Most
everybody believes that one becomes wiser with age and experience. People
obviously vary across a wide spectrum of foolish to wise. We all have opinions
about our own degree of wisdom compared to others, but is there an objective
way to measure wisdom?
A
group of researchers at U.C. San Diego believes that wisdom can be objectively
measured. They tested their ideas on 524 adults, aged 25-104 years, selected
from an on-going longitudinal investigation called the Successful Aging Evaluation
(SAGE) study. The study population involved near equal numbers of males and
females, with more than three-fourths claiming to be non-Latino white. A
majority had some college education. The study was funded by three grants from
the National Institute of Mental Health, the Veterans Administration, and the
Stein Institute for Research on Aging.
The
researchers developed a series of questions that focused on physical,
cognitive, and psychosocial aspects of successful aging across the adult
lifespan. Collectively, the answers provide a numerical index of wisdom that
can be used to compare and judge people on the basis of presumed wisdom.
Participants rated a set of statements by agreeing or disagreeing with on a
scale of one to five. The statements presumably tested the degree of wisdom,
covering six specific domains: 1) prosocial attitudes and behaviors such as
empathy, altruism and social cooperation, 2) social decision-making/pragmatic
knowledge of life, 3) emotional regulation, 4) reflection/self-understanding,
5) tolerance of diverse values, 6) and ability to effectively deal with
uncertainty and ambiguity in life.
Factor
analysis revealed that the scale reliably measured wisdom as defined by the
questions. Thus, their questionnaire makes effective distinctions between
individuals’ differing degrees of wisdom.
Limitations
of the study are that responses were self-reported, not measured empirically by
others. Also, the demographic was narrow (Caucasians with some higher
education). Some of the assumptions could be questioned. For example, is a
sense of well-being always a reliable indicator of wisdom? A person could feel
good because of lucky circumstance or because of delusion. Is it always wise to
be tolerant of diverse values, especially if it leads to political correctness
run amuck or acceptance of an evil that needs to be overcome? How wise is it to
accept ambiguity if it means avoiding the hard work of solving important
problems?
That
brings us to the definition of wisdom, which is hard to define. However, we
think we know it when we see it. Certainly we should seek to be wise, but not
without a lot of hard thought on what that means.
The
potential value of wisdom-scoring questionnaires is that they can have a
teaching function of helping to show people what wisdom is by identifying its
specific domains in a tangible way that could guide the striving for wisdom.
Another value could be clinical evaluation of mental deterioration with age.
Finally, such questionnaires could be used in screening people for suitability
for admission into prestigious universities, hiring in industries requiring
emotional and cognitive maturity, or acceptance into certain social groups.
However, the judgmental use of such questionnaires opens the door to
manipulation by the people taking the test and discrimination by those using
the test results for personal judgment.
The
researchers promote their "San Diego Wisdom Scale (SD-WISE)" as a new
way to judge people. Society already has multiple ways to judge people: IQ
scores, SAT scores, "likes" and "followers" on social
media—and now on wisdom! Such indices have some valid uses, but the
possibilities for abuse are enormous. Why are we always looking for ways to
judge people? When people must be judged, why not emphasize what they actually
do, not what their test score is?
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Source:
Thomas, M. L. (2017). A new scale for assessing wisdom based
on common domains and a neurobiological model: The San Diego Wisdom Scale
(SD-Wise). J. Psychiatric Res. Sep 8. DOI:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jpsychires.2017.09.005
