Psychological Wisdom Research: Commonalities and Differences in

PS62CH09-Staudinger ARI 11 November 2010 12:33

Psychological WisdomResearch: Commonalities andDifferences in a Growing FieldUrsula M. Staudinger1 and Judith Gluck2

1Jacobs Center on Lifelong Learning and Institutional Development, Jacobs University,28759 Bremen, Germany; email: [email protected] of Psychology, Alpen-Adria University Klagenfurt, 9020 Klagenfurt, Austria;email: [email protected]

Annu. Rev. Psychol. 2011. 62:215–41

First published online as a Review in Advance onSeptember 7, 2010

The Annual Review of Psychology is online atpsych.annualreviews.org

This article’s doi:10.1146/annurev.psych.121208.131659

Copyright c© 2011 by Annual Reviews.All rights reserved

0066-4308/11/0110-0215$20.00

Key Words

personality, expertise, subjective theories, adjustment, personal growth

Abstract

Wisdom represents a fruitful topic for psychological investigations forat least two reasons. First, the study of wisdom emphasizes the searchfor the continued optimization and the further cultural evolution ofthe human condition. Second, it exemplifies the collaboration of cog-nitive, emotional, and motivational processes. The growth and scope ofpsychological wisdom research over the past few decades demonstratethat it is possible to investigate this complex construct with empiricalrigor. Since the 1970s, five main areas have been established: lay defini-tions of wisdom, conceptualizing and measuring wisdom, understandingthe development of wisdom, investigating the plasticity of wisdom, andapplying psychological knowledge about wisdom in life contexts.

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Contents

INTRODUCTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 216SUBJECTIVE THEORIES

OF WISDOM. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 217Core Components of Wisdom

in Subjective Theories . . . . . . . . . . 218Wisdom and Age . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 219Individual Differences in Subjective

Conceptions of Wisdom . . . . . . . . 219Cross-Cultural Studies . . . . . . . . . . . . . 220Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 221

EXPLICIT THEORIESOF WISDOM:CONCEPTUALIZATIONSAND MEASUREMENT . . . . . . . . . . 221The Distinction Between Personal

and General Wisdom . . . . . . . . . . . 221Approaches to the Study

of General Wisdom . . . . . . . . . . . . . 222Approaches to the Study

of Personal Wisdom . . . . . . . . . . . . 224Self-Report Measures

of Personal Wisdom . . . . . . . . . . . . 224Performance Measures

of Personal Wisdom . . . . . . . . . . . . 227ONTOGENESIS OF WISDOM . . . . . 229PLASTICITY OF WISDOM . . . . . . . . . 232FIELDS OF APPLICATIONS

FOR WISDOM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 233Teaching Wisdom . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 233Leadership . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 234

CONCLUSIONS ANDFUTURE RESEARCH. . . . . . . . . . . . 235

INTRODUCTION

The quest for wisdom is roughly as old as hu-mankind. We are able to document this deephuman concern for wisdom at least since writ-ing made it possible to later retrieve very earlyexamples of the wisdom literature dating back asfar as the third century B.C. (e.g., Mesopotamia,Egypt). Similarly, an interest in and a concernfor wisdom have accompanied the rise of mod-ern psychology from its early days. G. Stanley

Hall (1922), in his pioneering conceptual pieceon senescence, was probably the first psychol-ogist to mention the concept of wisdom. Heassociated the development of wisdom in a per-son with the emergence in later adulthood of ameditative attitude, philosophic calmness, im-partiality, and the desire to draw moral lessons.In other words, in early psychological writings,wisdom was described as an ideal endpoint ofhuman development. It was not until the 1970sthat empirical wisdom research began (Clayton1975).

In contrast to most other topics of psycho-logical study, the notion of “wisdom” has sucha rich ideational history and carries so manyreligious and philosophical associations that italmost seems to defy any attempt at empiricalstudy (Staudinger & Baltes 1994, Staudinger& Gluck 2010). Therefore, psychological workon wisdom is often based on an analysis ofthe historical as well as the contemporane-ous philosophical wisdom literature (Assmann1994, Brugman 2006, Curnow 1999).

Since the 1970s, five areas of psycholog-ical wisdom research have been established:(a) providing a lay definition of wisdom,(b) conceptualizing and measuring wisdom,(c) understanding the development of wisdom,(d ) investigating the plasticity of wisdom, and(e) applying psychological knowledge aboutwisdom in life contexts.

Before we venture into these fields, how-ever, we highlight some general issues to beconsidered when reviewing psychological wis-dom research. First, we note that wisdom con-cerns a body of insights, heuristics, and skillsthat can manifest themselves in many differ-ent ways, only one of which is the wise person.Even though from a psychological perspectivethis seems to be the most obvious if not im-portant focus, we argue that cultural crystal-lizations of wisdom as we find them in proverbsand other texts, such as religious writings orconstitutional texts, are as relevant to the psy-chological study of wisdom as the investigationof personality characteristics of a potentiallywise person or the investigation of behaviorsindicative of wisdom. Second, we suggest that

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use of the notion of “wisdom” or “wise” is con-fined to existential and uncertain matters of life,and someone or something is called wise only ifthe range of definitive criteria is fully instanti-ated. Although the word “wise” in everyday lan-guage is often used in a much more inflationarymanner, the scientific usage ought to be precise.Therefore, third, an increase in competencethat results from experience cannot immedi-ately be equated with an increase in wisdom.In this vein, a distinction between two types ofpositive adult development has been suggested,namely, between an increase in adjustment andin growth (e.g., Staudinger & Kessler 2009,Staudinger & Kunzmann 2005). According tothis distinction, a high level of adjustment,which without doubt is positive and functional,would not be sufficient to be labeled wisdom.Rather, the notion of wisdom should be re-served for phenomena that can be described asfollows.

Wisdom concerns mastering the basicdialectics shaping human existence, such as thedialectic between good and bad, positivity andnegativity, dependency and independence, cer-tainty and doubt, control and lack of control,finiteness and eternity, strength and weakness,and selfishness and altruism. Mastery of suchdialectics in the sense of wisdom does notmean that a decision for either one or theother side is taken but rather that both sidesare essential for grasping human existence.Wisdom embraces these contradictions oflife and draws insights from them. It furtherdevelops heuristics about when and underwhich circumstances to focus on which side ofeach of these opposites (Staudinger 1999b). Interms of psychological functioning, three facetsneed to be integrated: a cognitive, an emo-tional, and a motivational facet: (a) deep andbroad insight into self, others, and the world;(b) complex emotion regulation (in the senseof tolerance of ambiguity), and (c) a motiva-tional orientation that transcends self-interestand is invested in the well-being of othersand the world (Staudinger & Kessler 2009).Mastering this kind of challenge clearly is notan obligatory but rather an optional task of

human development (Schindler & Staudinger2005).

SUBJECTIVE THEORIESOF WISDOM

Ever since the beginnings of psychological wis-dom research, the search for what “wisdom” ac-tually is and how it can be defined has been animportant, if not the most central, area of inves-tigation. In particular, attention has been paidto folk conceptions about wisdom, that is, howordinary people who are not familiar with psy-chological constructs perceive and define wis-dom. The reasons why folk conceptions of wis-dom have been investigated in more depth thanis the case for other constructs, such as intelli-gence, may include its rich cultural history andits loftiness as an ideal state of being, as wellas the fact that the criteria indicative of wis-dom are by definition consensual (Staudinger1996). Wisdom often becomes manifest in so-cial situations, such as advice-giving and guid-ance (Montgomery et al. 2002). When it comesto issues of wisdom, there is no easily retriev-able answer to the question of what is “right” or“wrong.” However, based on the fundamentalprecondition that the well-being of the indi-vidual and that of the community need to bebalanced (Sternberg 1998), a consensus can bereached within a community of practice as towhat constitutes wise advice or even a wise per-son. In other words, wisdom follows a consen-sual rather than an objective criterion of truth(Habermas 1970). If so, then what people viewas characteristic of wisdom is relevant also totheoretical models (Bluck & Gluck 2005).

Most studies of subjective theories of wis-dom have used descriptor-rating methods(Bluck & Gluck 2005). Such studies (e.g.,Clayton & Birren 1980, Gluck & Bluck 2010,Gluck et al. 2010, Holliday & Chandler 1986,Jason et al. 2001, Sternberg 1985) usually con-sist of two steps. First, participants generate listsof attributes they associate with wisdom. Theselists are merged into a master list, removingidiosyncrasies and synonyms, and the masterlist is presented to another, larger sample of

www.annualreviews.org • Psychological Wisdom Research 217

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participants who rate each term for its centralityto wisdom. Methods such as multidimensionalscaling or factor analysis are used to extract un-derlying components from these ratings andto label them according to their most typicalattributes.

Another approach to studying subjectivetheories of wisdom focuses on people’s percep-tions of actual instances of wisdom in them-selves or others. For example, several stud-ies investigated whom people view as wiseand why. In some studies (e.g., Orwoll &Perlmutter 1990, Paulhus et al. 2002), partic-ipants named historical or famous persons theyconsidered as wise. Other more qualitative re-search (e.g., Montgomery et al. 2002, Sowarka1989) focused on why participants found a par-ticular person from their own environmentwise. Finally, in some studies, people were askedwhen in their life they had been wise them-selves (Bluck & Gluck 2004, Gluck et al. 2005,Oser et al. 1999). According to studies by Oserand colleagues (1999), wise acts seem to becharacterized by the following seven features:(a) they are paradoxical, unexpected; (b) theyare morally integer; (c) they are selfless;(d ) they overcome internal and external dic-tates; (e) they strive toward equilibrium; ( f ) theyimply a risk; and ( g) they strive toward improv-ing the human condition. Most individuals con-sidered as wise were in their second half of life,and typically they had guided others in diffi-cult situations (Montgomery et al. 2002). Theforms of wisdom that participants perceived intheir own past varied with participants’ currentage (Gluck et al. 2005).

Core Components of Wisdomin Subjective Theories

Researchers have labeled the components iden-tified in descriptor-rating studies differently,although the actual content is quite similaracross studies. Bluck & Gluck (2005) summa-rized the results from the available descriptor-rating studies by grouping the respectivecomponents into five consistent categories.The cognitive-ability component combines

crystallized and fluid aspects of intelligence:Both an experience-based body of broad anddeep life knowledge and the ability to reasonwell and think logically about novel problemsare associated with wisdom, although theformer aspect is viewed as more central. Thesecond component, searching for insight,bridges cognition and motivation: Wise in-dividuals are willing and able to understandcomplex issues deeply rather than superficially.If they are lacking sufficient information, theywill search for that information rather thanform a premature judgment. Third, a related,more motivational-emotional component iswise people’s reflective attitude: Rather thanmaking quick judgments or being guided bystrong emotions, they prefer to think deeplyabout people, the world, and themselves.Their attitude of looking at all sides of anissue also implies a willingness to be critical ofthemselves, a balanced manner of regulatingtheir own emotions rather than getting carriedaway by strong feelings, and an unobtrusiveself-presentation. Fourth, wise people alsotend to show high levels of concern forothers: In addition to being cognitively ableto see others’ perspectives, they transcendtheir self-interests and care deeply for thewell-being of others. Because this attitude goesbeyond one’s family and close friends, wisepeople often engage in civic activities for thebenefit of others. These four components man-ifest themselves in concrete activity rather thanonly in theory: Wise individuals are assumedto have real-world problem-solving skills thatenable them to apply their knowledge and judg-ment to concrete problems faced by themselvesand others. Additional components of wisdomfound in some studies include spirituality andconnectedness to nature ( Jason et al. 2001),the emancipatory nature of wisdom (Chandler& Holliday 1990), and humor (Webster 2003).

Notably, elements of these components, es-pecially cognitive ability and concern for oth-ers, are already present in the wisdom con-ceptions of elementary-school children (Glucket al. 2010). Thus, the concept of wisdom seemsto be culturally transmitted across generations


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Gf, Gc and Gkn are core abilities In CHC theory


(cf. wise figures in fairy tales, fantasy stories,and games). And indeed it has been arguedfrom a stance of evolutionary hermeneuticsthat wisdom has adaptive value for humankind(Csikszentmihalyi & Rathunde 1990).

Wisdom and Age

Most people seem to believe that wise personsare usually old (Clayton & Birren 1980, Orwoll& Perlmutter 1990), and in fact, most personswhom laypeople nominate as wise are at least60 years old (Baltes et al. 1995, Denney et al.1995, Jason et al. 2001, Maercker et al. 1998,Orwoll & Perlmutter 1990). In experimentalstudies, laypeople usually rate older individu-als as wiser (Knight & Parr 1999, Stange 2005;but see also Hira & Faulkender 1997). Wisdomwas also one of only two positive characteris-tics that laypeople viewed both as positive andas specific to old age (Heckhausen et al. 1989).On the other hand, however, older age is viewedas neither necessary nor sufficient for wisdom:Most people are aware that not everyone devel-ops wisdom with old age, and that young peo-ple can also be quite wise. The association ofwisdom and age seems to be derived from theidea that experience with the ups and downsof human life, which is a central componentof implicit theories of wisdom (e.g., Clayton& Birren 1980, Gluck & Bluck 2010, Holliday& Chandler 1986, Sternberg 1985), indeed fol-lows a cumulative age trajectory. However, aswe discuss in the Ontogenesis of Wisdom sec-tion below, this does not seem to be the case(Staudinger et al. 1992, 1994).

Individual Differences in SubjectiveConceptions of Wisdom

The consistency with which components ofwisdom are identified across studies does notmean that all people view these components asequally central to wisdom. In fact, an attributerated unanimously as central to wisdom couldnot correlate with other attributes because oflacking variance. Thus, although the core com-ponents of wisdom show how the structureof this complex construct is represented in

people’s minds, people differ in the weightsthey assign to the different components. Indi-vidual differences in conceptions of wisdom arerelated to age, gender, experience, and exper-tise. For example, Sternberg (1985) found thatuniversity professors from different disciplinesagreed only partly in their conceptions of wis-dom. Art professors defined wisdom largely as abalance of logic and intuition, philosophy pro-fessors focused on deep and nonbiased thinking,and business professors emphasized awarenessof limitations and on long-term perspectives.Thus, the hierarchy of wisdom descriptors mostlikely is based on people’s specific experiences,including the specific kinds of complex prob-lems they have faced and their best perceivedsolutions.

In a similar vein, age differences in autobi-ographical wisdom narratives have been found(Gluck et al. 2005). Adolescents, people in theirthirties, and people in their sixties differed inwhat they considered as instances of wisdomin their own lives, and indeed those differencesreflected the developmental tasks and prioritiesof each age group. Also, conceptions of wisdomseem to become more differentiated with age.Older adults view affective aspects as more cen-tral to wisdom, distinguish fluid and crystallizedaspects of the cognitive component, and asso-ciate wisdom less closely with old age than doyounger age groups (Clayton & Birren 1980,Knight & Parr 1999).

Gender differences in conceptions of wis-dom are relatively small. Men nominate moremen for wisdom than do women (Denney et al.1995, Gluck et al. 2010, Jason et al. 2001,Orwoll & Perlmutter 1990, Sowarka 1989), butthe characteristics that people associate withmen’s and women’s wisdom do not seem to dif-fer much, at least in descriptor-rating studies.Thus, wisdom may be a quality that is neitherstereotypically male nor stereotypically female,and individuals viewed as truly wise may notfit with either stereotype (Aldwin 2009, Ardelt2009). On the other hand, when people re-call experiences of themselves as wise, men re-port more job-related events and women reportmore family- and illness-/death-related events,


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Mistake in all yellow. Can't figure how to fix


and this effect is maintained when differencesin employment status are controlled (Glucket al. 2009). It is not clear whether these gen-der differences only concern the areas in whichmen and women perceive their own wisdomor in which it is requested, or whether thereare also gender differences in what men andwomen consider as manifestations of wisdom(Levenson 2009).

Rather than analyzing differences be-tween predefined groups of people, ratingsof wisdom-related attributes have also beencluster-analyzed (Gluck & Bluck 2010). Suchclustering revealed two predominant typesof conceptualizing wisdom: Individuals with(a) a cognitive conception rated knowledgeand experience, understanding complex issues,and (to a lesser degree) self-reflection andself-evaluation as most central to wisdom.Individuals with (b) an integrative conceptionalso endorsed such characteristics but viewedtolerance, empathy, an orientation to thegreater good, and love for humanity as aboutequally important. The relative frequency ofthe cognitive conception of wisdom decreasedsignificantly across young adulthood, suggest-ing that the experiences of this life periodmay teach many people that the complexitiesof adult life require more than cognition (cf.Clayton & Birren 1980). Interestingly, thischange is also reflected in the fact that youngeradults perform worse than middle-aged adultswhen it comes to problems with a strong emo-tional component (Blanchard-Fields 1986).

Cross-Cultural Studies

So far, we have focused on studies withWestern samples. Thus, the question ariseswhether the idea of wisdom as an idealendpoint of human development is universalacross cultures and religious traditions—andif so, to what degree the actual componentsof wisdom and their relative importance differacross cultures. An analysis of virtues prevalentin Eastern and Western philosophical andreligious writings identified wisdom as one ofsix core virtues (the other five of which are

courage, justice, humanity, temperance, andtranscendence; Dahlsgaard et al. 2005). Note,however, that there are languages, especially innonindustrialized parts of the world, that do noteven have a word for “wisdom” (Rosing 2005).

Even if the core idea of wisdom as an idealendpoint of human development is largelyuniversal, some of the more specific meaningsof wisdom may differ across cultures, and theychange with history. It seems likely that somefeatures that people associate with wisdom arerelated to the values and ideals of a particularculture. For example, most Buddhists believethat higher levels of wisdom can be achievedby conscious effort, whereas most Christiansdo not (Rappersberger 2007). At the sametime, some components seem to form thecore of the concept of wisdom independent ofcultural context. For example, it seems unlikelythat unbalanced emotionality or self-centeredvalues would be viewed as typical for wisdom ina culture, even if they may be viewed as positivequalities in a given societal context. In aphilosophical analysis of Eastern and Westernwisdom literatures, self-transcendence, thatis, a perspective on others and the worldthat is not biased by a self-enhancing focus(e.g., Levenson et al. 2005; see also Orwoll &Perlmutter 1990), was identified as a largelyuniversal feature of wisdom (Curnow 1999).

Most studies interested in cultural differ-ences in people’s conceptions of wisdom havecompared the differences between “Eastern”and “Western” conceptions (e.g., Takahashi& Bordia 2000, Takahashi & Overton 2002,Yang 2001). American and Australian youngadults, for example, rated the term “wise” asmost similar to “experienced” and “knowl-edgeable,” whereas Indian and Japanese groupsassociated “wise” most closely with “discreet,”“aged,” and “experienced” (Takahashi &Bordia 2000). Takahashi & Overton (2005)concluded from a review of such studies oncultural differences that two broad modes ofwisdom can be distinguished: an analytic mode,prevalent in Western cultures, that emphasizesknowledge and cognitive complexity, and asynthetic “Eastern” mode that focuses on the


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integration of cognition and affect. In contrast,Gluck & Bluck (2010) found that both analyticand synthetic conceptions of wisdom arefrequent among Western laypeople. Conse-quently, it seems important to not overem-phasize differences between cultural groupswithout attending to within-group differences.

Summary

To summarize, people in Western and Easternsocieties have clear conceptions of what wisdomis or whom they would nominate as wise. Per-haps surprisingly, there is great consensus aboutthe central components of such subjective con-ceptions of wisdom. Wisdom is conceived of asthe perfect integration of mind and characterfor the greater good. Still, there is also mean-ingful interindividual variability in how the var-ious components are weighted.

EXPLICIT THEORIESOF WISDOM:CONCEPTUALIZATIONSAND MEASUREMENT

The second line of empirical psychological in-quiry on wisdom addresses the question ofhow to conceptualize wisdom based on psy-chological theorizing and consequently how toempirically investigate expressions of wisdom.Researchers are usually quite aware that it isa courageous undertaking to try to study wis-dom empirically. Wisdom is a complex andcontent-rich phenomenon, and many scholarshave claimed that it defies attempts at scien-tific identification. However, research on ex-plicit theories of wisdom has made remarkableprogress at measuring wisdom in terms of per-sonality characteristics, characteristics of adultthought, and performance on existential anduncertain life tasks. Some of these approachesare more strongly process-oriented (e.g., wis-dom as a characteristic of adult thought), andothers are more outcome-oriented (e.g., wis-dom as a pattern of personality characteristicsor as problem-solving behavior).

The Distinction Between Personaland General Wisdom

We suggest that psychological wisdom re-search may profit from subsuming the dif-ferent lines of work under two main head-ings, namely personal wisdom, on one hand,and general wisdom, on the other (Staudinger1999b, Staudinger et al. 2005). This distinctionis loosely related to the philosophical separa-tion between the ontology of the first and thethird person (Searle 1992). The ontology of thefirst person indicates insight into life based onpersonal experience. In contrast, the ontologyof the third person refers to the view on lifethat is based on an observer’s perspective. Inloose analogy to Searle’s first-person perspec-tive, personal wisdom refers to individuals’ in-sight into their selves, their own lives. Analo-gous to the third-person perspective, generalwisdom is concerned with individuals’ insightsinto life in general, from an observer’s pointof view, that is, when they are not personallyconcerned.

The distinction between personal and gen-eral wisdom might be helpful when trying tosettle some of the ongoing debates in the field ofwisdom research (e.g., Ardelt 2004). For heuris-tic purposes, Table 1 assigns many of the ex-tant approaches in research on wisdom to ei-ther a personal-wisdom or a general-wisdomperspective (after Staudinger et al. 2005). Notethat this categorization is sometimes difficult tomake because the original authors do not de-scribe their conception of wisdom along the dis-tinction between personal and general wisdom.Consequently, the assignment is based on infer-ences on our behalf and is based on the relativeemphasis placed on either personal or generalwisdom. Of course, as with any dichotomy, thisdistinction is made for heuristic purposes and isoversimplifying.

The two types of wisdom do not necessar-ily have to coincide in a person. A person canbe wise with regard to the life and problemsof other people and can be sought out for ad-vice from others because of her wisdom, but thevery same person does not necessarily have to be


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Table 1 Tentative assignment of conceptions of wisdom and closely related constructs to the distinction between personaland general wisdom

Authors Approach to wisdom Personal wisdom General wisdomSelf-report measuresArdelt Three components: cognitive, reflective, affective XErikson/Whitbourne Ego integrity (as opposed to despair) XHelson & Wink High personal growth/low adjustment X

Transcendent wisdom (as opposed to practical)Levenson et al. Self-transcendence XRyff Personal growth (dimension of psychological well-being) XWebster Five components: experience, emotion regulation,

reminiscence/reflectiveness, openness, humorX

Performance measuresDorner & Staudinger Self-concept maturity XLoevinger Ego development (integrated level) XLabouvie-Vief High affect complexity/low affect optimization XMickler & Staudinger Realizing one’s own potential while considering the

well-being of others and societyX

Berlin wisdom paradigm Expertise in the fundamental pragmatics of life XNeo-Piagetianperspectives

Postformal stage of cognitive development (e.g., reflectivejudgment, dialectical thinking)

X

Sternberg Application of tacit knowledge to maximize the commongood by balancing interests

X

wise about her own life and her own problems.To test this contention, the two types of wis-dom need to be conceptualized and measuredindependently of each other.

Different research traditions have led to afocus on one or the other type of wisdom.The approaches primarily geared toward per-sonal wisdom are usually based in the traditionof personality research and personality devel-opment. In this perspective, wisdom describesthe mature personality or an ideal endpoint ofpersonality growth (e.g., Erikson 1959 or Ryff& Heincke 1983). When thinking about wis-dom from this vantage point, there is also aclose link to research on personality growthand learning from traumatic events (e.g., stress-related growth, Park et al. 1996; posttraumaticgrowth, Tedeschi & Calhoun 2004). The ap-proaches primarily investigating general wis-dom typically have a stronger connection withthe historical wisdom literature (i.e., wisdomas sound advice or life insight independent ofindividuals) and an expertise approach (e.g.,

Berlin wisdom paradigm, Baltes & Staudinger1993; Sternberg’s balance theory of wisdom,Sternberg 1998).

Approaches to the Studyof General Wisdom

The Berlin wisdom paradigm defines wisdomas expertise in the fundamental pragmatics oflife (e.g., Baltes & Staudinger 2000). The fun-damental pragmatics of life refer to deep in-sight and sound judgment about the essence ofthe human condition and the ways and meansof planning, managing, and understanding agood life. The term “expertise” implies thatwisdom is a highly differentiated body of in-sights and skills usually acquired through ex-perience and practice. Expertise in the funda-mental pragmatics of life is described accordingto five criteria (two basic and three meta crite-ria). The first criterion, rich factual knowledge,concerns knowledge about such topics as hu-man nature, lifespan development, variations in


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A form of ? -- life experience domain specific knowledge?

Declarative knowledge


developmental processes and outcomes, inter-personal relations, and social norms. The sec-ond criterion, rich procedural knowledge, in-volves strategies and heuristics for dealing withthe meaning and conduct of life, for example,heuristics for giving advice or ways to handlelife conflicts. The third criterion is lifespan con-textualism, that is, to consider life problems inrelation to the domains of life (e.g., education,family, work, friends, leisure, the public good ofsociety, etc.) and their interrelations and to putthese in a lifetime perspective (i.e., past, present,and future). Relativism of values and life prior-ities is the fourth criterion of wisdom. It meansto acknowledge and tolerate interindividual dif-ferences in values while at the same time beinggeared toward optimizing and balancing the in-dividual and the common good. The last crite-rion, the recognition and management of un-certainty, is based on the idea that human beingscan never know everything that is necessary todetermine the best decision in the present, topredict the future perfectly, or to be 100% sureabout why things happened the way they didin the past. A wise person is aware of this un-certainty and has developed ways to manage it.Uncertainty as well as the dialectic betweenknowledge and doubt are features of wisdomthat play an important role in ancient (e.g.,Socrates: The only real wisdom is knowing youknow nothing) as well as contemporaneous con-ceptions (e.g., Brugman 2006, Meacham 1990).

To elicit and measure general wisdom-related performance, participants are presentedwith difficult and existential life problems suchas the following: “Imagine a good friend ofyours calls you up and tells you that he/shecan’t go on anymore and has decided to com-mit suicide. What could one/you be thinkingabout, how could one/you deal with this situ-ation?” Participants are then asked to “thinkaloud” about the problem. Their responses arerecorded and later transcribed. To quantifyperformance quality, a select panel of judges,who are extensively trained and calibrated,evaluates the protocols of the respondentsaccording to the five wisdom criteria usingseven-point scales. The obtained scores are

reliable and provide an approximation of thequantity and quality of wisdom-related knowl-edge and skills of a given person. Responses tosuch fictitious problems primarily tap knowl-edge and heuristics about life problems ingeneral and therefore most likely are emotion-ally less challenging than solving existential anddifficult personal life problems (see below thesection on Personal Wisdom). Indication of theexternal validity of this paradigm was obtainedfrom studying people who were nominated aswise according to nominators’ subjective beliefsabout wisdom. Wisdom nominees receivedhigher wisdom scores than comparable controlsamples matched for age and professionalbackground (Baltes et al. 1995).

Sternberg’s balance theory conceptualizeswisdom as the application of tacit knowledge tolife problems involving conflicts between differ-ent life domains or stakeholders (e.g., Sternberg1998, 2000). Tacit knowledge, a core term inSternberg’s theory of practical intelligence, isprocedural, domain-specific knowledge abouthow to reach a certain goal within a certainsystem. Concerning wise solutions to difficultproblems, the goal is to achieve a commongood; that is, to optimize the outcome across allinterests involved. A wise solution is balancedas it takes conflicting intrapersonal, interper-sonal, and extrapersonal interests into account,over the long and short terms, through the infu-sion of positive ethical values (Sternberg 2008,Sternberg et al. 2007). It is also balanced in howit deals with the problem context: by adaptingto the context, by changing it, or by choosinga different context, depending on the nature ofthe problem and the circumstances. Based onhis general method for assessing tacit knowl-edge, Sternberg (1998) has proposed a measure-ment approach for wisdom: Participants ratethe quality of a number of possible solutions tovignettes of difficult life problems. Their rat-ings are compared against ratings from expertsin the field.

Wisdom has also been conceptualized inthe neo-Piagetian tradition of cognitive de-velopment (Labouvie-Vief 1990, Riegel 1975).Researchers in this tradition have proposed that


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cognitive development is not completed whenan adolescent has mastered formal-logicaloperations, as this level of cognition is notsufficient for dealing with the complexities ofhuman experience. The main issue in postfor-mal cognition is the realization that universaltruths, as required for formal logic, can seldombe identified in the more complex problemsthat humans face. Such problems (e.g., inter-personal conflicts) are often characterized bythe presence of multiple truths, incompatiblegoals, contradictions, and high levels of un-certainty. Thus, tolerance of ambiguity andwillingness to compromise are more useful thanstrict formal-logical decision-making. Suchways of thinking are obviously characteristic ofwisdom. Included in conceptions of postformalthinking are a focus on dialectical cognition(i.e., the integration of contradiction; Riegel1975) and the integration of cognition andemotion (Labouvie-Vief 1990). Neo-Piagetianconceptions of wisdom were frequently studiedin the early stages of psychological wisdomresearch (e.g., Arlin 1990, Kitchener &Brenner 1990, Kramer 1983, Labouvie-Vief1990, Pascual-Leone 1990). Studies in thisdomain found that in comparison with non-postformal thinkers, postformal thinkers areless susceptible to cognitive biases and showhigher levels of moral development.

Summary. The approaches to the empiricalstudy of general wisdom originated from cogni-tive research. By a focus on the dilemmas of life,which is the content area of wisdom, the clas-sical notion of cognition gets expanded to in-clude emotional and motivational aspects. Theperformance orientation “imported” from cog-nitive research, however, has been maintainedand successfully applied to a phenomenon ascomplex as wisdom. Thereby the study of wis-dom was very much enriched.

Approaches to the Studyof Personal Wisdom

Models of personal wisdom differ in whetherthey put special emphasis on difficult, negative

events (e.g., Ardelt 2005, Kramer 2000), as iscentral in related conceptions such as posttrau-matic or stress-related growth, but they agree inthat learning from the socioemotional changesand challenges of an individual’s personal lifeexperience is necessary for making progress onthe path toward personal wisdom. Thus, per-sonal wisdom bears resemblance to the notionsof “maturity” and “personal growth.” Concep-tions of personal wisdom can be found in clini-cal, personality, and developmental psychology.

Given space limitations, only a selectionof conceptions can be discussed here: (a) ap-proaches in the tradition of wisdom as a per-sonality characteristic; (b) two relevant conceptsthat do not explicitly deal with wisdom but areclosely related—Loevinger’s concept of ego de-velopment (e.g., Loevinger & Wessler 1978)and Labouvie-Vief ’s dichotomy of affect com-plexity and affect optimization (e.g., Labouvie-Vief 2003); (c) an operationalization of person-ality growth that is based on the self-conceptliterature about maturity; and (d ) a conceptionof personal wisdom that has been designed inanalogy to the Berlin wisdom paradigm.

Self-Report Measuresof Personal Wisdom

Several theoretical models of personal wisdomhave been translated into self-report measures.This seems to be an obvious methodologicalchoice, provided personal wisdom is defined asa personality characteristic or an attitude or per-spective on the self. Some critical issues in theuse of self-report for measuring wisdom are dis-cussed at the end of this section.

Measures based on the Eriksoniantradition. Some measures of wisdom arebased on Erik Erikson’s (1959) theory ofidentity development. Erikson conceptualizedwisdom as an optimal endpoint of identitydevelopment attained through mastery of anumber of crises encountered in an individuallife course. In particular, he believed thatresolution of the late-life crisis of integrityversus despair, that is, the full acceptance of


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one’s life as it has been rather than despairabout the paths one did not take, is essentialto wisdom and implies transcendence of self-focused priorities. Whitbourne and colleagues(e.g., Walaskay et al. 1983–84) have developedself-report scales measuring attainment of eachof Erikson’s developmental stages.

Carol Ryff also investigated Erikson’s de-velopmental stages early in her career (Ryff &Heincke 1983). She characterized wisdom asintegration of all facets of the self, coordina-tion of opposites, and transcendence of personalagendas in favor of collective or universal issues(Orwoll 1988). More recently, she has inte-grated her earlier work into a complex concep-tualization of psychological well-being (PWB;Ryff & Keyes 1995, Ryff & Singer 2006). Ryffwas an early advocate of the importance of eu-daimonic aspects of well-being (Ryan & Deci2001, Waterman 1993), that is, focusing on theattainment of well-being by realizing the po-tential of one’s self through growth. She hasdeveloped a questionnaire measuring six dis-tinct components of psychological well-beingthat includes a scale of personal growth andone of purpose in life. And indeed, Ryff ’sscales of personal growth and purpose in lifehave been found to be among the strongestcorrelates of personal and general wisdom-related performance (Gluck & Baltes 2006,Mickler & Staudinger 2008, Staudinger et al.1997).

Along these lines, Helson & Srivastava(2001) used two PWB dimensions, environ-mental mastery and personal growth, to in-dex social and personal maturity, respectively.Building on work by Wink & Helson (1997;see also Helson & Wink 1987), which dis-tinguished between practical and transcendentwisdom, they assumed that environmental mas-tery, or effectiveness in the outer world, andpersonal growth, or intrapsychic development,often preclude each other. In fact, they showvery low correlations (see also Schmutte & Ryff1997). Crossing these two dimensions leads tofour personality types. In a longitudinal study,the two groups high on environmental mas-tery (conservers and achievers) increased in

adjustment and life success. The two groupshigh on personal growth (achievers and seek-ers) were both expected to grow in personalwisdom, but only the seekers (low environmen-tal mastery, high personal growth) were foundto do so (Helson & Srivastava 2001). The latterfinding again confirms the importance of differ-entiating between adjustment and growth (e.g.,Staudinger & Kunzmann 2005).

Ardelt’s three-dimensional wisdom scale.On the basis of both lay and expert theo-ries of wisdom, Monika Ardelt (e.g., 2003,2004) defines wisdom as a combination of per-sonality characteristics with three broad com-ponents. The cognitive component is basedon a constant desire to understand the truthabout the human condition, especially aboutintra- and interpersonal matters, and includesthe knowledge resulting from this desire. Thereflective component refers to the ability totake multiple perspectives, which also impliesself-examination and self-insight. The affec-tive component is defined as “sympathetic andcompassionate love for others,” that is, a pos-itive, empathetic attitude toward others. Fol-lowing the classical traditions of personalityassessment, Ardelt (2003) developed a self-report scale (three-dimensional wisdom scale;3DWS) to measure the three dimensions of wis-dom. The 3DWS shows significant and posi-tive correlations with mastery, subjective well-being, purpose in life, and subjective healthand negative relations with depressive symp-toms, death avoidance, fear of death, and feel-ings of economic pressure. Education and oc-cupation were both positively correlated with3DWS scores (Ardelt 2003).

Webster’s self-report wisdom scale. JeffreyWebster (2003, 2007) has developed a self-report wisdom scale (SAWS) that measuresfive interrelated dimensions of wisdom, whichneed to operate together in a wise person ina holistic manner. He defines wisdom as “thecompetence in, intention to, and application ofcritical life experiences to facilitate the optimaldevelopment of self and others” (Webster 2007,


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p. 164). The first dimension is experience,especially difficult and morally challengingexperiences that deeply affect the individual.The second dimension, emotion regulation,refers to sensitivity to and the ability to dealwith subtle as well as strong emotions. Thethird dimension, reminiscence and reflective-ness, implies that wise people reflect upon theirlife in order to make meaning, maintain theiridentity, identify strengths and weaknesses, anddeal with difficulties. Openness, the fourth di-mension, refers to wise people’s interest in newpossibilities, perspectives, and problem-solvingapproaches, which helps them to build up alarge repertoire of skills. The final dimension,humor, is not often mentioned in psychologicalaccounts of wisdom, but Webster argues thatthe ability to see comical aspects even in serioussituations reflects a positive kind of detachmentthat may be quite typical for wisdom. SAWSshows positive correlations with measures ofgenerativity and ego integrity; women scorehigher than men. Further, SAWS scorescorrelate negatively with attachment avoid-ance (but not attachment anxiety; Webster2003).

Levenson’s work on wisdom as self-transcendence. Levenson and colleagues(2005; see also Le & Levenson 2005)introduced a measure of wisdom as self-transcendence based on an account of wisdomby the philosopher Trevor Curnow (1999).Curnow identified four central features of wis-dom in both European and Asian philosophy:self-knowledge, detachment, integration, andself-transcendence. Certainly, Curnow (1999)is not the only one to point to the importanceof self-transcendence for wisdom (see also e.g.,Kohut 1978, Labouvie-Vief 2003, Mickler& Staudinger 2008, Orwoll & Perlmutter1990).

Levenson and colleagues (2005) argued thatCurnow’s four features can be conceptualizedas developmental stages. Self-knowledge isawareness of what constitutes one’s senseof self in the context of roles, relationships,and beliefs. Detachment refers to awareness

of the transience of external aspects of one’ssense of self. Integration means overcomingthe separation among different “inner selves,”that is, accepting and integrating all facets ofone’s self. Finally, self-transcendence refers toindependence of the self of external definitionsand dissolution of mental boundaries be-tween self and others. The authors argue that“self-transcendence is equivalent to wisdomand implies the dissolution of (self-based)obstacles to empathy, understanding, andintegrity” (Levenson et al. 2005, p. 129). Theyhave developed the adult self-transcendenceinventory (ASTI). Self-transcendence as mea-sured by the first ASTI version is negativelyrelated to neuroticism and positively related toopenness to experience, conscientiousness, andagreeableness as well as to meditation practice.

Summary. With regard to their definitions of(personal) wisdom, the reviewed approachesshow considerable overlap [except for the con-ception by Levenson et al. (2005), which takes amore specific approach] and are highly consis-tent with the findings from subjective theoriesof wisdom. The authors have proposed self-report measures of personal wisdom or con-structs closely related to it. Although these mea-sures are obviously highly practical and easy toadminister, the high face validity of scale itemsmay pose a problem for valid measurement.Self-report measures are always influenced bothby intentional positive self-presentation andby inaccuracy of people’s self-judgments. Thelatter, however, may pose a particularly se-rious problem when wisdom is being mea-sured (see also Aldwin 2009): If wisdom en-tails self-reflection and self-criticism, favorableself-judgments in self-report scales may ac-tually be negatively correlated with wisdom.A highly naıve person with high self-esteemmay score much higher in a self-report scalethan a wise person trying to evaluate him-or herself as accurately as possible against ahigh standard. In this respect, performance-based measures of personal wisdom may beat a unique advantage compared to self-reportapproaches.


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Performance Measuresof Personal WisdomLoevinger’s ego levels. It was Jane Lo-evinger’s ambition to capture character de-velopment in a stage model similar to thePiagetian model of cognitive development(Loevinger & Wessler 1978). Loevinger con-ceived the stages of ego development as a suc-cessive progression toward psychological ma-turity, unfolding along the four dimensionsof impulse control, interpersonal style, con-scious preoccupations, and cognitive styles.The model comprises eight stages (impulsive,self-protective, conformist, self-aware, consci-entious, individualistic, autonomous, and inte-grated) that are characterized by increasinglymature forms of those four dimensions. Mostpeople are categorized to be in the third to fifthstage, that is, the conformist, self-aware, andconscientious stage. The self-aware stage is themodal stage in late adolescence and adult life.The eighth stage, the integrated stage, is rarelyobserved in random samples.

Loevinger’s ego level (Loevinger & Wessler1978) is measured by content coding of stan-dardized self-descriptions. It has been found tobe positively related with ego-resiliency, inter-personal integrity, and regulation of needs, ormastery of socioemotional tasks and impulse-control, as well as indicators of mental health(for reviews see Cohn & Westenberg 2004,Manners & Durkin 2000). Interestingly, egolevel is also positively correlated with numberof lifetime psychiatric visits and regular psy-chotherapeutic sessions. It is unclear whetherpsychotherapy helped subjects to advance de-velopmentally or whether later-stage capacityto see ambiguities in life increased their willing-ness to seek psychotherapy (see Dorner 2006).The latter interpretation is in line with the posi-tive quadratic relation between neuroticism andego level (i.e., higher neuroticism at low andhigh ego levels) and a negative quadratic rela-tion between conscientiousness and ego level(i.e., lower conscientiousness at low and highego levels). Openness to experience, extraver-sion, and agreeableness show positive linear re-lations with ego level.

In sum, this pattern of results aroundLoevinger’s measure of ego development sug-gests that central features of personal (but alsogeneral) wisdom, such as moving beyond thegiven, seeing reality more clearly, and tran-scending extant social norms, do not come with-out costs. It seems that being faced with thecomplexities of one’s own life in the way that istrue for a person at high levels of ego develop-ment does not necessarily lead to greater happi-ness, but instead may actually invoke more wor-ries and self-criticism as well as the insight thatfurther self-development is needed (“I knowthat I don’t know”).

Labouvie-Vief ’s approach to personalwisdom. Combining Piaget’s cognitive the-ory with psychoanalytic notions and ideas fromadult attachment theory, Gisela Labouvie-Viefproposed developmental models of self as wellas emotional understanding (e.g., Labouvie-Vief 1982, Labouvie-Vief et al. 1989). Buildingon this earlier work, her most recent publica-tions have focused on the development and/ormaturation of self- and affect-regulation. In thismost recent approach, she has developed a no-tion of growth or maturity that combines affectoptimization, that is, the tendency to constrainaffect to positive values, with affect complexity,that is, the amplification of affect in the searchfor differentiation and objectivity. In her no-tion of maturity, it is crucial that the searchfor complexity and differentiation is combinedwith, or rather constrained by, a search for op-timizing positive affect in any given situation.At the same time, the search for positive affectis embedded in the ability to experience eventsand other persons in an open and differentiatedfashion. Combining the two (dichotomized) di-mensions of affect complexity and affect opti-mization results in four “personality” types.

Labouvie-Vief & Medler (2002) expectedindividuals with high levels on both dimen-sions to also function best in other aspectsof psychological adjustment. And indeed, thisgroup showed high ego levels, high fluid intel-ligence, and adaptive coping patterns, excludingrepressive or regressive strategies. In contrast,


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individuals high in affect optimization but lowin affect complexity scored second highest onpositive affect but were characterized by repres-sive coping styles and somewhat lower intel-lectual ability. Their counterpart group, thosewith high affect complexity but low affect opti-mization, shows a kind of mirror image: Withthe lowest scores on repression and high intel-ligence scores, they can be regarded as the mostopen and “realistic” group. Finally, individualslow on both dimensions demonstrate the lowestlevels of functioning across different indicators.In sum, it seems that the “complex type” (highon affect complexity and rather low on affectoptimization) comes closest to what we havecalled personal wisdom.

Self-concept maturity of personal wisdom.The measure of self-concept maturity is basedon the self-concept literature (Dorner &Staudinger 2010). Five self-concept facets wereidentified as theoretically meaningful indica-tors of personal wisdom: complexity of the self-concept, self-concept integration, affect bal-ance, self-esteem, and value orientation. Itwas hypothesized that only combining thesefive components reflects an appropriate oper-ationalization of personal wisdom. That is, aprofile of the five self-concept facets was es-tablished that should serve as a prototype of amature personality as reflected in the notionof self-concept maturity (SCM). The first threecomponents are measured using an adapted ver-sion of Linville’s self-concept measure. Thismeasure asks respondents first to nominate self-aspects and subsequently to describe themselvesfor each of the self-aspects using 20 positive and20 negative adjectives. Self-esteem is measuredusing the Rosenberg self-esteem scale, andvalue orientation is measured with an abbrevi-ated version of the Schwartz value orientationquestionnaire (for details, see Dorner 2006).

As hypothesized, SCM correlated stronglyand significantly with other measures of per-sonal wisdom, especially with Loevinger’sego development and the newly devel-oped personal-wisdom task presented below(Mickler & Staudinger 2008), whereas no

significant associations existed with fluid aswell as crystallized intelligence (Dorner &Staudinger 2010). This lack of a significant re-lationship with intelligence is most likely due tothe absence of a problem-solving component inthe measurement paradigm, in contrast to theother previously presented performance mea-sures of personal wisdom.

The Bremen measure of personal wisdom.Another performance measure of personal wis-dom starts out from the Berlin general wis-dom paradigm but adapts it to index personalitygrowth (Mickler & Staudinger 2008). One rea-son for this close alignment was to keep methodvariance as low as possible when establishing therelationship between general and personal wis-dom. The measure is also based on one of thecore assumptions of developmental psychol-ogy that it is the dialectic between assimilationand accommodation that promotes growth (cf.Piaget). In other words, our expectations needto continuously be challenged by new experi-ences, and we need to emancipate ourselves inthinking and feeling and transcend the struc-tures within which we have been socialized (e.g.,Chandler & Holliday 1990).

Five criteria (two basic and three meta),which have been defined to index personal wis-dom, are based on the literature about per-sonality development and growth. The firstbasic criterion is rich self-knowledge, that is,deep insight into oneself. A self-wise personshould be aware of his or her own competen-cies, emotions, and goals and should have asense of meaning in life. The second basic cri-terion requires a self-wise person to have avail-able heuristics for growth and self-regulation(e.g., how to express and regulate emotions orhow to develop and maintain deep social rela-tions). Humor is an example of an importantheuristic that helps to cope with various dif-ficult and challenging situations. Interrelatingthe self, the first meta criterion, refers to theability to reflect on and have insight in the pos-sible causes of one’s behavior and/or feelings.Such causes can be age-related or situational orlinked to personal characteristics. Interrelating


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the self also implies that there is an awarenessabout one’s own dependency on others. Thesecond meta criterion is called self-relativism.People high in self-relativism are able to eval-uate themselves as well as others with a dis-tanced view. They critically appraise their ownbehavior but at the same time display a basic ac-ceptance of themselves. They also show toler-ance for others’ values and lifestyles—as long asthey are not damaging to self or others. Finally,the third meta criterion is tolerance of ambi-guity, which involves the ability to recognizeand manage the uncertainties in one’s own lifeand development. It is reflected in the aware-ness that life is full of uncontrollable and unpre-dictable events, including death and illness. Atthe same time, tolerance for ambiguity includesthe availability of strategies to manage thisuncertainty through openness to experience,basic trust, and the development of flexible so-lutions. Analogous to the Berlin general wis-dom paradigm, personal wisdom is measured bya thinking-aloud procedure while solving a dif-ficult and existential personal life problem andsubsequent rating of the response transcripts(see Mickler & Staudinger 2008 for details).

In a first study, the new performancemeasure of personal wisdom showed good con-vergent validity (Mickler & Staudinger 2008).It was positively correlated with other measuresof personality growth, such as Ryff ’s personalgrowth and purpose in life and Loevinger’sego development, as well as with benevolentpersonal values and psychological mindedness(California Psychological Inventory; Gough1964), a concept measuring interest in thethoughts and feelings of other people. Withregard to discriminant validity, personal wis-dom showed substantial overlap with measuresof general wisdom but also significant uniquevariance. As was to be expected for a measureof personal maturity rather than adjustment, itwas uncorrelated with indicators of subjectivewell-being, such as life satisfaction, negativeor positive emotions, and adaptive motivessuch as power, achievement, and hedonism.Also, personal wisdom is not preempted byknowing a person’s intelligence. Interestingly,

while controlling for age, the relationshipbetween personal wisdom and fluid intelli-gence followed an inverted U-shape, implyingthat among highly intelligent persons, thereis a significant negative correlation of fluidintelligence with personal wisdom. Follow-upanalyses suggested that this may be due to dif-ferences values, in particular, the value domainof “universalism.” Extremely intelligent peoplemay tend to be rather egotistical and focusedon achievement as opposed to interpersonal orsocial issues. Concerning personality variables,openness to experience was the most importantpredictor—the other Big Five variables wereuncorrelated with personal wisdom.

Summary. Given the methodological prob-lems involved with self-report measures of per-sonal wisdom, it is encouraging that a num-ber of performance measures are available thatdemonstrate satisfactory reliability as well as re-assuring overlap in their covariance structures.

ONTOGENESIS OF WISDOM

The distinction between personal and generalwisdom is also relevant when exploring theontogenesis of wisdom. First, there is reasonto assume that indeed the dynamic betweenpersonal and general life insight is at the heartof eventually attaining wisdom. Decades ofresearch on self-regulation as well as researchon the therapeutic process have demonstratedthat it is much more difficult to obtain insightinto one’s own life (let alone apply it) than intothe difficulties and problems of others (e.g.,Greenwald & Pratkanis 1984). Thus, generalwisdom may be less difficult to attain thanpersonal wisdom (first empirical evidencefor this claim has been ascertained: Mickler& Staudinger 2008); therefore, progress ingeneral wisdom may precede that in personalwisdom. We know, however, from researchon the development of the self-concept thatinfants appropriate general knowledge aboutthe world before they are aware of the self.From research on the self later in ontogeny,we have learned that self-related information is


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processed differently than general information.Under certain conditions, we do have bettermemory for self-related information. How-ever, threatening or inconsistent self-relatedinformation is often suppressed or modified,which may hinder the development of personalwisdom. Most likely, in the course of ontogeny,both types may alternate in taking the lead.Generally, the development of wisdom is a dy-namic process in which cognitive, affective, andmotivational resources develop interactivelythrough the reflection of experience.

Conceptually, a model has been postulatedthat requires a set of factors and processes to“cooperate” for general as well as personalwisdom to develop (e.g., Staudinger et al.2005). First, there are personality characteris-tics such as crystallized and fluid intelligence(as necessary but not sufficient conditions),creativity, openness to new experience, socialcompetence, emotion-regulation competence(exploiting the dialectics of positive and neg-ative emotions), an ethical value orientation,as well as an intermediate level of self-esteemand agency that provide the necessary basis forchallenging oneself and the world around.

Second, the model presumes that the de-velopment of wisdom is advanced by certainexpertise-specific factors, such as a strong mo-tivation to learn about life (general wisdom) oroneself (personal wisdom), practice with diffi-cult (personal and/or general) life situations,and guidance by a mentor. Third, the modelassumes the operation of macrolevel facilitativeexperiential contexts. For example, certain pro-fessions and historical periods are more con-ducive to the development of wisdom than oth-ers, and age also facilitates as well as constrainsthe range of experiences.

These three sets of factors influence notonly which kinds of experiences one makes butalso how experiences are subsequently analyzedto form insights. Social-cognitive processes oflife reflection (i.e., life planning, life manage-ment, and life review; Staudinger 2001) areassumed to be critical for the development ofwisdom-related knowledge and judgment. Ifthese processes are applied to autobiographical

experiences, they contribute primarily to theformation of personal wisdom (cf. Erikson’smodel of personality growth), and if they areapplied to general knowledge and experienceswith life in general, they primarily contributeto the formation of general wisdom. Basedon the assumptions of this model, age is notnecessarily related to higher levels of wisdom-related performance, as many other variablesneed to come together for progress to occur.

In a similar vein, Gluck & Bluck (2007,Gluck 2010) have proposed the MORE wisdommodel, a model of the development of wisdomthrough life experience. The acronym MOREis derived from mastery, openness, reflection,and empathy/emotion regulation. A sense ofmastery means that wise individuals are aware—probably more than are others—of the uncon-trollability of much of human life, but they donot react with helplessness because they know,from previous experience, that they will be ableto cope with whatever happens to them. Open-ness to experience, as mentioned above, is a gen-eral curiosity and interest in new perspectivesand experiences. A reflective attitude, also a keyfactor in virtually all conceptions of personalwisdom, emphasizes the motivation to thinkdeeply and take different perspectives on expe-riences, including one’s own role in them. Em-pathy and emotion regulation imply that wisepersons perceive, care for, and are able to reg-ulate others’ and their own feelings.

Turning to empirical evidence on the de-velopment of (personal or general) wisdom, wemostly have cross-sectional data and evidenceon general wisdom, as measured accordingto the Berlin wisdom paradigm, available todate. Within this limitation, the empiricalwork on the ontogenesis of wisdom has pro-duced outcomes consistent with expectations.Contrary to work on the fluid mechanics ofcognitive aging, older adults perform as wellas younger adults (>25 years; overview inStaudinger 1999a). It seems that wisdom-related knowledge emerges between the agesof 14 and 25 years (Pasupathi et al. 2001). Thisholds true when controlling for intelligenceduring that period. But as expected, growing


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These are not personality traits. Gc and Gf are cognitive traits...parts of intelligence. See CHC theory

A mixture of conative and personality traits

"hot" aspects of self-regulation...versus "cool" aspects (self regulation of thinking and cognitive processes)


older is not enough to become wiser. Rather,we found that older adults performed betteron typical dilemmas of old age, and youngadults performed better on typical dilemmasof young adulthood (Staudinger et al. 1992).However, when age has been combined withwisdom-related experiential contexts, such asprofessional training and experience in mattersof life (e.g., clinical psychology), higher levelsof performance were observed (Smith et al.1994, Staudinger et al. 1992).

In line with the historical wisdom literature,which portrays wisdom as the ideal combi-nation of mind and virtue, it was found thatwisdom-related performance is best predictedby measures located at the interface of cogni-tion and personality, such as a judicial cognitivestyle (i.e., “seeking to understand why and whatit means that people think what they think, saywhat they say, and do what they do”; Sternberg1990, p. 154), creativity, and moral reasoning(Staudinger et al. 1997). Neither fluid and crys-tallized intelligence nor personality (Big Five)independently of each other made a significantcontribution to wisdom-related knowledge andjudgment. Interestingly, a very different predic-tive pattern is found when wisdom-related per-formance in adolescence is considered, wherecognitive development seems to be a crucialbasis for the emergence of wisdom-relatedknowledge (Staudinger & Pasupathi 2003).Wisdom-related performance is also substan-tially correlated to moral reasoning (assessedin the Kohlbergian tradition), a relationshipthat is mediated by personality characteristicsand intelligence (Pasupathi & Staudinger2001). Consistent with a threshold model,high levels of wisdom-related performance areunlikely among those with low scores in moralreasoning.

General wisdom as measured according tothe Berlin wisdom paradigm is unrelated oronly weakly related to subjective well-being(Kunzmann & Baltes 2003). Wise individu-als reported experiencing both positive (e.g.,happy, cheerful) and negative affect (e.g., angry,afraid) less frequently than other individuals,but they reported a higher degree of affective

involvement (e.g., being interested, inspired)than the rest of the sample. This patternsuggests that wisdom might go along with amore realistic, less self-enhancing, and lesspositively biased view on life, but at the sametime with better emotion-regulating skills.Also, individuals with higher wisdom-relatedscores tended to endorse values referring topersonal growth, life insight, societal engage-ment, the well-being of friends, and ecologicalprotection more than other individuals did.

When comparing these findings on generalwisdom with first evidence ascertained on cor-relates of personal wisdom, similarities and dif-ferences emerge. Neither general nor personalwisdom have a linear positive relationship toage. For example, a recent study presented evi-dence from a 34-year longitudinal study on per-sonal wisdom in an Eriksonian sense (Sneed& Whitbourne 2003). With considerable in-terindividual differences, integrity scores in-creased in young adulthood, dropped some-what around age 40, and then began to increaseagain. Many aging adults may focus on stabiliz-ing previous self-perceptions in order to main-tain well-being rather than engaging in deeplife reflection (Mickler & Staudinger 2008,Sneed & Whitbourne 2003). Research with theBremen measure of personal wisdom found thatage is not only unrelated (as is the case for gen-eral wisdom) to personal wisdom, but it is evennegatively related for the three meta criteria,that is, self-relativism, interrelating the self, andtolerance of ambiguity (Mickler & Staudinger2008). Declining cognitive resources may makeabstract thinking, which is required more to sat-isfy the meta- than the basic wisdom criteria,more difficult for older adults. Also, youngeradults’ higher levels of openness to experiencemay be an added advantage when it comes totesting established self-related insights againstnew evidence, which is a prerequisite to furtherdeveloping self insight. Further, self-criticismis less crucial for general wisdom-related per-formance than for personal wisdom. Similarly,personal growth is generally negatively relatedto age (Ryff & Keyes 1995), and ego devel-opment peaks in early midlife and declines


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Conative abilities?


thereafter (Cohn & Westenberg 2004). Wheninterpreting such findings, contemporaneoussocietal restrictions of growth opportunities inold age need to be taken into account (e.g., Ryff& Singer 2006, Staudinger & Kessler 2009). Inaddition, it has been suggested that the develop-mental task of old age, that is, coming to termswith one’s own life as lived (Erikson 1959), mayprejudice older adults’ life reflection toward apositive evaluation (Kennedy et al. 2004).

Second, personal wisdom shows a signifi-cantly smaller relationship than does generalwisdom with indicators of subjective well-being. It is not enough to master the tasks ofeveryday life and thereby increase subjectivewell-being in order to gain in personal wisdom.Again, this finding underscores the importanceof distinguishing between different types ofpositive development during adulthood andinto old age (Staudinger & Kessler 2009).Sincere self-reflection and self-criticism as wellas facing negative emotional states, all of whichare necessary steps on the road to personalwisdom, obviously are not prone to increasesubjective well-being in the sense of hedonicwell-being as captured by measures of life sat-isfaction or positive and negative affect. Theseprocesses, however, are prone to increase eu-daimonic well-being as captured by measuresof personal wisdom (Waterman 1993).

Third, personal life events did notcontribute to the prediction of generalwisdom-related performance, but they playedan important role when predicting personalwisdom scores (Mickler & Staudinger 2008).This is in line with the finding that traumaticlife experiences can be conducive to thedevelopment of (personal) wisdom (e.g., Balteset al. 1995), a notion prominent in conceptssuch as posttraumatic growth (e.g., Calhoun &Tedeschi 2006), stress-related growth (Aldwin& Levenson 2001, Park et al. 1996), or growththrough adversity (e.g., Joseph & Linley2006). After negative experiences such asaccidents, life-threatening illness, or the deathof a close other person, many people reportself-perceived increases in aspects of personalgrowth such as compassion, affect regulation,

self-understanding, honesty and reliability,spirituality, and self-reported wisdom itself(cf. Park 2004). While such self-perceptionsof growth may be delusional (Maercker &Zoellner 2004), it seems plausible that per-sonal wisdom is fostered by the experience offundamental changes that “force” individualsto grow (Nolen-Hoeksema & Larson 1999)by challenging them to reorganize—but notcompletely destroy—their assumptions aboutlife and priorities.

PLASTICITY OF WISDOM

Be it general or personal wisdom, in previ-ous studies of wisdom-related performance, theaverage levels observed in unselected sampleswere rather low, leaving a lot of space forimprovement. And indeed, empirical studieshave found support for the positive plasticity ofwisdom-related performance. In two interven-tion studies, Staudinger and coworkers foundthat by either providing for a certain type ofsocial performance context, that is, discussingthe difficult life problem with a real or imag-inary confidant (Staudinger & Baltes 1996),or by teaching a certain knowledge searchstrategy (Bohmig-Krumhaar et al. 2002), gen-eral wisdom-related performance was signifi-cantly increased. Thus, interventions that helpto activate individuals’ actual wisdom-relatedreserves can enhance wisdom-related perfor-mance. However, activation of abstract concep-tions about wisdom (by means of the instructionto “try to give a wise response”) does not leadto increases in performance (Gluck & Baltes2006).

Similarly, a first intervention study usingthe Bremen measure of personal wisdomwas successful, but also once more proveddifferent from general wisdom. In contrast tothe findings for general wisdom (Staudinger& Baltes 1996), personal wisdom was notfacilitated by the opportunity to exchange ideaswith a familiar person before responding toa personal-wisdom task. Rather, it was foundthat instruction about how to infer insight frompersonal experiences (cf. life review; Staudinger


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2001) significantly increased personal wisdomscores (cf. Staudinger et al. 2006). The authorsinterpreted this finding such that in the caseof personal wisdom, the exchange with awell-known other person may be less helpful,as relationships tend to develop in ways thatpartners get along well without touching uponsensitive issues. Thus, for personal wisdomto be facilitated, it seems more useful to seeksupport from someone unknown and trainedto support the life-reflection process, such as apsychotherapist.

In sum, experimental studies yielded thefirst encouraging evidence that both generaland personal wisdom can be facilitated. Con-sequently, we may ask how such wisdom-conducive conditions can be implemented ineveryday life.

FIELDS OF APPLICATIONSFOR WISDOM

Teaching Wisdom

An obvious application of the growing psycho-logical knowledge about the antecedents of wis-dom as well as facilitating and hampering con-ditions would be to develop effective methodsto teach wisdom, be it in children or in adults.Some such approaches have been or are cur-rently being developed based on psychologicalresearch; other approaches come from ancientreligious and spiritual traditions. A broad spec-trum of conceptions of teaching for wisdom ispresented in Ferrari & Potworowski (2008); ap-proaches focusing on school contexts are sug-gested by Sternberg and colleagues (2009).

It has been argued that whether wisdom isviewed as teachable and which teaching meth-ods are considered the most promising seemto depend on how one defines wisdom (Ferrari2008; see Curnow 2008 for a historical overviewof the different meanings of teaching wisdom).We are not so sure whether this statement per-sists once we look more closely into the specificgoals and actual mechanisms of transforma-tion. For instance, certain religious practices,such as meditation (e.g., Rosch 2008), may be

interpreted to foster transcendence of self-centered patterns of perception, emotion reg-ulation, and motivation as well as judgment(Singer & Ricard 2008). In turn, this kind oftranscendence can be linked to componentsof wisdom and training interventions derivedfrom the Berlin paradigm or Sternberg’s bal-ance theory that at first sight seem juxtaposedto spiritual approaches to wisdom.

For example, Sternberg (2004, Sternberget al. 2009) has proposed to foster the develop-ment of wisdom by teaching certain skills andways of thinking, which can be viewed as pre-decessors or components of wisdom, as part ofeducational curricula. Such a wisdom curricu-lum would include, for example, reading clas-sical wisdom literature, practicing dialecticalthinking, and encouraging students to reflectand discuss their own values (Sternberg 2001a,Sternberg et al. 2009). In this vein, the ontoge-netic model of wisdom, introduced above, canhelp to identify crucial antecedents of wisdomthat may be fostered very early in life. For ex-ample, empathy (Eisenberg 2008) and mindful-ness (Langer 1989) may be candidate constructsthat can be fostered in childhood. A family cli-mate that models values of acceptance, respect,and nonselfishness and later encourages discus-sion of moral perspectives and value differencescould be another ingredient. Mindfulness train-ing in kindergarten and elementary school mayhelp children to concentrate and to learn to per-ceive oneself, others, and the world around.

As discussed above, the acquisition of per-sonal wisdom presents a still bigger challenge.The personal-wisdom intervention study de-scribed above (Staudinger et al. 2006), for ex-ample, supported the assumption that certainways to reflect upon our experiences (i.e., lifereflection) as well as a knowledgeable coun-terpart to support this reflection process maybe one way to proceed—both are central ele-ments of most psychotherapeutical approaches.The importance and facilitative effect of a “wis-dom mentor” can be found in almost all ap-proaches to wisdom, be they ancient or contem-poraneous, religious or scientific. In fact, manypeople remember episodes in which someone


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Hot topic in popular psych press now


(a therapist, a grandparent, a close friend, ormaybe just a stranger) told them somethingthat they considered wise because it trans-formed their perspective on a problem or sit-uation fundamentally. Such “small transforma-tions,” achieved just by words, are often longremembered and may be the instances wherewisdom most often shows in the real world(Montgomery et al. 2002). Thus, as the socialnature of wisdom suggests, much “training” inwisdom can be obtained by observing, interact-ing with, and getting advice from a wise mentor(Gluck & Bluck 2010). Research has also shown,however, that in the case of personal wisdom,the mentor should not be too closely involvedwith the mentee. Otherwise, established rela-tional patterns compromise an impartial view.

Leadership

When researchers ask people to name famouswise individuals, a number of the typical nomi-nees can be referred to as leaders, e.g., MahatmaGandhi, Jesus Christ, Martin Luther King,and Nelson Mandela (Paulhus et al. 2002).All of these individuals have inspired largenumbers of people to follow them and theirvision and have been successful in changing theworld in fundamental ways. It is not surprising,therefore, that connections between leadershipand wisdom have been made by a number ofresearchers.

Leadership is a somewhat vague term that,similar to wisdom, has been associated with alarge number of positive qualities rather thanclearly differentiated from other constructs.Sternberg (2003) emphasizes the distinctionbetween leadership and management: Man-agement refers to problem-solving and goalcreation within the framework of a givenorganization, whereas leadership involvesvisionary qualities aimed at developmentof individuals and the organization, basedon a broad and future-oriented perspective.There is a growing literature on wisdomin leadership and management (see, e.g.,Kilburg 2006; Rooney & McKenna 2007;Sternberg 2003, 2007). Sternberg (2003, 2007)

has developed a psychological model thatdefines leadership as a synthesis of creativity,intelligence, and wisdom. Specifically, hederives from his balance theory of wisdom(Sternberg 1998) that wise leadership makesuse of creativity, successful intelligence, andexpertise in the respective field to (a) seek acommon good, (b) balance different interests,and (c) deal with environments appropriately(i.e., by adapting to, shaping, or selectingthem). Due to his/her cognitive complexity,reflection, and self-criticism, a wise leader willnot show cognitive fallacies such as prioritizingshort-term over long-term perspectives oroverestimating one’s own knowledge or power.In this vein, wise leaders will effectively drawupon the strengths of others in their team andnot only rely on themselves.

We tend to believe that although wisdommay be a highly desirable quality for those in-dividuals who steer the fates of our modern so-ciety and economy, there are some systematicreasons (e.g., strong interests such as the searchfor power or the optimization of profit) whywisdom, in the strict sense that we have sug-gested in this article, may be a rare quality ofthose who are successful enough to reach andmaintain leadership positions. Thus, wisdommay only partly, or under specific conditions,be necessary and effective for good leadership.

Early leadership theories assumed thatcertain general traits make some people proneto be leaders (for a modern trait perspectiveon leadership, see Zaccaro 2007, Zaccaro et al.2004). Specifically, intelligence, adjustment,extraversion, conscientiousness, openness toexperience, dominance, and self-efficacy arefrequently named as relevant traits (Foti &Hauenstein 2007, Judge et al. 2002, Lord et al.1986). This list shows some overlap but alsonotable differences from typical correlates ofwisdom (e.g., Staudinger et al. 1997). Intelli-gence and openness to experience are importantparts of both constructs. However, wisdom isrelated to intermediate rather than high levelsof extraversion, whereas conscientiousnessclearly is important for life success (i.e., lead-ership) but not as important for transcending


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given circumstances (i.e., wisdom). Dominancedoes not often go well with self-criticismand unobtrusiveness, and high levels of self-efficacy may be an indicator of internal controlillusions (such as Sternberg’s omnipotencefallacy) rather than seeing through illusions(Dorner 2006, McKee & Barber 1999). Otherimportant facets of wisdom such as emotionalcomplexity, balance, self-transcendence, andbenevolent values are typical of some butcertainly not all successful leaders.

In contrast to trait theories, situational-contingency models of leadership (e.g., Fiedler1965/2006, Vroom & Jago 2007) assume thatthe efficiency of a leadership style depends onthe demands of the situation, for instance, onfeatures of the organizational context. In relat-ing such approaches to wisdom, one may arguethat some contexts are more conducive to wiseleadership than others. For example, there isevidence that wise leadership is possible onlyin organizational cultures that value support-iveness und team orientation as opposed to ag-gressiveness or decisiveness (Limas & Hansson2004). Thus, although some qualities of wis-dom such as metacognition and self-reflection(Kilburg 2006) or values emphasizing the com-mon good (Sternberg 2003, 2007) may seemhighly desirable in leaders, they may not be thebest predictors of success in the economy or inpolitics. Thus, in the face of economic crises,it may be more useful to devise structural de-mands that counteract cognitive fallacies ratherthan hope for individual wise leaders to solvethe problem.

A situational contingency model would alsosuggest, however, that a truly wise leader knowswhich leadership style to use with whom and inwhat situation. For example, Malan & Kriger(1998) have argued that the key to manage-rial wisdom is perceptiveness to and toleranceof variability—for example, variability betweenorganizational levels, over time, between peo-ple, between relationships, and in the construc-tion of meaning in the work context (see alsoLimas & Hansson 2004). As mentioned above,it seems likely that these traits are more con-sistent with some contexts than with others. In

particular, the larger goals of an organizationcan be more or less compatible with wisdom.The wise public leaders named above all repre-sent movements that changed societies at large(i.e., transcended given circumstances) towarda greater common good. An organization or acivic movement may, however, also follow self-centered (e.g., profit-maximizing) or malevo-lent (e.g., racist) goals. Such goals are obviouslyincompatible with wise leadership even if theorganizational structure allows them.

CONCLUSIONS ANDFUTURE RESEARCH

In recent years, a notable increase of psycho-logical work on the topic of wisdom has beenobserved, a development that may be relatedto a general interest in features of a positivepsychology as well as an ever-increasing uncer-tainty of individuals about how to lead their livesin postmodern and destructuralized times. Thegrowth and scope of research over the previousfew decades demonstrate that wisdom repre-sents a fruitful topic for psychological investi-gations, for at least two reasons. First, the studyof wisdom emphasizes the search for continuedoptimization and the further cultural evolutionof the human condition; second, it allows forthe study of the collaboration between cogni-tive, emotional, and motivational processes.

We expect that future research on wisdomwill be expanded in several ways.

1. The further identification of social andpersonality factors and life processes rel-evant for the ontogeny of wisdom. Whydo some individuals develop further onthe road to wisdom in the course of theirlife while most of us do not? Is it pos-sible to distinguish societies according tohow much they facilitate the developmentof wisdom? Wisdom theorists agree thatthe development of wisdom is a complexinteraction of intraindividual, interindi-vidual, and external factors that dynami-cally interact over the course of an indi-vidual life (e.g., Baltes & Staudinger 2000,


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Brugman 2006, Kramer 2000, Sternberg1998). To date, however, only very fewlongitudinal data are available that helpto trace these interactions and possiblyidentify different types of developmen-tal trajectories leading toward wisdom(e.g., Helson & Roberts 1994). These in-vestigations into the ontogenesis of wis-dom will also help to clarify the develop-mental dynamics between personal andgeneral wisdom. To further our insightinto the development of wisdom, it willalso be important to apply recent neu-ropsychological work on social-cognitiveprocesses.

2. The further exploration of wisdombeyond the person. As mentioned at thebeginning of this review, wisdom doesnot necessarily need to be viewed as acharacteristic of individuals, but may alsobe seen as a characteristic of problemsolutions in a very general sense. Whilepsychological wisdom research has hada tendency to focus on wise individuals,creativity researchers distinguished fourways of looking at their subject earlyon (Rhodes 1961): person, product,process, and press (i.e., the environ-mental demands). Wisdom researchwould likely profit from studying thewisdom of “products” such as politicalor legal decisions and the “processes”of dealing wisely with life problems orenvironmental factors such as effects ofsocial-contextual conditions, in additionto personal characteristics on wisdom.

3. More specific work on contemporary cul-tural similarities and differences. Cross-cultural comparisons need to be carriedout with an open mind toward any out-come and with the use of a variety of mea-surement paradigms. The application ofstereotypical conceptions of Eastern andWestern wisdom will not help to furtherour understanding of the phenomenon inthe long run. It seems important that re-searchers in this area move beyond the in-vestigation of cultural differences in sub-jective theories of wisdom and begin tostudy actual expressions of wisdom in dif-ferent cultural contexts.

4. The differentiation between personal andgeneral wisdom and their ontogenetic dy-namics. The controversy among wisdomresearchers about the definition of wis-dom will probably never be resolved un-equivocally. The question may not bewhich model is “right,” but rather howmuch can be learned about wisdom by in-tegrating the findings from different con-ceptualizations and operationalizations ofwisdom, as well as what can be learned fordesigning the best interventions that areapt to facilitate wisdom.

All of these approaches may contribute tobuilding a psychological art of living based onlife insight and life composition by integratingthe analytic, aesthetic, and moral aspects of hu-man life (Staudinger 1999b) and to improvingsocietal ways of fostering wisdom and of deal-ing with difficult problems of today’s world ina wise way (e.g., Sternberg et al. 2009).

DISCLOSURE STATEMENT

The authors are not aware of any affiliations, memberships, funding, or financial holdings thatmight be perceived as affecting the objectivity of this review.

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PS62-FrontMatter ARI 15 November 2010 17:50

Annual Review ofPsychology

Volume 62, 2011 Contents

Prefatory

The Development of Problem Solving in Young Children:A Critical Cognitive SkillRachel Keen � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 1

Decision Making

The Neuroscience of Social Decision-MakingJames K. Rilling and Alan G. Sanfey � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � �23

Speech Perception

Speech PerceptionArthur G. Samuel � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � �49

Attention and Performance

A Taxonomy of External and Internal AttentionMarvin M. Chun, Julie D. Golomb, and Nicholas B. Turk-Browne � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � �73

Language Processing

The Neural Bases of Social Cognition and Story ComprehensionRaymond A. Mar � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 103

Reasoning and Problem Solving

Causal Learning and Inference as a Rational Process:The New SynthesisKeith J. Holyoak and Patricia W. Cheng � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 135

Emotional, Social, and Personality Development

Development in the Early Years: Socialization, Motor Development,and ConsciousnessClaire B. Kopp � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 165

Peer Contagion in Child and Adolescent Socialand Emotional DevelopmentThomas J. Dishion and Jessica M. Tipsord � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 189

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Adulthood and Aging

Psychological Wisdom Research: Commonalities and Differences in aGrowing FieldUrsula M. Staudinger and Judith Gluck � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 215

Development in the Family

Socialization Processes in the Family: Social andEmotional DevelopmentJoan E. Grusec � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 243

Psychopathology

Delusional BeliefMax Coltheart, Robyn Langdon, and Ryan McKay � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 271

Therapy for Specific Problems

Long-Term Impact of Prevention Programs to Promote EffectiveParenting: Lasting Effects but Uncertain ProcessesIrwin N. Sandler, Erin N. Schoenfelder, Sharlene A. Wolchik,

and David P. MacKinnon � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 299

Self and Identity

Do Conscious Thoughts Cause Behavior?Roy F. Baumeister, E.J. Masicampo, and Kathleen D. Vohs � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 331

Neuroscience of Self and Self-RegulationTodd F. Heatherton � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 363

Attitude Change and Persuasion

Attitudes and Attitude ChangeGerd Bohner and Nina Dickel � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 391

Cross-Country or Regional Comparisons

Culture, Mind, and the Brain: Current Evidence and Future DirectionsShinobu Kitayama and Ayse K. Uskul � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 419

Cognition in Organizations

Heuristic Decision MakingGerd Gigerenzer and Wolfgang Gaissmaier � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 451

Structures and Goals of Educational Settings

Early Care, Education, and Child DevelopmentDeborah A. Phillips and Amy E. Lowenstein � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 483

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Psychophysiological Disorders and Psychological Dimensionson Medical Disorders

Psychological Perspectives on Pathways Linking Socioeconomic Statusand Physical HealthKaren A. Matthews and Linda C. Gallo � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 501

Psychological Science on Pregnancy: Stress Processes, BiopsychosocialModels, and Emerging Research IssuesChristine Dunkel Schetter � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 531

Research Methodology

The Development of Autobiographical MemoryRobyn Fivush � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 559

The Disaggregation of Within-Person and Between-Person Effects inLongitudinal Models of ChangePatrick J. Curran and Daniel J. Bauer � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 583

Thirty Years and Counting: Finding Meaning in the N400Component of the Event-Related Brain Potential (ERP)Marta Kutas and Kara D. Federmeier � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 621

Indexes

Cumulative Index of Contributing Authors, Volumes 52–62 � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 000

Cumulative Index of Chapter Titles, Volumes 52–62 � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 000

Errata

An online log of corrections to Annual Review of Psychology articles may be found athttp://psych.AnnualReviews.org/errata.shtml

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Documents

Psychological Wisdom Research: Commonalities and Differences in