Research Design and Data Analysis
Data Collection and Procedure
This project is a part of the cross-cultural wisdom study co-led by Dr. Michael Ferrari (Univ. of Toronto) and Dr. Monika Ardelt (Univ. of Florida). This multinational project contains both qualitative and quantitative data from 500 participants in the U.S., Canada, Ukraine, China, and Serbia (50 young adults [age 21-30] and 50 older adults [65+] in each country). For this term project, I used American data which has 50 older adults (50% women) and 50 younger adults (50% women). Older adults have a relatively high educational background and were recruited from adult retirement communities, adult education programs within the University of Florida, and among recently retired faculty except in philosophy or religion. Younger adults were recruited among current or former university students, except for current or former students in philosophy or religion.
All participants were recruited through a convenience and snowball sampling, stratified by gender and age. Participants were met for a single session lasting about 2 hours. Using a semi-structured interview guide, participants were first asked about their own lives, most important events and memories that helped them to be the current person, ideal exemplars of wisdom in both their daily lives and history, how wisdom might be attained, and what wisdom means to the respondent. The semi-structured interview was audiotaped and then transcribed verbatim.
After the semi-structured interviews, a standardized survey was conducted. The questionnaire consists of demographic items, general attitudes and behavior (including wisdom characteristics, mastery, and purpose in life), general well-being, satisfaction with life, and fundamental values. For the project, I used 20 American interviews consisted of top 10 wisdom scorers and bottom 10 wisdom scorers measured by 3 Dimensional Wisdom Scale (3D-WS) developed by Dr. Ardelt.
Design and Measurement
This study uses a mixed-method design that seeks to coordinate both qualitative and quantitative measures of wisdom characteristics that the respondents described as of wisdom nominees in their daily life. Structural codes and thematic codes are constructed based on the pre-structured survey questions and in-depth interviews respectively. Structural codes include demographic questions which contain educational attainment (both years and degrees), occupation (previous or current, duration, hobbies or skills, etc.), ethnicity, gender, religion, birth place, marital status, etc., and psychometric assessments of wisdom and quality of life, such as, the Foundational Value Scale (FVS), 3-Dimensional Wisdom Scale (3D-WS), NCHS General Well-Being Composite Scales, and Satisfaction with Life Scale (SWLS).
The FVS (Jason et al, 2001) was developed from a wisdom study where researchers asked participants to name the wisest living person that they know (whether they had met the person or not) and to provide an episode in which this person was wise. They also asked to describe how this person got to be wise and how this person had affected or influenced their life. From the pool of answers, Jason and colleagues (2001) came up with the list of 23 wisdom attributes. This instrument uses a 5-point Likert-type scale (1= not at all, 5=definitely) for the two main theme questions; 1) how much does each attribute [listed below] describe a person who has wisdom (wisdom nominee); 2) how much is each of these attributes true of yourself? I used the wisdom nominee theme for the comparison between top scores and bottom wisdom scores on five subcategories from the list. Harmony, for instance, includes openness, positive self-esteem, gratitude and appreciation, purpose in life, life experiences and underlying unity in life, coping capacity with uncertainty, and good judgment. Warmth contains animation (rapture, joy, hope, and happiness), compassion and warmth for others, humor, being in the present, and kindness including pro-social behaviors and attitude.
Ardelt’s (2003; 2005) 3D-WS identifies 3 distinct factors of wisdom (cognition, affect, reflection) in lay people’s (elderly, more specifically) coping with difficult life circumstances in the midst of transitions and losses. From analyzing the life narratives and stories of elderly people, Ardelt (2005) recognizes that wisdom is not just a product of longevity and intelligence, but an amalgam of life vicissitudes and constant endeavors to generating a solid stance and positive attitudes toward life events by living and learning from it. This instrument also uses 5 point Likert-type scale (1=strongly agree, 5=strongly disagree) on three dimensions (14 items for cognition, 12 for reflection, and 13 for affect) and mean values of each and overall are used. The SWLS is a short, 5-item instrument designed to measure general evaluation of one’s lives (see Pavot and Diener, 1993 for a detailed description of psychometric properties of the scale).
Adapted from Bluck and Gluck (2004), qualitative interview data covers personal life stories, wonder experience, ideal exemplars of wisdom (wisest person in personal life), personal wisdom experiences, historical exemplars of wisdom, and personal wisdom definition. The coding followed the order of the interview questions so as to function as major themes in their cross-cultural or culture specific wisdom study. By doing so, between- and within-themes analyses can be possible. For instance, I apply within-theme approach for this project by focusing on a specific theme (e.g., ideal exemplars of wisdom in person and the reasons why the respondents nominated them as the wisest person that they have known of in person). With better understanding on this theme, I can expand in ease the scope of investigation to, for instance, their life history and wonder experience as well as to their personal definition of wisdom and historical figures they nominated as the wisest.
This usage of between- and within-themes analysis is critical to examine the sequential map of wisdom development by which I can investigate whether there exists a consistency in social network nodes (e.g., kin group vs. nonkin group in both wisdom nominees and wonder experience) and wisdom characteristics throughout the life course and if so, how differently people in this category develop their wisdom definition in comparison to people with increased limitations due to lifelong accumulation of self-absorption, negativity, pursuit of instant gratification, and a lack of continuous, long-term social supports and guidance.
Figure2. Wisdom Development Sequence Map
Data Analysis
MAXQDA 10, Excel, SPSS 13, and UCInet 6 were used in collaborating each other in order to, first, come up with top 10 and bottom 10 wisdom groups; second, compare differences and their significances in variables I am interested; third, draw both wisdom nominee characteristics and personal wisdom definitions according to top 10 and bottom 10 groups; and finally, illustrate and conduct the relational analysis, cluster analysis, correspondence analysis, and centrality comparisons, using coded wisdom characteristics of top 10 and bottom 10 group.
In order to investigate how differently a high score group and a low score group describe the characteristics of wisdom nominees in their daily life and personal definition of wisdom (e.g., a high score group might show consistently that more affective and reflective characteristics are ranked higher in their centrality and frequency, playing a sort of brokerage role with cognitive characteristics, whereas a low wisdom score group could choose more cognitive characteristics than affective and reflective ones as descriptors of wisdom nominees they have known of in person), I came up with top 10 and bottom 10 wisdom scores measured by 3D-WS.
Figure3. Age Cohort Proportion in Wisdom Score
As Figure 3 shows, old participants were obviously taking a major portion in top 10 group (8 older adults vs. 2 younger adults) and its dominancy increases as the range extends to top 30 (28 vs. 12). On the other hand, 7 out of 10 people in the bottom group are younger adults and it goes up to 19 out of 30 bottom group.
Considering the small sample size (20 interviews in total) with normality concern, independency of two comparison groups (top 10 vs. bottom 10), and measurement characteristics (the data represent a rank ordering of observations, which is ordinal instead of interval), I used a nonparametric test methodology. More specifically, Mann-Whitney U Test was conducted for testing the differences (median, instead of mean) between two independent group samples.
UCInet and MAXQDA software was used to come up with two relational graphs of the wisdom characteristics of people from each group. The correspondence analysis (2 mode matrix – actor by codes: transposed) illustrates how the wisdom characteristics are clustered together showing distinct similarities and dissimilarities among the different wisdom score groups. Two network graphs show relational structure of the wisdom characteristics of people in different groups. It shows there are numbers of different sets of items playing out central positions or brokerage roles in relation with other characteristics. With having a visual manuscript of dynamic relations of wisdom characteristics in two extreme wisdom groups, I, lastly, conducted centrality analysis by using UCInet which provides centrality figures in degree, Eigenvector, and betweenness in order to distinguish main players among wisdom characteristics and compare the differences between the top and bottom 10 group.
Results
Participants Characteristics
Table 1 provides detailed comparative mean and median data between top 10 and bottom 10 wisdom scorers and its significant difference in variables, such as, life satisfaction, subjective health, the FVS wisdom scores (harmony, warmth, intelligence, nature, spirit), 3D-WS scores (cognitive, reflective, affective), and socio-demographic factors, such as, education year and a number of children.
A Wilcoxon rank-sum test indicated that top 10 reports higher life satisfaction (M = 6.06, Mdn = 6, s = 0.67, W = 57.5, p = .000) and better subjective health (M = 2.51, Mdn = 2.5, s = 0.39, W = 73.5, p = .015) in significant levels than bottom 10 people (life satisfaction; M = 4.08, Mdn = 4.3, s = 1.02, subjective health; M = 2.00, Mdn = 2, s = 0.44). It indicates that people in higher wisdom score might have positive association with higher life satisfaction and wellbeing in contrast with people with lower wisdom score.
The detailed attributes support this premise in that both harmony (M = 4.7, Mdn = 4.8, s = 0.33, W = 81, p = .075) and warmth (M = 4.51, Mdn = 4.6, s = 0.63, W = 77.5, p = .035) show top 10 has better appreciation on these attributes as more necessary for wisdom development than bottom 10 does. Especially warmth, which includes happiness, hope, joy, compassion and warmth for others, humor, kindness, and being in the present, is relatively stronger indicator of wisdom development for the people in a top 10 wisdom group. They also have significant advantages on all 3D-WS dimensions.
Interestingly, the difference of interview duration seems significantly large between bottom and top 10 groups. Whereas the average minutes of interviews for the top 10 is about 83, it is shorter than 50 minutes for the bottom 10. It might indicate a possible noise and bias from the interview procedure. However, it also can imply that top 10 interviewees had a lot more to say about their life story, wisdom exemplars in history and their life, personal wisdom experience, and personal definition of wisdom.
Wisdom Characteristics
Figure 4 shows the personal definition of wisdom among top 10 and bottom 10. It gives a snapshot of which characteristics are more or less salient than another. For the top 10, learning from experience, experiential knowledge, general knowledge, understanding life and learning from others appear to be more salient than the counterparty in how they defined the wisdom. On the other hand, bottom 10 characteristics can be labeled as personality traits just like I explained in the literature review (i.e., self-determination, self-actualization, self-realization). Knowing how to better your situation, understanding self, more than knowledge, maturity, resiliency, and logical mind are all closely related to self-empowerment focusing more on individuality instead of harmony and warmth.
FiFigure 4. Personal definition of wisdom among top 10 and bottom 10
This distinction becomes more obvious when I compare top 10 characteristics with which bottom 10 doesn’t have. As figure 5 shows, more harmony- and warmth-related traits, such as, perspective-taking, reflection, insights, grateful, open-minded, appreciation and gratitude, humility, tolerance, prosocial behavior, spiritual and religious, harmonious interaction with others, accepting, and most importantly perspective taking are all that top 10 people nominated as their personal definition of wisdom whereas These distinctive features different between top 10 and bottom 10 seem to continue in wisdom nominee characteristics. Figure 6 shows wisdom nominee characteristics reported by two wisdom score groups. For top 10, prosocial behavior, which includes caring, nurturing, helping, and encouraging behaviors, was most frequently mentioned characteristic of whom they nominated as wisest person that they have known of. On the other hand, experiential knowledge and especially advice-giving skills were nominated as wisdom characteristics by bottom 10 people. none of people in bottom 10 recognized.
These distinctive features different between top 10 and bottom 10 seem to continue in wisdom nominee characteristics. Figure 6 shows wisdom nominee characteristics reported by two wisdom score groups. For top 10, prosocial behavior, which includes caring, nurturing, helping, and encouraging behaviors, was most frequently mentioned characteristic of whom they nominated as wisest person that they have known of. On the other hand, experiential knowledge and especially advice-giving skills were nominated as wisdom characteristics by bottom 10 people.
Relational Characteristics
Figure 7 and Figure 8 illustrate how similarity matrix looks like in correspondence diagram and network graphs. These diagrams portray what are the central characteristics that each wisdom group nominated most frequently and, thus, they lead to centrality (a measure of how network structure and position contributes to a node’s importance, Hanneman & Riddle, 2005) comparisons to confirm the different orientation and stance toward wisdom development.
Finally, table 2 confirms what characteristics play major roles in determining personal understanding about wisdom. In bottom 10, decision making ranked a top in degree (how well connected?, a number of nodes adjacent to a given node, Hanneman & Riddle, 2005) (D=.417; Eigenvector=.578; B=.638), followed by knowing how to better your situation (D=.375; E=.646; B=.196), experiential knowledge (D=.333; E=.552; B=.302), and understanding life (D=.208; E=.049; B=.228). The cut-off point for these four top characteristics was 0.2 in degree whereas it was 0.3 in top 10 group. The top 10 group has six top characteristics of which degrees were all higher than 0.3. Among these, learning from experiences was at the top (D=.543; E=.444; B=.377), followed by experiential knowledge (D=.486; E=.471; B=.119), general knowledge (D=.429, E=.432; B=.109), life understanding (D=.429; E=.456; B=.066), perspective-taking (D=.371; E=.397; B=.022), and learning from others (D=.314; E=.316; B=.013).
Taking Betweeness (the extent to which a node lies along the shortest path between every other pair of nodes; a brokerage, Hanneman & Riddle, 2005 and Eigenvector (the extent to which a given node is connected to other well-connected nodes, Hanneman & Riddle, 2005) into consideration, the top 10 has lower score than the bottom 10 in almost all characteristics, indicating that the relationships among all nominated characteristics by top 10 respondents seem condensed with each. Figure 8 supports this interpretation as the majority of characteristics are clustered each other at close proximity except one cluster separated from the aggregated chuck of groups. On the other hand, the relational graph of the bottom 10 looks dispersed and yet key players, such as, decision making, knowing how to better your own situation and experiential knowledge function as bridges for otherwise disjunctive traits.
Discussion
My vision for the argument of the importance and timeliness of “lay wisdom” study was twofold: First, it was to address why our modern society is still urging us to regard wisdom as an ultimate developmental status that we are supposed to obtain and master? Why do we still have vague conceptualization of wisdom anyway? In order to have a better understanding about this paradoxical world of wisdom, historical context of personal life story, and its relations with wisdom development deserves much timely attention;
Secondly, I envisioned that the increased capacity of self-awareness and human growth, and the reevaluation of wisdom as virtuous attributes for common goods and social justice should gain more attention in our current liquid, ambivalent postmodern society. In this regard, I proposed that the subjective and yet universal meanings and values of wisdom could only be found in personal narratives of life story and experiences.
As a part of the multinational wisdom project, this study sought to illustrate and clarify how and to what extent wisdom characteristics are understood differently between top 10 and bottom 10 wisdom score groups in terms of their wisdom nominees in person and their own version of wisdom definition. The top 10 group is more likely to be satisfactory of their own lives and health conditions than the bottom 10. Among many different types of wisdom attributes, life balance, harmony and warmth are the most distinguishable traits for the top 10 group from the bottom 10 group. The bottom group showed more individuality-oriented attributes as wisdom characteristics, whereas people in the top 10 seemed to appreciate the virtue of learning from experiences and others and perspective takings more than self-centered personality development.
The present study, in conclusion, underscores differences across the two wisdom group settings in wisdom nominee characteristics and personal wisdom definition. My hope for the future studies lies in potential benefits from my holistic approach to the relationship between life story/wonder and wisdom in practice as they are collaborating with each other as principal parts for the development of human virtuous natures. Wonder glues new causal meanings with excitement and curiosity onto once separated, dispersed parts of lived memories and human interactions. Wisdom cements humility, composure, and regulation upon the emotional excitement and concurrence of the experience of wonder. Therefore, its mutuality deserves much more inquiry and investigation.
Lastly, I hope the present study provides enough needs and interests for continuing multidisciplinary efforts to finding the laws of life [the universality of the roots of positive character development] by taking it into cross-cultural sphere and investigating in which circumstances and social relations good human nature develops and maintains throughout the life course and manifests beyond culture.
In this regard, the study of lay wisdom will help us tune in 1) the significant contributions that a new sociological perspective can make cross culturally in addition to a dominant psychological domain in wisdom study; 2) the importance of social relations as a depository of memories and events that can outrun any life stage and specific culture, waiting to be rediscovered and reevaluated; 3) the role of wonder as emotional action and reaction that can lay out a bridge for us to go back to the depository and come out with different perspective on the present world and future life; and 4) the important universal family values and social virtues with regard to having elderly members in both individual and social sphere.
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Mean (SD) Median Mean (SD) Median Mann-Whitney U Wilcoxon W Z Sig. (1-tailed)
Life Satisfaction 4.08 (1.02) 4.3 6.06 (0.67) 6 2.5 57.5 -3.608 0.000
Subjective Health 2.00 (.0.44) 2 2.51 (0.39) 2.5 18.5 73.5 -2.421 0.015
FVS Wisdom
Harmony 4.44 (0.31) 4.5 4.70 (0.33) 4.8 26 81 -1.828 0.075
Warmth 4.10 (0.40) 4.1 4.51 (0.63) 4.6 22.5 77.5 -2.099 0.035
Intelligence 4.23 (0.57) 4.3 4.18 (0.81) 4.2 49.5 104.5 -0.039 0.971
Nature 3.46 (0.47) 3.5 3.63 (0.88) 3.8 40.5 95.5 -0.726 0.481
Spirit 3.05 (1.21) 3 3.60 (1.65) 4 37.5 92.5 -0.966 0.353
3D-WS
Cognitive 3.18 (0.28) 3.14 4.62 (0.33) 4.68 0 55 -3.791 0.000
Reflective 3.30 (0.38) 3.42 4.60 (0.21) 4.58 0 55 -3.785 0.000
Affective 3.02 (0.46 2.96 4.23 (0.24) 4.27 3 58 -3.554 0.000
Socio-Demographics
Education year 17.05 (1.86) 17 19.00 (4.81) 18 36 91 -1.075 0.315
# of Children 0.70 (0.95) 0 2.30 (1.83) 2 22 77 -2.22 0.035
Elderly only (N: 3 vs. 8)
Education year 17.50 (3.28) 17 19.50 (5.29) 19
# of children 2.00 (0) 2 2.88 (1.55) 2.5
Age 67.67 (3.79) 66 70.50 (6.05) 68.5
Interview Duration 48.67 (9.81) 43 82.88 (26.90) 88
You have done a stellar job in expressing the dynamic elements of wisdom
and what it takes to be wise in today’s society.