
Meta-Cognitive Model, Metacognition, Overthinking, Arts, Crafts
JOURNAL NAME:
Art and Design Review,
Vol.9 No.3,
August
27,
2021
ABSTRACT: This study uses the meta-cognitive model (developed in clinical psychology primarily in relation to depressive conditions) to explain the causal dynamics of why artists, in always looking for “perfection”, can experience mental states which predicate modes of overthinking which can be detrimental to their careers and/or projects. The meta-cognitive model proposes a specific causal relationship between metacognition and the regulation of thought processes, in which overthinking pertains to excessive metacognitive intervention or total lack thereof. The aim of this study is to establish a practical and implementable meta-cognitive intervention for arts practitioners, arts students, and teachers of arts practice, which will help in avoiding (or teaching how to avoid) the pitfalls of overthinking; to determine a practical “cognitive tool”, or mental framework, in the process of making arts. This meta-cognitive tool is intended as an abstract and intellectual complement to the concrete and formal compositional skills of art production. A key focus of this study concerns the liminal points between healthy/productive and unhealthy (and potentially pathological) aspects of creative overthinking, considering how excessive rumination factors into creative traits such as perfectionism and attention to detail in the production of artworks; looking, further, at how overthinking can affect the mind negatively, such as inducing anger and anxiety for example.