Perspectives on Psychological Science· 2017Q1
Wisdom in Context
- 292citations
- Q1SCImago
- 2017year
Short summary
Wise thinking is significantly influenced by situational context, with self-focused situations inhibiting it, but an ego-decentering mindset can restore wise thinking even for personal issues.
AI-generated from the title and abstract; the full text is not read.
Key points
- Wise thinking is context-dependent, varying across life experiences and specific situations.
- Self-focused contexts significantly inhibit wise thinking.
- An ego-decentering cognitive mindset can enable wise thinking even for personally relevant issues.
- Experiential, situational, and cultural factors play a powerful role in shaping wisdom.
AI-generated from the title and abstract; the full text is not read.
Abstract
Philosophers and psychological scientists have converged on the idea that wisdom involves certain aspects of thinking (e.g., intellectual humility, recognition of uncertainty and change), enabling application of knowledge to life challenges. Empirical evidence indicates that people's ability to think wisely varies dramatically across experiential contexts that they encounter over the life span. Moreover, wise thinking varies from one situation to another, with self-focused contexts inhibiting wise thinking. Experiments can show ways to buffer thinking against bias in cases in which self-interests are unavoidable. Specifically, an ego-decentering cognitive mind-set enables wise thinking about personally meaningful issues. It appears that experiential, situational, and cultural factors are even more powerful in shaping wisdom than previously imagined. Focus on such contextual factors sheds new light on the processes underlying wise thought and its development, helps to integrate different approaches to studying wisdom, and has implications for measurement and development of wisdom-enhancing interventions.
The authors' abstract, as published at the source. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 2017 · DOI ↗
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Field: Neuropsychology and Physiological Psychology
Neuropsychology and Physiological PsychologyPsychology