True Wisdom - Researched Characteristics

Referenced an article by Stephen S.Hall entitled "Wisdom comes with age? Not True" published in The Straits Times on 8 May 2007.

True wisdom it seems is associated by academic literature with the following attributes:

• A clear-eyed view of human nature
• Emotional resilience
• Ability to cope in the face of adversity
• Forgiveness
• Humility
• Knack of learning from lifetime of experiences

Formal studies on wisdom can be traced back to a young girl named Vivian Clayton. Apparently, She had observed that her father and maternal grandmother were different from other people she know. Despite their limited education, they had possessed an uncanny ability to remain in the midst of crisis and make good decision . She proceeded to tell the story of his father and his dying grandmother during World War Two, after the bombs had completely been dropped, she would just just say "Now we can have a cup of tea" nonchalantly.

Clayton, went to do her dissertation during the 1970s and 1980s, publishing groundbreaking papers on wisdom. She identified three general aspects of human activity that were central to wisdom

• Acquisition of Knowledge (Cognitive)
• Analysis of that Information (Reflective)
• Filtered through the emotions (affective)

I tried searching for her papers in Google Scholar but found only abstracts of them.

Anyway, moving along, there was another Berlin Wisdom Project that started research on wisdom. The "Berlin Paradigm" defined wisdom as an expert knowledge system concerning the fundamental pragmatics of life". In essence, it is the following:

• Expert knowledge of both "facts" of human nature
• "How" to deal with decisions and dilemmas
• An appreciation of one's historical, cultural and biological circumstances during an arc of lifespan
• An understanding of the "relativism" of values and priorities; and acknowledgement, at the level of both thought and action, of uncertainty.

The study by the Berlin group was on expertise and performance and not on inherent personality traits.

Now, another scientist, Laura Carstensen also identified the following:

• Ability to focus on emotional control is tightly linked to a persons sense of time
• Older people in general seem to have a better feel for keeping their emotions in balance.

My post does not do justice to Hall's article, but what I have done is to actually highlight the key points in bullets by the various researchers mentioned.

So, in summary, Hall ended by saying the following:

"Where does wisdom come from, and how does one acquire it? Surprisingly, a good deal of evidence suggests that the seeds of wisdom are planted earlier than old age, often earlier than middle age and possibly even earlier than young adulthood. And there are strong hints that wisdom is associated with an earlier exposure to adversity or failure. That certainly seems to be the case with emotional regulation and is consistent with Carstensen's ideas about shifting time horizons."

Interestingly, this means that we would need to have setbacks early in life to be able to become a wise man in the future. Of course, the person must be resilient enough to overcome these obstacles in their lives in order to move on.

Great article, deep in meaning and should be used by all as guidelines to true wisdom.

Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers.
Alfred Lord Tennyson English poet (1809 - 1892)