https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2019-05/wkh-bwi051419.php
Can wisdom be measured? Wisdom is a subjective concept - to most it is understanding that goes beyond knowledge - but a review in Harvard Review of Psychiatry hopes to show wisdom can be empirical; however, since it is a review, it is using papers which argue for its conclusion. And that's an ironic confounder in wanting to be called scientific.
Wisdom has been debated by philosophers for as long as people have sat around thinking about thinking, but it has been difficult to define and impossible to measure. To get around the first obstacle their definition of wisdom is broad; "a complex human trait with several specific components: social decision making, emotion regulation, prosocial behaviors, self-reflection, acceptance of uncertainty, decisiveness, and spirituality."
Can wisdom be measured? Wisdom is a subjective concept but a review in Harvard Review of Psychiatry hopes to show wisdom can be empirical; however, since it is a review, it is using papers which argue for its conclusion. And that's the ironic confounder in wanting to be called scientific.
Wisdom has been debated by philosophers for as long as people have sat around thinking about thinking, but it has been difficult to define and impossible to measure. To get around the first obstacle their definition of wisdom is broad; "a complex human trait with several specific components: social decision making, emotion regulation, prosocial behaviors, self-reflection, acceptance of uncertainty, decisiveness, and spirituality."
Because a colloquial definition of wisdom has been around for millennia, the authors argue that means it has a neurological basis, which is the kind of leap that will have biologists dusting off their old insults about evolutionary psychology.
The authors argue that measurements of wisdom are just as valid as psychological constructs such as consciousness, stress, and resilience. Which isn't saying much.
