9 ms·
The relationship between age and wisdom-related performance (1999)
- chhs 8y agoLink to full PDF: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Ursula_Staudinger/publication/247779532_Older_and_Wiser_Integrating_Results_on_the_Relationship_between_Age_and_Wisdom-related_Performance/links/00463529cfa9c536e7000000/Older-and-Wiser-Integrating-Results-on-the-Relationship-between-Age-and-Wisdom-related-Performance.pdf https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Ursula_Staudinger/publi...
- stevespang 8y agoDepends on how you define "wisdom"
- jondubois 8y agoMost people definitely become wiser with age. Maybe the results are skewed because millennials are a particularly wise generation which have to deal with increasingly complex social, economic and environmental problems and this forces them to think more and ask more questions. Also, the internet has given millenials a big advantage in terms of finding information. It's not fair to compare one generation with another completely different generation; we need to track people from the same generation over a long period of time in order to get meaningful results.
- stretchwithme 8y agoI think it's because the wise live longer. Even if they are declining, the average tends to stay the same. Wisdom is mostly about paying attention and adapting, not all about accumulating experience, as new things keep coming and rendering much of your experience (with things, not with people) irrelevant. It's complicated.
- leesec 8y ago"I think it's because the wise live longer." I think this is false and based on nothing.
- Just_Smith 8y agoWhy do you believe that the wise live longer? That seems a hasty conclusion to come to, especially when the age you live to can be influenced by factors that wisdom can't circumvent.
- stretchwithme 8y agoI think wisdom helps you live your life successfully and avoid unnecessary risks. And avoid Darwin awards. Not understanding how things work can get you killed. Or you can die younger from smoking, drug abuse or not eating your vegetables. The alternative is thinking that choices don't affect how long you live and I don't think that makes sense.
- icholy 8y ago> millennials are a particularly wise generation that rubbed me the wrong way
- jasonbarrah 8y agoThis study is from 1999, before the internet as we know it, and long before children walked around with smartphones in their pockets. Its also very clear from you answer that you are a young person. I wonder if your answer will change when you are 75?
- czardoz 8y agoIt's experience that matters. An elder person with less exposure to different situations may not be able to offer good advice in general, but ask them about their own specific niche on which they've spent a lot of time, and you'll be amazed at the wisdom there.
- NeedMoreTea 8y agoThey may be getting extra data, but it's what they DO with that data that matters. Climate change and politics is enough to prove that experience alone counts for squat. :)
- Skunkleton 8y agoThe older generations have been seriously exposed to climate change for about the same amount of time that millennials have. If you are going to pick on them, why not pick on fiscal policies :)
- BookmarkSaver 8y agoWell they were adults during the whole process. Climate change was starting to get some attention back in the 80's at least, and there were definitely warnings in the 90's. Not nearly as severe or conclusive ones, but still. Millennials were children at the time.
- T-A 8y agoYes, but the adults were busy rejoicing that the previous climate scare had been debunked: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_cooling https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_cooling
- Skunkleton 8y ago1988 is the beginning of the "modern" era. However, I would like to make the baseless claim that climate change didn't become a hot-button issue until the 2000s. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_climate_change_science#Modern_period:_1988_to_present https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_climate_change_scie...
- dlbucci 8y agoI can see this, but I feel like it would depend on the person. Some people constantly learn and improve as they grow older and those people become wise as their life goes on. Other people just do not ever learn, so why would they be wise when they are old?
- devoply 8y agoStudy from 1999.
- quickthrower2 8y agoWe've wised up since then.
- draw_down 8y agoHuh, turns out you can measure wisdom.
- Skunkleton 8y agoI guess I must be special then. I made lots of unwise decisions in my early 20s that I certainly would not make now in my early 30s.
- keithnz 8y agothis might be a more interesting, and much more recent overview of wisdom, measurements of wisdom, and what it all means ( including how it relates to demographics ) https://academic.oup.com/psychsocgerontology/article/73/8/1393/4769351 https://academic.oup.com/psychsocgerontology/article/73/8/13...
- jey 8y agoCan someone summarize their definition of "wisdom"?
- qwerty456127 8y agoI'd say it means attitude and capability to observe whatever (circumstances and people especially) under numerous angles (especially including those the majority of people won't consider) and react constructively. Properly integrated experience ("lessons learnt") together with mindfulness, emotional and fluid intelligence are the major resources for this.
- Goladus 8y agoWell, the problem is that these are researchers claiming to have empirical evidence relating to wisdom. Their precise definition of the term matters if you want to understand what they're actually saying.
- Goladus 8y agoI can't. It isn't simple. And certainly to me, doesn't justify the catchy "assumption-challenging" title of the paper, which appeals to an obviously informal definition of the term. === In our work, we proceed from a theoretical conceptualisation of wisdom as expert-level knowledge and judgement in the fundamental pragmatics of life. Note that the term wisdom is reserved to denote only the highest levels of performance. Lower performance levels are labelled as wisdom-related. Knowledge (in its widest sense, cf. Polanyi, 1958) in the domain, fundamental pragmatics of life, entails insights into the quintessential aspects of the human condition and human life including its biological boundaries, cultural conditioning, and intra- as well as interindividual variations. At the centre of this body of knowledge and its application are questions concerning the conduct, interpretation, and meaning of life (for a more detailed description see Baltes et al., 1992; Staudinger & Baltes, 1994). We have outlined a framework of five criteria (see Table 1) that can be used to evaluate the quantity and quality of wisdom-related knowledge and judgement contained, for instance, in individuals’ verbal responses to difficult and uncertain problems of life. This approach to the psychological study of wisdom received empirical support in a series of studies with regard to reliability and some indication of predictive and external validity (Baltes, Staudinger, Maercker, & Smith, 1995; Smith & Baltes, 1990; Smith, Staudinger, & Baltes, 1994; Staudinger, 1989; Staudinger, Smith, & Baltes, 1992; Staudinger, Lopez & Baltes, 1997; Staudinger, Maciel, Smith & Baltes, 1998a). === An example of a test question is: "somebody gets a phone call from someone about to commit suicide, what should they do?"
- asaph 8y agoHow do they quantify and measure "wisdom"? I can't tell from the abstract and that's all I can see from the provided link.
- WheelsAtLarge 8y agoWisdom is not something you get. It's something you learn. I've met plenty of 75-year-olds+ that are just morons. Age is just a number for them.
- dbcurtis 8y agoIt hits before 75. One of my friends, who is about 75, and I would say has some wisdom, often says: "I have four children: three grown, and one that got older." Poor judgement know no age limits.
- FPGAhacker 8y agoI'd say it's something you earn.
- bigwheeler 8y ago"You should listen to people that are older than you are. Even if they're wrong, their wrong-ness is rooted in more information than you have." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FaPqFI5-yWM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FaPqFI5-yWM
- voidhorse 8y agoStudies like this that try to pin or correlate a fundamentally changing, social concept like wisdom with precise quantitative fixtures are idiotic. No matter the qualifications the authors might make to ensure their definition of wisdom is as empty and useless as that of a specific number, the grand claim of the study makes it sound as if they hadn’t even grasped that qualitative concepts are subject to change and depend upon the entire universe of conditions that impinge upon the concept’s users. What we mean by wisdom today in 2018 and what, for example, the ancient Greeks or scholastics meant by wisdom is entirely different, such is the power, history, and blurry bounds of the concept—and the point of studying these concepts in such a quantitative fashion is refuted before it’s even made.
- WhitneyLand 8y agoIdiotic? Is thst the vernacular? Imprecise, subjective, splippery defintiions have been beyond useful science so often. But it seems now the the best era yet to try and wrangle and quantify concepts there were previously too abstract for our methods.
- omeid2 8y agoI am not sure if I understand your criticism, but by virtue of not having access to time travel as of yet, most studies tend to be limited and in accordance to our current understanding of the world and humans. While timelessness is an admirable virtue, lack thereof nonetheless does not render a study useless or idiotic, in my current understanding anyways.
- maxander 8y agoIf you actually read, e.g., Socrates, you’ll find that his idea of wisdom is actually pretty consistent with the typical Western view. There’s some discrepancies, but the overall shape is the same. Look to Eastern cultures and there’s far greater difference (and perhaps even less agreement on what words should be translated as “wisdom,”) but there’s an obviously parallel concept. Further, wisdom (like related “social” concepts) points at some thing or pattern in the “objective” world. That thing/pattern/what-have-you is, at least putatively, there, and will be there as long as there are humans to be wise/unwise- even if our idea of it is lost, and even if the idea was an arbitrary division of the universe. And even further, there’s nothing stopping these researchers from making an operational criterion that matches the arbitrary definition of wisdom we have right now and finding something out about it. Even if humanity decides tomorrow that wisdom should actually mean something entirely different, knowledge about today’s “wisdom” was learnt.
- w8rbt 8y agoDoesn't wisdom come from experience? So, no matter how old you are, if you have done something then you have experience doing it and you have some insight and wisdom about it (whatever it is). So a 20 year old who has driven the Rubicon Trail probably knows a lot more about that than a 50 year old who has never done so.
- ambivalents 8y agoEh, I'd distinguish "wisdom" from "knowledge" in this example. This 20 year old might know a lot more about this trail, and thus be "better" at driving it, in a technical sense. At the same time, a wise person would approach the undriven trail, and apply what they have learned about driving, unfamiliar terrains, risk balancing, etc. to the experience of driving it. Maybe they'd even decide, "Screw this, I'm running late and want to go have some beer instead." In the end, who did it better? Maybe it doesn't matter, but I see wisdom as the ability to apply hard-won experience to novel situations.
- FPGAhacker 8y agoIt's still a good example though. I think maybe the difference here is wisdom is more generically applicable than most knowledge, but it's still knowledge.
- ilovecaching 8y agoI've found that hardship seems to be the best at imparting wisdom. Several years out of college I don't think I was very different from the day I graduated, but then one day something happened to me and I was suicidally depressed for months and experiencing immense amounts of pain every day. When I came out the other side I was a different person. People kept telling me: This is an opportunity. You can use it to grow if you want. I think I did, and I think it taught me that as much as it sucked, I gained something I would not have otherwise have had from the experience.
- metavrsl 8y agoI’ve felt the same way in the last few years since college. Been a ‘similar’ situation but I can definitely tell that all this time I’ve spent working on myself, reading philosophy, etc is just starting to pay off. Not saying it’s ideal but trying to learn as much as you can when you’re in a hard place might help you out.
- all2 8y agoUsing your anecdote (and my own personal experience) I would venture a guess that pain and suffering can change a willing person more than any other kind of experience. I spent a long time ignoring discomfort (pain-light) in my life. When I started nosing into the discomfort, the pain, and the hard things, I started to change. I had to be willing to do it, though, be willing to face that I was wrong, acknowledging that even the criticisms I had of myself were wrong. I have changed more in the last year than I have over the rest of my life. The change has been huge.
- WalterBright 8y agoMy father said he wouldn't trade his WW2 experience for anything, and wouldn't go through it again for anything.
- BlackjackCF 8y agoI agree. I'm always thankful that I had a really hard time in high school and college (and spent a majority of my high school and college years working.) I felt that when I graduated from college, I had a much easier time hunting for work than my peers. I also adjusted easily to startup hours, because they were still much less severe than the combined hours I had to put in for school on top of work to pay rent in college.
- PinkMilkshake 8y agoMaybe wisdom is like Pokemon, but instead of collecting cute cartoon animals to abuse, you collect heuristics. At one extreme, people go through life and pick up new mental models along the way. At the other extreme are people who actively seek them out. So age should bring wisdom, but not necessarily more than younger people.
- oh_sigh 8y agoHow do they measure how wise a person is?
- T-A 8y agoHeinlein knew it in 1973: Age does not bring wisdom. Often it merely changes simple stupidity into arrogant conceit. Robert A. Heinlein, "Time Enough For Love"
- all2 8y agoThis is off-topic, but some Heinlein quotes are gold. I grew up reading my dad's pulp sci-fi collection and Heinlein's work has definitely influenced my interests. “A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.”
- akman 8y agoIMO one of the most worthy goals technology should try to solve: shortcuts to acquire wisdom
- ridgeguy 8y agoAnecdotal data point from one who's old, by chronological criteria. I can't say I feel wiser than I was at 25 or 50. Different, definitely. I'm still unclear what constitutes "wise". But as I age, I increasingly see the degree to which phenomena are interconnected, and the knock-on implications regarding complexity and unanticipated consequences. It biases me to err in the direction of generosity and empathy. Still, it would feel good to know what "wise" is. Not sure I'd recognize it if it bit me in the butt. That said, go read Staudinger's paper (SciHub is your friend). Set a reminder to rethink these issues everytime your age doubles. You'll be interested in your results.
- badpun 8y ago> Still, it would feel good to know what "wise" is. I always thought of wisdom as the knowledge/understanding required to live well.
- EliRivers 8y ago"I increasingly see the degree to which phenomena are interconnected and the knock-on implications regarding complexity and unanticipated consequences" Sounds like textbook wisdom to me; a body of knowledge and experience you already have such that new information does not exist in isolation but is related to what you already know, allowing you to take knowledge and experience from past situations and phenomena and apply it to the new.
- hyperpallium 8y agoI like to think our innate and cultural sense of morality - e.g. fairness - derives from enlightened self-interest from "experience" over speciological time, unconsciously. Unfortunately, there's a bunch of negative stuff that derives similarly - e.g. cheating - and, due to changing circumstances, the tradeoffs for all of it might not be in tune anymore - e.g. global consequences, intellectual property.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- saiya-jin 8y ago> But as I age, I increasingly see the degree to which phenomena are interconnected, and the knock-on implications regarding complexity and unanticipated consequences. > Still, it would feel good to know what "wise" is. I think that's a good partial definition of wisdom. I would add that at that point, life overall holds very few mysteries to you, people nor events in life don't shock-surprise you. I don't think I'll ever consider myself wise :) Although sometime after 30 I started to see rather clear patterns in human behavior, what leads to what and what to (not) expect. So far all this experience is being reconfirmed over and over, with very few exceptions.
- Bulkington 8y agoPlus ça change, the better it has been said before: In philosophy, anamnesis is a concept in Plato's epistemological and psychological theory that humans possess innate knowledge (perhaps acquired before birth) and that learning consists of rediscovering that knowledge within us. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anamnesis_(philosophy) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anamnesis_(philosophy)
- cimmanom 8y agoHow did they define and evaluate “wisdom”?
- jesuisuncaillou 8y agoHere is a link to the pdf, without having to pay sagepub : https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Ursula_Staudinger/publication/247779532_Older_and_Wiser_Integrating_Results_on_the_Relationship_between_Age_and_Wisdom-related_Performance/links/00463529cfa9c536e7000000/Older-and-Wiser-Integrating-Results-on-the-Relationship-between-Age-and-Wisdom-related-Performance.pdf https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Ursula_Staudinger/publi...