Getting Wisdom: Aging, Culture and Perspective.

Abstract

The main scientific goal of this dissertation is to understand the processes that enable individuals to think and act “wisely.” Past theories suggest that (a) age-based life experience; (b) culture, and (c) psychological distance are among key factors in wisdom acquisition across the lifespan. Combining experimental method with an individual difference approach and situating the results in a larger cultural context, the present dissertation systematically addresses the question of wisdom-related processes across adulthood. After reviewing previous wisdom scholarship, I propose that wisdom involves the following set of pragmatic strategies to address social dilemmas: (i) consideration of perspectives involved in the conflict; (ii) recognition of the likelihood of change; (iii) recognizing multiple ways how the conflict might unfold; (iv) recognition of uncertainty and the limits of knowledge; (v) search for a compromise; and (vi) prediction of conflict resolution. Chapter II validates this characterization of wisdom by a group of professional counselors and wisdom researchers. Moreover, two studies address the question of age differences in wisdom, using a representative community sample. Older Americans made more use of proposed wise reasoning schemes when talking about social conflicts than young and middle-aged Americans. Chapter III examines consequences of wise reasoning and showed that it is positively related to individual well-being and longevity. Chapter IV situates wisdom-related processes in a larger socio-cultural context by examining aging and cultural differences in wise reasoning simultaneously among random samples of Japanese vs. Americans. Findings indicate that younger Japanese reason more wisely than young Americans, yet yet older Americans are as wise as older Japanese. These results, suggest that aging plays a larger role in the attainment of wisdom in Western than in East Asian cultures. Chapter V concludes by reporting two experiments demonstrating that a distanced perspective on the self enhances wise reasoning, attitudes, and behavior. Together, these streams of research begin to illuminate a psychological construct of wisdom by highlighting developmental trends, cultural factors and individual processes that underlie it, and lay the foundation for developing interventions and designing curricula to increase wisdom in daily life.