Öz yeterlik ve plasebonun bellek üzerindeki etkilerinin incelenmesi

Cognitive psychology has long focused on understanding how individuals evaluate and regulate their own memory processes. Research in the field of metamemory, an important subfield of metacognition, increasingly highlights the role of individual cognitive traits such as self-efficacy in memory performance and metacognitive judgments. This study examined how self-efficacy levels, groups, and personality traits may influence various metamemory indicators, including Judgment of Learning, Free Recall, Feeling of Knowing, Recognition, and Confidence Rating. The study sample consisted of 124 healthy volunteers (95 female, 29 male) aged 18–25 (20.86 and SD of ±1.66). Participants were divided into two groups based on their scores on the General Self-Efficacy Scale: low self-efficacy and high self-efficacy. Subsequently, each group was randomly divided into two different groups: an Experimental group and a Control group. While participants in the Experimental group received a placebo intervention, the Control group did not receive a placebo. Then all participants proceeded to the memory task phase. In the memory task programmed using PsychoPy, participants were presented with 60 words carrying emotional content (20 positive, 20 negative, and 20 neutral) in randomly paired sets (30 pairs). Participants were then asked to rate these words on Judgement of Learning, Free Recall, Feeling of Knowing, Recognition, and Confidence. A series of 2 x 2 x 3 mixed factorial ANOVAs were conducted to evaluate the main and interaction effects of self-efficacy level, group, and word type on the five dependent variables. Significant main effects of self-efficacy were observed within Recognition and Confidence Rating, with higher levels of self-efficacy associated with improved metamemory performance. The significant main effects of word type were observed in JOL, Recall, FOK, and Confidence Rating, which highlight differences between positive and negative stimuli. However, interaction effects involving word type were not consistent across all dependent variables. Pairwise comparisons further revealed that participants with high self-efficacy in the Experimental group outperformed their peers within the Control group, especially in FOK, Recognition, and Confidence Ratings, notably when processing positive words. Manipulation checks verified the physiological effectiveness of the placebo intervention and the ANOVA results demonstrated that the placebo yielded a noticeable improvement in metamemory performance across some dependent variables. These findings illustrate the vital role of self-efficacy in shaping both cognitive and metacognitive outcomes, independent of placebo-induced effects.