Hard-Earned Wisdom: Exploratory Processing of Difficult Life Experience Is Positively Associated With Wisdom
Abstract
Laypersons and experts believe that wisdom is cultivated through a diverse range of positive and negative
life experiences. Yet, not all individuals with life experience are wise. We propose that one possible
determinant of growth in wisdom from life experience is self-reflection. In a life span sample of adults
(N = 94) ranging from 26 to 92 years of age, we examined wisdom’s relationship to self-reflection by
investigating “why” people report reflecting on the past (i.e., reminiscence functions) and “how” they
reflect within autobiographical memories of difficult life events (i.e., autobiographical reasoning). We
assessed wisdom using self-report, performance, and nomination approaches. Results indicated that
wisdom was unrelated to the frequency of self-reflection; however, wiser people differed from others in
their (a) reasons for reminiscence and (b) mode of autobiographical reasoning. Across 3 methods for
assessing wisdom, wisdom was positively associated with exploratory processing of difficult life
experience (meaning-making, personal growth), whereas redemptive processing (positive emotional
reframing, event resolution) was positively associated with adjustment. This study suggests that developmental
pathways in the wake of adversity may be partially determined by how individuals selfreflectively
process significant life experiences.
... Theoretical and empirical research on emotions and wisdom found inconsistent findings. For example, Mickler and Staudinger (2008) suggested that positive emotions bring wisdom, while other researchers asserted the "sadder but wiser" phenomenon (Weststrate & Glück, 2017;Hu et al., 2019). Furthermore, emotional diversity has greater predictability for wise reasoning compared to simply positive or negative emotions (Grossmann et al., 2019). ...
... While challenging life experiences are fundamental to the development of wisdom (Webster, 2007), a more important issue is how emotions affect wisdom during challenging events. There is debate regarding the relation between emotions and wisdom (e.g., "sadder but wiser", Weststrate & Glück, 2017;Hu et al., 2019; positive emotions bring wisdom, Mickler & Staudinger, 2008). However, rather than experiencing positive or negative mood changes during the COVID-19 pandemic, Chinese people may have experienced "torn" ambivalence, experiencing both positive and negative emotions simultaneously (emotional ambivalence, Thompson et al., 1995). ...
... A generalized linear hypothesis test indicated that negative emotions exert a significantly stronger influence on wisdom than do positive emotions (Sect. 2 in the Supplementary Materials). Although Nietzsche 's famous phrase, "What does not kill us makes us stronger," and some studies have mentioned "sadder but wiser" (Hu et al., 2019;Weststrate & Glück, 2017), this study found that the negative effects of negative resources for cultivating and enhancing wisdom. Simultaneously, a PrT, which serves as a pivot for balancing and bridging the past and the future, is a pivotal component of a BTP. ...
The zero-COVID-19 policy was proven to be effective in preventing the transmission of COVID-19 but has had significant impacts on people’s emotions, time perspectives, and decision-making. The current study performed five rounds of data collection (N = 1095) to investigate the time perspectives, emotions, and wisdom experiences of individuals under the zero-COVID-19 policy implementation. Hierarchical linear modeling and generalized linear hypothesis testing revealed that a balanced time perspective is the most powerful time perspective predictor of wisdom and that emotional diversity is the most powerful emotional predictor of wisdom. Moreover, emotional diversity exhibits distinct boundary effects. More precisely, among emotional indicators, “non-pessimism” is the most reliable predictor of wisdom. The moderation effect analysis showed that heightened emotional diversity amplifies the beneficial effect of a balanced time perspective on wisdom. All these effects are consistent across the zero-COVID period. This finding suggests that maintaining a balanced time perspective during a major public crisis might contribute to wise decision-making.
... Theoretical and empirical research on emotions and wisdom found inconsistent findings. For example, Mickler and Staudinger (2008) suggested that positive emotions bring wisdom, while other researchers asserted the "sadder but wiser" phenomenon (Weststrate & Glück, 2017;Hu et al., 2019). Furthermore, emotional diversity has greater predictability for wise reasoning compared to simply positive or negative emotions (Grossmann et al., 2019). ...
... While challenging life experiences are fundamental to the development of wisdom (Webster, 2007), a more important issue is how emotions affect wisdom during challenging events. There is debate regarding the relation between emotions and wisdom (e.g., "sadder but wiser", Weststrate & Glück, 2017;Hu et al., 2019; positive emotions bring wisdom, Mickler & Staudinger, 2008). However, rather than experiencing positive or negative mood changes during the COVID-19 pandemic, Chinese people may have experienced "torn" ambivalence, experiencing both positive and negative emotions simultaneously (emotional ambivalence, Thompson et al., 1995). ...
... A generalized linear hypothesis test indicated that negative emotions exert a significantly stronger influence on wisdom than do positive emotions (Sect. 2 in the Supplementary Materials). Although Nietzsche 's famous phrase, "What does not kill us makes us stronger," and some studies have mentioned "sadder but wiser" (Hu et al., 2019;Weststrate & Glück, 2017), this study found that the negative effects of negative resources for cultivating and enhancing wisdom. Simultaneously, a PrT, which serves as a pivot for balancing and bridging the past and the future, is a pivotal component of a BTP. ...
The zero-COVID-19 policy was proven to be effective in preventing the transmission of COVID-19 but has had significant impacts on people’s emotions, time perspectives, and decision-making. The current study performed five rounds of data collection (N = 1095) to investigate the time perspectives, emotions, and wisdom experiences of individuals under the zero-COVID-19 policy implementation. Hierarchical linear modeling and generalized linear hypothesis testing revealed that a balanced time perspective is the most powerful time perspective predictor of wisdom and that emotional diversity is the most powerful emotional predictor of wisdom. Moreover, emotional diversity exhibits distinct boundary effects. More precisely, among emotional indicators, “non-pessimism” is the most reliable predictor of wisdom. The moderation effect analysis showed that heightened emotional diversity amplifies the beneficial effect of a balanced time perspective on wisdom. All these effects are consistent across the zero-COVID period. This finding suggests that maintaining a balanced time perspective during a major public crisis might contribute to wise decision-making.
... Typically, narrative identity researchers code autobiographical narratives for individual differences in narrative content and use this quantitative information to explain variation in psychological functioning (Adler et al., 2017). In the present study, we specifically focus on two narrative processes: redemptive processing and meaning making (Webster et al., 2018;Weststrate & Glück, 2017). We focus on these processes because they are commonly studied and provide insight into both affective and cognitive aspects of narrative processing, respectively. ...
... The link between redemptive processing and positive mental health has been well-established in the literature (e.g. Adler et al., 2015Adler et al., , 2016Lilgendahl & McAdams, 2011;McLean & Breen, 2009;McLean & Lilgendahl, 2008;Weststrate & Glück, 2017). For example, Adler et al. (2015) followed participants who provided narratives about two difficult life events (i.e. ...
... The typical approach to studying redemptive processing has been to categorically code the presence or absence of redemption in narrative (e.g. McAdams et al., 2001) or to code the degree of redemption on a linear scale (Weststrate & Glück, 2017), and then correlate these scores with indicators of psychological adjustment and growth. Rarely has research looked at the diverse ways that redemption manifests in people's narratives (McAdams, 2006). ...
... AIW has the potential to foster individuals' wisdom (i.e., profound and comprehensive understanding of one's experience; [14][15][16], thereby ameliorating emotional distress and promoting growth following negative life events. Improving wisdom is helpful for individuals who have experienced major yet commonplace adverse events (e.g., job loss, relationship dissolution, or the death of a loved one; 17,18). ...
... AIW can further facilitate wisdom development by encouraging individuals to process negative life events critically. While wisdom development often necessitates challenging "exploratory processing" such as meaning-making, this can be daunting during stressful times (15,21). Individuals may default to "tunnel vision", focusing solely on immediate needs and neglecting alternative perspectives (21, 22). ...
... Bilgeliği gelişimsel bir perspektiften kavramsallaştıran kuramlara göre kritik yaşam olayları; kişilerin açıklık (openness), içsel değerlendirme (self-reflection) ve anlam üretme (meaning making) motivasyonlarına göre bilgece içgörü edinimine büyük ölçüde kapı aralar. Örneğin, bilgece düşünen insanlar, yaşam olayları üzerine içsel değerlendirme yaparak içgörü kazanmaya daha açıktırlar (Westrate ve Glück, 2017). Glück ve Bluck'ün (2013;Glück ve ark., 2019) geliştirdiği MORE Yaşam Deneyimi Modeline göre, hayattaki dönüm noktaları bilgeliğin gelişimi için mihenk taşı gibidir. ...
Psikoloji literatüründe bilgelik, farklı yaklaşımlara sahip kuramsal modellerle incelenmektedir. Bu modellerden biri, bilgeliği bilişsel değişkenler üzerinden muhakeme becerisi olarak kavramsallaştıran Bilgece Muhakeme Modeli, diğeri ise bilgeliği duygu düzenlemenin de dahil olduğu psikolojik kaynakların öngördüğü bir beceri olarak tanımlayan MORE Yaşam Deneyimi Modelidir. Bu çalışmanın amacı, Bağlama Özgü Bilgece Muhakeme Ölçeğinin (BMÖ) MORE Yaşam Deneyimi Modeli maddeleriyle zenginleştirilerek Türkçe’ye uyarlanması ve psikometrik özelliklerinin incelenmesidir. Çalışmaya çoğunluğu üniversite öğrencisi olan, 18-30 yaş aralığında 307 (47 erkek) katılımcı dahil edilmiştir. SWIS’in 21 maddeli ve 5 faktörlü orijinal havuzuna 26 madde ve 3 faktör eklenerek 47 maddeli, 8 faktörlü bir havuz oluşturulmuştur. Orijinal ölçek yapısı ve havuz karşılaştırmalı olarak doğrulayıcı faktör analizi ve geçerlik ve güvenilirlik analizleriyle incelenmiştir. Orijinal ölçeğin geçerlik ve güvenilirlik analizleri 23 maddeli, 6 faktörlü bir yapı ortaya koymuştur. Nihai ölçekte BMÖ’nün 15 maddesi ve tüm faktörleri korunmuştur. Ayrıca, 23 maddelik nihai ölçek, üniversite öğrencilerinden oluşan 183 (28 erkek) kişilik ikinci bir örneklem grubunda test edilmiştir. Bulgular, BMÖ’nün bilgeliği bilişsel yaklaşımla test eden maddeleri ile MORE Yaşam Modeli'nin duygusal becerileri ölçen maddeleri birleştiğinde, orijinal modele kıyasla daha güvenilir ve geçerli olduğunu göstermiştir. Çalışmanın bulguları, Türkiye’de bilgeliğin algılanışına dair tartışmalara kuramsal çerçevede katkı sağlamaktadır.
... The present research contributes to the literature on redemption stories and on prosocial behavior. First, while previous work has shown that viewing one's own life as a redemption story is associated with positive outcomes such as greater life satisfaction, well-being, posttraumatic growth, and wisdom (McAdams et al. 2001;Tedeschi and Calhoun 2004;Weststrate and Glück 2017), ours is the first to demonstrate that exposure to redemption stories can motivate individuals to exhibit more prosocial intentions and behaviors. Second, we build on prior research on moral elevation (Aquino, McFerran and Laven 2011;Pohling and Diessner 2016) by showing how a previously untested experienceexposure to a redemption story that includes both moral failure and a trajectory of improvementcan elicit elevation. ...
This research shows how exposure to a redemption story—a narrative wherein someone has overcome challenges resulting from their own moral failures to become a more moral person—can motivate charitable giving. Across four studies, people donated more after encountering a redemption story relative to stories in which a protagonist was always moral or improved in a less moralized domain. This is because two critical elements of redemption stories—morality and growth—elicit greater moral elevation when both are present compared to stories with only one of these elements. In addition, we find that the impact of redemption stories is stronger (a) among those with high internalized moral identities because they are particularly attuned to moral content, and (b) when the protagonist begins from a position of greater adversity. Taken together, these findings demonstrate that redemption stories are a novel and effective way to increase charitable donations due to their morally elevating effects.
... Yet research has shown that aging alone does not confer wisdom. For example, Webster et al. (2014) found that wisdom peaked in midlife rather than older adulthood Weststrate and Glück (2017) revealed that how one processes one's life experiences (e.g., with enhanced meaning making) was an important aspect of developing wisdom. ...
This manuscript provides a first-person narrative review of the author’s research
exploring age-based oppression, including the story of how these ideas devel
oped in cultural and historical context. Projects reviewed in this paper began
from a wish to better understand potential factors impacting the geropsychol
ogy workforce shortage. Over time, research has expanded to encompass other
questions related to ageism, adultism, discomfort with death, and media rep
resentations of emerging adults and older adults at the start of the COVID-19
pandemic. A measure of adultist concerns is also described along with findings
from several studies using this scale. Qualitative comments from graduate stu
dents in psychology and counseling are reviewed through the lens of adultism,
suggesting multiple connections between students’ lack of interest in working
with older adults, adultist concerns, and attitudes about intergenerational rela
tionships. Lastly, discussion questions and learning activities are suggested to
help educators engage the topic of age-based oppression in a variety of settings.
Penelitian menunjukkan bahwa ibu rumah tangga (IRT) penuh waktu di Indonesia sering mengalami parental burnout akibat rutinitas yang berulang. Tujuan dari penelitian ini adalah untuk menganalisis peran resiliensi dan kesejahteraan subjektif ibu terhadap kebijaksanaan pada IRT penuh waktu yang mengalami parental burnout. Metode yang digunakan dalam penelitian ini adalah kuantitatif dengan teknik purposive sampling, melibatkan 347 IRT penuh waktu yang mengalami parental burnout. Partisipan terdiri dari IRT penuh waktu yang masih dalam ikatan pernikahan dan memiliki setidaknya satu anak di bawah usia 18 tahun. Instrumen pengukuran yang digunakan meliputi Brief Self-Assessed Wisdom Scale untuk mengukur kebijaksanaan, Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale untuk mengukur resiliensi, dan Subjective Well-Being for Mother untuk mengukur kesejahteraan subjektif ibu. Hasil penelitian menunjukkan bahwa resiliensi dan kesejahteraan subjektif ibu memiliki pengaruh signifikan terhadap kebijaksanaan pada IRT penuh waktu yang mengalami parental burnout. Implikasi dari penelitian ini menekankan pentingnya meningkatkan resiliensi dan kesejahteraan subjektif ibu untuk meningkatkan kebijaksanaan pada IRT yang mengalami parental burnout.
Wisdom is such an elusive psychological construct that few people have considered it a viable field, though many are fascinated by the topic. Well-known psychologist Robert J. Sternberg of Yale University, perceiving the growth of interest in wisdom as a field, saw a need to document the progress that has been made in the field since the early '80s and to point the way for future theory and research. The resulting comprehensive and authoritative book, Wisdom: Its Nature, Origins and Development, is a well-rounded collection of psychological views on wisdom. It introduces this concept of wisdom, considers philosophical issues and developmental approaches, and covers as well folk conceptions of the topic. In the final section, Professor Sternberg provides an integration of the fascinating and comprehensive material.
Any complete science of personal wisdom must consider wisdom in a narrative mode. We argue that life narratives not only offer a rich viewpoint from which to study personal wisdom, but from a process perspective, we propose that crafting meaningful stories may be central to the development of personal wisdom itself. In particular, we point to two capacities that may be particularly important to the development of wisdom: autobiographical reasoning and narrative simulation. Autobiographical reasoning refers to the sophistication with which we reflect on our lives and gain insight from past experiences. Narrative simulation concerns our ability to project ourselves into the storyworld of historical and/or literary figures who are exemplars of wisdom and also our ability to simulate hypothetical narratives of our own lives that have not yet come to pass. Some evidence for this view is provided from a study on engagement with cultural master narratives of wisdom.
In the life story, autobiographical remembering and self-understanding are combined to create a coherent account of one's past. A gap is demonstrated between developmental research on the story-organization of autobiographical remembering of events in childhood and of life narratives in adulthood. This gap is bridged by substantiating D. P. McAdams's (1985) claim that the life story develops in adolescence. Two manifestations of the life story, life narratives and autobiographical reasoning, are delineated in terms of 4 types of global coherence (temporal, biographical, causal, and thematic). A review of research shows that the cognitive tools necessary for constrtlcting global coherence in a life story and the social-motivational demands to construct a life story develop during adolescence. The authors delineate the implications of the life story framework for other research areas such as coping, attachment, psychotherapeutic process, and the organization of autobiographical memory. DOI 10.1037/0033-2909.126.5.748
In this article, we attempt to distinguish between the properties of moderator and mediator variables at a number of levels. First, we seek to make theorists and researchers aware of the importance of not using the terms moderator and mediator interchangeably by carefully elaborating, both conceptually and strategically, the many ways in which moderators and mediators differ. We then go beyond this largely pedagogical function and delineate the conceptual and strategic implications of making use of such distinctions with regard to a wide range of phenomena, including control and stress, attitudes, and personality traits. We also provide a specific compendium of analytic procedures appropriate for making the most effective use of the moderator and mediator distinction, both separately and in terms of a broader causal system that includes both moderators and mediators. (46 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Wisdom is such an elusive psychological construct that few people have considered it a viable field, though many are fascinated by the topic. Well-known psychologist Robert J. Sternberg of Yale University, perceiving the growth of interest in wisdom as a field, saw a need to document the progress that has been made in the field since the early '80s and to point the way for future theory and research. The resulting comprehensive and authoritative book, Wisdom: Its Nature, Origins and Development, is a well-rounded collection of psychological views on wisdom. It introduces this concept of wisdom, considers philosophical issues and developmental approaches, and covers as well folk conceptions of the topic. In the final section, Professor Sternberg provides an integration of the fascinating and comprehensive material.
Drawing from the author's psychological research on especially generative (that is, caring and productive) midlife American adults and on a reading of American cultural history and literature, this book identifies a prototypical story of the good life that many Americans employ to make sense of who they are, who they have been, and who they will be in the future. The central theme in this story is redemption - the deliverance from suffering to a positive status or outcome. Empirical research suggests that highly generative American adults are much more likely than their less generative counterparts to construe their lives as tales of redemption. Redemptive life stories promote psychological well-being, physical health, and the adult's commitment to making a positive contribution to society. But stories of redemption are as much cultural texts as they are individual psychological constructions. From the spiritual autobiographies composed by the Massachusetts Bay Puritans to the most recent episodes of the Oprah Winfrey Show, common scripts for the redemptive self may be found in religious accounts of conversion and atonement, the rags-to-riches stories of the American dream, and canonical cultural narratives about personal liberation, freedom, and recovery. The book examines the psychological and cultural dynamics of redemptive life narratives, including the role of American religion and self-help as sources for the construction of life stories and the broad similarities, as well as the striking differences in how African-American and Euro-American adults construct redemptive stories of the self. For all their psychological and cultural power, redemptive life stories sometimes reveal important limitations in American identity. For example, some versions of the redemptive self underscore the naïve expectation that suffering will always be overcome and the arrogance of seeing one's own life as the living out of a personal manifest destiny.
The rich and diverse contributions to this volume span a wide variety of disciplines, from psychology and philosophy to neuroscience, by some of the most influential scholars in the emerging science of personal wisdom. As such, it is a collection of essential readings and the first publication to integrate both the spiritual and pragmatic dimensions of personal wisdom.
The content of the book goes beyond speculative theory to present a wealth of scientific research currently under way in this expanding field. It also describes numerous promising methods now being deployed in the quest for scientific knowledge of the elusive, yet critical, phenomenon of personal wisdom. The book is an excellent introduction to the field for novice researchers as well as a stimulating and enlightening resource for established experts. Its broad appeal makes it a vital addition to the libraries of academics and practitioners in many disciplines, from developmental psychology to gerontology and from philosophy to contemplative religious traditions such as Buddhism.