From Critical Thinking to Well-Being: The Metacognitive Pathway in a Graphical-Causal Model

This study reanalyzes data from a previous investigation on critical thinking, metacognition, empathy, and psychological well-being by incorporating academic performance into a graphical-causal model. The aim was to compare two explanatory structures: a performance-mediated model, in which metacognition relates to psychological well-being through academic performance, and a direct metacognitive model, in which metacognition maintains a direct relation with well-being. The sample included 155 undergraduate psychology students. Critical thinking, metacognition, empathy, academic performance, and psychological well-being were modeled using directed acyclic graphs, conditional independence tests, Gaussian Bayesian networks, and bootstrap-based arc stability analysis. The initial performance-mediated DAG was not supported because the implied independence between metacognition and well-being conditional on performance was violated. The refined model, which included a direct metacognition–well-being path, was more compatible with the data. Metacognition showed the strongest estimated path to psychological well-being, whereas academic performance did not operate as the main mediating mechanism. Bootstrap results supported the stability of the metacognition–well-being adjacency. Overall, the findings suggest that critical thinking relates to psychological well-being mainly through metacognitive processes, under the assumptions of the specified DAG.