Metadata
- Author: Maksim Rudnev & Igor Grossmann
- Full Title:: Wisdom Is a Virtue, but How Do We Judge if Someone Has It?
- Category:: 🗞️Articles
- URL:: https://psyche.co/ideas/wisdom-is-a-virtue-but-how-do-we-judge-if-someone-has-it?utm_source=rss-feed
- Finished date:: 2024-10-21
Highlights
Our findings revealed that, when people make judgments about wisdom, they are essentially linking wisdom to two key dimensions that we call reflective orientation and socio-emotional awareness. (View Highlight)
Reflective orientation is probably what first comes to mind when you think about a ‘smart’ person: it involves logic, rationality, control over emotions, and the application of past experiences. (View Highlight)
socio-emotional awareness involves caring for others, active listening, and the ability to navigate complex and uncertain social situations. (View Highlight)
Many researchers have emphasised the differences between ‘Eastern’ and ‘Western’ conceptions of wisdom. The presumed collectivism of Chinese culture, for example, is often attributed to the Confucian and Taoist traditions, which place great importance on social and contextual awareness. (View Highlight)
our findings revealed a surprising commonality in how people around the world perceive wisdom in themselves and others, with both the key dimensions receiving a similar weighting across all cultures. (View Highlight)
People generally acknowledged their own cognitive limitations, rating themselves lower in reflective orientation than the wisest individuals. However, they tended to see themselves as more socially and emotionally aware than most others. In other words, they were willing to acknowledge their cognitive imperfections but believed they excelled in empathy, communication and awareness of social context. (View Highlight)
Previous research had suggested an overly favourable view of one’s socio-emotional awareness is a characteristic of Western cultures, but in our data this self-perception bias was present across multiple cultures, including those typically depicted as non-Western (View Highlight)
It is much harder to preserve an inflated sense of one’s reflective and analytic qualities because school grades and career outcomes constantly force us to calibrate our self-opinions. However, when it comes to our socio-emotional awareness, there are fewer forms of objective feedback that compel us to adjust an inflated opinion. (View Highlight)