Seeds of wisdom: Adolescents' knowledge and judgment about difficult life problems.

The present study examined adolescents' wisdom-related knowledge and judgment with a heterogeneous sample of 146 adolescents (ages 14–20 years) and a comparison sample of 58 young adults (ages 21–37 years). Participants responded to difficult and ill-defined life dilemmas; expert raters evaluated these responses along 5 wisdom criteria. Our findings confirmed that in contrast to adulthood, adolescence is a major period for normative age-graded development in knowledge about difficult life problems. Adolescents performed at lower levels than young adults but also demonstrated substantial age increments in performance. As expected, adolescents' performance varied as a function of criterion and gender. These results hold implications for research on adolescent development and for the development of wisdom-related knowledge and judgment. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Occupational settings facilitating wisdom-related knowledge: The sample case of clinical psychologists.

Wisdom can be defined as expert knowledge in the fundamental pragmatics of life. Examined here is whether clinical practice may facilitate access to and acquisition of such knowledge. Spontaneous think-aloud responses to 2 wisdom-related dilemmas from 12 young (aged 26–37 yrs) and 12 older (aged 65–82 yrs) female clinicians were compared with responses obtained from 17 young (aged 28–37 yrs) and 19 older (aged 64–75 yrs) other female professionals. Raters judged clinicians' responses as higher on 5 criteria of wisdom: factual knowledge, procedural knowledge, life-span contextualism, value relativism, and management of uncertainty. Contrary to most studies of cognitive aging, young and older adults did not differ. Rather, each age-cohort group received highest ratings when responding to a life dilemma matched to their own life phase. The application of a wisdom framework to assessing therapeutic treatment goals and therapist interventions as well as global changes in client's beliefs during therapy are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Personal wisdom: Validation and age-related differences of a performance measure.

The 2 goals of this study were to develop and validate a performance measure of personal wisdom (PW) and to examine age differences. On the basis of the Berlin wisdom paradigm and growth theories of personality, 5 criteria of PW were developed. A sample of 83 younger adults (ages 20-40) and 78 older adults (ages 60-80) thought aloud about a PW task. Transcribed answers were rated. Validity was established with regard to indicators of personality growth, subjective well-being, intelligence, critical life events, and general wisdom. As expected, no age differences were obtained on the basic criteria, and negative age differences were found on the metacriteria indexing PW. Fluid intelligence and openness to new experience partially mediated these differences. It is argued that on average and for current cohorts age-related changes in psychological functioning may act as hindrances on the road to PW. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

People nominated as wise: A comparative study of wisdom-related knowledge.

This study examined whether our conception of wisdom has a psychological bias, by focusing on a group of distinguished individuals nominated as being wise. The comparison groups included older clinical psychologists and highly educated old and young control groups. Wisdom-related knowledge was assessed by 2 tasks and evaluated with a set of 5 wisdom criteria. First, old wisdom nominees performed as well as clinical psychologists who in past research had shown the highest levels of performance. Second, wisdom nominees excelled in the task of existential life management and the criterion of value relativism. Third, up to age 80, older adults performed as well as younger adults. If there is a psychological bias to our conception of wisdom, this does not prevent nonpsychologists from being among the top performers. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Wisdom: A metaheuristic (pragmatic) to orchestrate mind and virtue toward excellence.

The primary focus of this article is on the presentation of wisdom research conducted under the heading of the Berlin wisdom paradigm. Informed by a cultural-historical analysis, wisdom in this paradigm is defined as an expert knowledge system concerning the fundamental pragmatics of life. These include knowledge and judgment about the meaning and conduct of life and the orchestration of human development toward excellence while attending conjointly to personal and collective well-being. Measurement includes think-aloud protocols concerning various problems of life associated with life planning, life management, and life review. Responses are evaluated with reference to a family of 5 criteria: rich factual and procedural knowledge, lifespan contextualism, relativism of values and life priorities, and recognition and management of uncertainty. A series of studies is reported that aim to describe, explain, and optimize wisdom. The authors conclude with a new theoretical perspective that characterizes wisdom as a cognitive and motivational metaheuristic (pragmatic) that organizes and orchestrates knowledge toward human excellence in mind and virtue, both individually and collectively. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Using the concept of wisdom to enhance the expression of wisdom knowledge: Not the philosopher's dream but differential effects of developmental preparedness.

In this study, the authors explored whether wisdom-related performance could be enhanced by an instruction referring to the abstract concept of wisdom ("try to give a wise response"). The authors used three levels of activation of the concept of wisdom as well as intelligence-activation and control conditions in a heterogeneous sample of three age groups (N = 318). Results showed no general effect of the wisdom-concept instructions but did show an aptitude (resource) treatment interaction: Participants high in preparedness resources associated with wisdom exhibited some gains, whereas the performance of resource-low participants actually declined after the instruction. Implications and consequences with respect to ways of enhancing the expression of wisdom-related knowledge are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Wisdom-related knowledge in a life review task: Age differences and the role of professional specialization.

Adopts life review as an avenue to access wisdom-related knowledge and examines the contribution of age and type of professional specialization to individual differences in wisdom-related knowledge. Women from 2 age groups/cohorts (young, M?=?32 yrs; old, M?=?71 yrs) and different professional specializations (human services vs nonhuman services) were asked to think aloud about the life review of a fictitious woman who was either young or old. Verbal protocols were scored on 5 wisdom-related criteria; factual and procedural knowledge about life, life-span contextualism, relativism of values, recognition, and management of uncertainty. Three major findings emerged. First, human-services professionals outperformed the control group. Second, old adults performed as well as young adults. Third, for older adults wisdom-related performance was enhanced by the match between their own age and the age of the fictitious character. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Forgetting rates in modality memory for young, mid-life, and older women.

Administered a mixed-modality (visual and auditory) continuous recognition task, followed immediately by a final recognition test, to 16 women in each of 3 age groups (18–23 yrs, 38–50 yrs, and 60–74 yrs). Ss gave recognition responses for both the words and their presentation modality. Although older Ss remembered less information about input mode than did the 2 younger groups, the age decrement was not the result of faster forgetting of such information by the elderly. When a ceiling effect at the initial lag was taken into account, forgetting rates for both words and input mode were comparable across the adult life span. (7 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Implicit theories of intelligence, creativity, and wisdom.

In a prestudy, a questionnaire was sent to 97 professors in the fields of art, business, philosophy, and physics; it was also given to 17 laypersons. Ss were asked to list behaviors characteristic of an ideally intelligent, creative, or wise person in one's field of endeavor, or in general (for laypersons). In Exp I, 285 professors in the same fields and 30 laypersons rated the extent to which each of the behaviors listed at least twice in the prestudy was characteristic of an ideally intelligent, creative, or wise individual. In Exp II, a subset of the behaviors from the prestudy was sorted by 40 undergraduates to yield a multidimensional space characterizing the Ss' implicit theories for intelligence, creativity, and wisdom. In Exp III, 30 adults rated themselves on a subset of the behaviors from the prestudy, and these ratings were correlated with "ideal prototype" ratings to yield a measure of resemblance to the prototype. Resemblance scores were then correlated with scores on standardized ability tests. In Exp IV, 30 adults rated hypothetical individuals described in simulated letters of recommendation in terms of their intelligence, creativity, and wisdom. Results reveal that people have systematic implicit theories of intelligence, creativity, and wisdom, which are used accurately both in evaluating themselves and in evaluating hypothetical others. Moreover, the implicit theories for each of the constructs show at least some convergent–discriminant validity with respect to each other. (47 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Developing practically wise leaders through serious play.

The contemporary challenge of leadership has been framed in terms of dealing authentically, ethically, and effectively with the complexity and uncertainty of organizational life. This article draws on research in the fields of psychology and philosophy to introduce practical wisdom as a new way to conceptualize optimal leadership practice. The authors propose that practically wise leaders can be effectively developed by using serious play techniques. Empirical data are presented to illustrate this proposition, and several implications for the field of consulting psychology are outlined. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Preschooler's ability to decide whether a photographed unfamiliar object can move itself.

Does the preschooler's use of the animate–inanimate distinction reflect knowledge about which category types engage in self-initiated movements? Three- and 4-year-olds viewed photographs of unfamiliar objects, including mammalian animals, nonmammalian animals, statues with animal-like forms and parts, wheeled vehicles, and multipart rigid objects, and decided whether each item could go up and down a hill by itself. Four-year-olds were reliably accurate about the movement potentials for each of the five classes of items; 3-year-olds' scores were significantly above chance in all but one category. Analyses of rule use and verbalization data showed that children were concerned about cause of movement and used an animate–inanimate hierarchy. Explanations from both age groups varied, in a consistent manner, the kind of information and criteria used to make inferences as function of the type of item. We discuss how these data bear on a theory of concepts. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Age differences in social preferences among Taiwanese and mainland Chinese: The role of perceived time.

Socioemotional selectivity theory holds that as people recognize the inevitable constraint of time imposed by mortality, their social goals change, motivating them to limit social contacts to those with whom they are emotionally close. This theory was tested among Taiwanese and Mainland Chinese. As predicted, results showed that older adults (aged 60–90 years) in both cultures were more likely than younger adults (aged 18–30 years) to prefer familiar social partners who were most likely to provide emotionally close social interactions. Mainland Chinese, who as a group have shorter actuarial life expectancy, were more likely to prefer familiar social partners than were Taiwanese. These age and cultural differences were eliminated when differences in perceived time were statistically controlled for. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Children's understanding of retrieval cue utilization.

To understand the logic of effective cue utilization, one must know not only that cues are useful but that a specific cue is useful only if it is located where one will be when it is time to remember, and placed so one will encounter it automatically. This experiment investigated 16 1st, 16 2nd, and 16 5th graders' knowledge of the use of retrieval cues to aid memory. Stories representing effective and ineffective cue locations were constructed. Many 1st graders believed that all cue locations were effective; the discrimination of ineffective locations showed a clear order of acquisition by age. Those 1st graders had little understanding of external retrieval cues as mnemonic means. As soon as Ss achieved this understanding, it was coordinated with temporal requirements for using cues effectively. However, full understanding of the temporal criteria required a series of developments. Ss at first knew only that a cue encountered after the time to do the task would be ineffective. Next, Ss understood that a cue would be ineffective if it were encountered after the time one had to remember to do the task. Most 5th graders knew that even a cue encountered before the task would be ineffective if the cue appeared greatly in advance of the time one had to remember. Results are discussed in terms of the importance of investigating children's integrated knowledge, or theories, about memory. (13 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Three paths of adult development: Conservers, seekers, and achievers.

This study examined the development of individuals whose motivations and skills led them to develop in different but equally positive ways. C. D. Ryff's (1989) scales for Environmental Mastery (EM) and Personal Growth (PG) were used to identify three configurations of positive mental health in 111 women of the Mills Longitudinal Study: Achievers, high on both scales; Conservers, high on EM, low on PG; and Seekers, high on PG, low on EM. Each pattern showed a distinctive profile of strengths on four criteria of maturity—competence, generativity, ego development, and wisdom—and each was predicted by distinctive features of positive and negative emotionality, identity processes, and change in self-control across 31 years of adulthood. Identity at age 43 mediated the influence of personality at age 21 in predicting positive mental health pattern at age 60. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Age differences in the accuracy of confidence judgments

Age differences in accuracy were investigated by having older (M = 68.6 years) and younger (M = 21.5 years) adults make confidence judgments about the correctness of their responses to two sets of general knowledge items. For one set, prior to making their confidence judgments, subjects made mental strategy judgements indicating how they had selected their answers (i.e., they guessed, used intuition, made an inference, or immediately recognized the response as correct). Results indicate that older subjects were more accurate than younger subjects in predicting the correctness of their responses; however, making mental strategy judgments did not result in increased accuracy for either age group. Additional analyses explored the relationship between accuracy and other individual difference variables. The results of this investigation are consistent with recent theories of postformal cognitive development that suggest older adults have greater insight into the limitations of their knowledge.     

Maturation curve of the ultrasonographic alpha angle according to Graf's untreated hip joint in the first year of life

In addition to Graf's classification into different hip-types a maturation-curve of the sonographic alpha-angle was established in order to optimize the differentiation between mature hip joints and those ones which need follow-up and those ones which need treatment at any time within the first year of life. The results obtained are confirming our present knowledge about the spontaneous maturation of physiologically immature hip joints: The mean-value of the alpha-angle crosses the 60 degrees-borderline at about the age of two months, then reaches an about 64 degrees-level at about four months. This 64-degrees-level is more or less unchanged up to the end of the first year of life.     

Aging, emotion, and health-related decision strategies: Motivational manipulations can reduce age differences.

According to socioemotional selectivity theory, age-related constraints on time horizons are associated with motivational changes that increasingly favor goals related to emotional well-being. Such changes have implications for emotionally taxing tasks such as making decisions, especially when decisions require consideration of unpleasant information. This study examined age differences in information acquisition and recall in the health care realm. Using computer-based decision scenarios, 60 older and 60 young adults reviewed choice criteria that contained positive, negative, and neutral information about different physicians and health care plans. As predicted, older adults reviewed and recalled a greater proportion of positive than of negative information compared with young adults. Age differences were eliminated when motivational manipulations elicited information-gathering goals or when time perspective was controlled statistically. Implications for improving decision strategies in older adults are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Partner preferences across the life span: Online dating by older adults.

Stereotypes of older adults as withdrawn or asexual fail to recognize that romantic relationships in later life are increasingly common. The authors analyzed 600 Internet personal ads from 4 age groups: 20–34, 40–54, 60–74, and 75+ years. Predictions from evolutionary theory held true in later life, when reproduction is no longer a concern. Across the life span, men sought physical attractiveness and offered status-related information more than women; women were more selective than men and sought status more than men. With age, men desired women increasingly younger than themselves, whereas women desired older men until ages 75 and over, when they sought men younger than themselves. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Stimulus repetition and encoding facilitation: Locus of the effect.

20 undergraduates were familiarized on patterns representing certain transformations of a prototype prior to a choice RT test to old (same) and new (different) patterns. Analysis of criteria for making same–different judgments indicated that Ss' remembrance was characterized by a knowledge structure based on the prototype and its transformations, rather than a list of the patterns to which Ss had been exposed. Same responses made to patterns highly congruent with the knowledge structure were found to be faster than different responses made to less congruent patterns. In contrast, speed of same responses to familiarized stimuli and different responses to novel stimuli did not differ. Findings suggest that encoding facilitation due to stimulus repetition is based on the information acquired from the familiarized stimuli rather than on the familiarized stimuli themselves. (French abstract) (8 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)