Thursday, October 14, 2004
Psychologists explore traits, experiences that mark wisdom, transcendence of self
Some pretty smart people are trying to figure out just what wisdom is.
One definition of wisdom, for instance, focuses on its practical side - a mastery of day-to-day life, the ability to make good judgments and grasp limitations.
Another is more abstract, suggesting that wise people see beyond their own affairs to humanity's greater whole.
Psychologists are peering into the many facets of wisdom, trying not only to sort out various ways to define it, but also to answer questions such as whether it is related to spirituality, gender, culture or even childhood experiences.
"In the last 10 to 15 years there's been a lot of interest in wisdom," said developmental psychologist Carolyn Aldwin of Oregon State University. Aldwin helped lead a series of studies known as the Wisdom Project, based at the University of California, Davis.
One clue to comprehending wisdom can come from the sort of people who are widely considered wise, said Linda Kelly of Cal-Davis. Surveys asking for the names of wise people repeatedly turn up spiritual figures such as the Dalai Lama, the pope, Martin Luther King Jr. and Mother Teresa, Kelly said this summer in Honolulu, at a meeting of the American Psychological Association.
But few studies examine whether spirituality and wisdom are connected, she said.
Spirituality is not the same thing as religiousness, Kelly noted. Spiritual people have been represented as "seekers," she said. They are explorers who create their own sense of truth. And they are not bound by religious tradition in connecting with the sacred, whether it be God, nature, or some other higher power.
By contrast, religious people have been characterized as "dwellers," Kelly said. They are inhabitants of the space created by established religious institutions, and they relate to the sacred through being part of a community of like-minded people.
To test whether religiousness or spirituality could predict practical wisdom, Kelly and her colleagues studied almost 1,000 Cal-Davis alumni, ages 23 to 74, for signs of either trait. The scientists also assessed the subjects' coping skills, and such things as their feelings of mastery over life's events.
As it turned out, feelings of mastery were the best predictor of wisdom - followed by coping skills that involved taking positive actions; advancing age; not attending religious services; and spirituality, which the team found contributed modestly.
"It does appear that there is some sort of relationship between spirituality and practical wisdom," Kelly said. As seekers, spiritual people "tend to search for knowledge, which is similar behavior to those who are described as being wise."
Other research presented in Honolulu supports the idea that women may be more likely to exhibit another factor that appears related to wisdom, a quality known as self-transcendence.
Self-transcendence is the ability to stop being preoccupied with one's own life and instead focus more intensely on others and the whole of humanity, said Patricia Jennings of the University of California, San Francisco.
Several studies have suggested that women are more likely than men to be self-transcendent, said Jennings. She and colleagues from Boston's VA Healthcare System and Fordham University tested that idea in an exclusively aged population.
Some 1,100 older participants - more than two-thirds of them men - gave information about their lives today compared with 10 years ago. The survey measured self-transcendence with statements such as "I am more likely to engage in quiet contemplation," and alienation with statements like "I feel my life has less meaning."
The women (whose average age was 69) indeed tended to be more self-transcendent than the men (average age 73), the study found. Some experts have suggested that women may score higher for self-transcendence because an ability to relate to and feel for others is central to their own identities, Jennings explained.
Other results indicated that men experience self-transcendence differently than women. For instance, to the researchers' surprise, men who were more alienated were also more likely to be self-transcendent.
Scientists are also exploring how wisdom differs across cultures. In Western societies, wisdom seems more directed at logic and pragmatics - that is, how best to achieve the good life, said Thao Le of Cal-Davis. Eastern cultures appear more concerned with transcendent wisdom - with its focus on transforming consciousness, and setting oneself free of objects and beliefs. "It's about personal insight, developing self-knowledge, and even questions of does the self really exist?" Le said.
She evaluated two groups of about 100 subjects each - European Americans and Vietnamese immigrants - for qualities of practical and transcendent wisdom, expecting that the European group would score higher for practical wisdom, and the Vietnamese higher for transcendent wisdom.
She also suspected that people with either type of wisdom would be more likely to have positive personality traits such as openness and values such as benevolence, and less likely to have traits like neuroticism and values centered on power, conformity and security. "Wisdom is really about change and transformation," Le said.
The study found that people with higher levels of openness were more likely to have practical or transcendent wisdom, and that the more people embraced values like conformity and security, the less likely they were to rate highly for practical or transcendent wisdom.
The European Americans scored higher on practical wisdom, but no difference was found between the groups in transcendent wisdom, once education levels were taken into account.
While there are some ethnic differences regarding wisdom, Le concluded, "there seems to be some evidence that it is universal."
Yet psychologists aren't just trying to see where to find wisdom. They hope to trace where wisdom begins. Some researchers, for instance, have explored whether it's rooted in childhood experiences.
Adversity in childhood has consistently been linked to problems in adulthood. But many people who undergo traumatic events at any age find them transformative in a positive way, said Loriena Yancura of the University of Hawaii at Manoa.
"So what makes the difference between these two outcomes?" Yancura asked. She and colleagues suspected that childhood adversity with no real support from friends or family would lead to alienation, while adversity with support would foster self-transcendence.
The team studied data on the childhood experiences of almost 600 men ages 57 to 96. Were they ever quarantined for an illness? Did they suffer poverty? Parental divorce? Death of a sibling? Serious illness or injury? Verbal abuse? Whippings?
And, did they get emotional support from parents or grandparents, teachers, siblings or friends?
Six years later, the subjects' levels of self-transcendence and alienation were measured. Was their peace of mind harder to upset than it used to be? Did material things mean less than they once did? Or did the subjects feel lonely, or that life lacked meaning?
The older the men were, the more likely they were to be alienated, Yancura reported, but the more support they received, the less likely they were to be alienated. Also, the more support they had, the more likely they were to be self-transcendent.
In short, childhood adversity by itself doesn't influence wisdom-related psychological growth in late life, Yancura said. And, she added, positive experiences, such as support from others, "had surprisingly long-term effects."
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For more about the psychology of wisdom, see www.prometheus.org.uk/Files/MarchandOnWisdom.PDF
BY KAREN PATTERSON
The Dallas Morning News
Posted on Thu, Oct. 14, 2004
© 2004, The Dallas Morning News.
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