Wisdom In the West and the East
In Western culture where people are motivated toward independent from others while self-empowering at the same time, wisdom is self-based, personal attribute positioned (espoused) as the ultimate stage of human development. Although it is appropriate to say that Western cultures don’t necessarily disregard the importance of relations with others, self control plays extensive roles in mediating the relational harmony or strain. Thus, developing self-mastery in human vicissitudes and increasing knowledge on life, self, and others are all cognition-based ideal of wisdom taking control in their social relations with others.
In Eastern culture, in contrast, people are encouraged toward interdependence and avoiding relational strain and instead making sure the balanced harmony in relations with others. In this self-criticizing culture, people pay more attention and thus get more stress or positive emotions from the extent of the deficit that people have in catching on others’ needs and expectations as a whole.
Does Wisdom Increase with Age?
Borrowing a chapter title from George Vaillant’s (2002) book, Aging Well, the relationship between the development of wisdom and aging summons a question, ‘whose wisdom are we talking about?’ Aging is a biological process that human beings ought to experience without exception. Unlike the destined universality of aging, the definition of wisdom varies depending on who you ask to and where and when you talk about it. Just as Orwell and Perlmutter’s study (1990), people of differing ages find wisdom nominees of various ages ranging, on average, from 50 to 70. The nominees also vary from family members, teachers, friends, or even acquaintances. The variance of wisdom thus can imply that wisdom is deeply embedded in historical and life course context, let alone personal contents in the development of the wisdom over times and experiences. In order words, wisdom development as a process should not be separated from contents that the process interacts with over the life course.
For better understanding of wisdom, it claims the necessity of investigating the mutual constitution of sociality and psyche through cross-cultural [West vs. East] spectrum (Fiske, et al., 1998). Human actions and decision makings are psychological processes which work in conjunction with individual reality. This personal reality is formulated by recurrent episodes in his/her local worlds that personalize the core ideas which in turn play out throughout the decision making processes. This individual reality, moreover, dwells in socio-psychological processes encompassing social customs, norms, practices, media, legal system, language, and institutions, such as, family, school, work, and retirement over the life course, reflecting and promoting the core ideas. The core ideas in this level mean core cultural ideas, such as, what is good, what is moral, what is self, and what is ecological, economic and sociopolitical value of the life course transitions and pathways (Fiske, et al., 1998). Last but not least, this comprehensive interplay of collective reality and psychosocial individuality can only be understood better by examining cross-cultural (i.e., West vs. East) similarities and differences in the core cultural ideas and their interplays with individuals’ local worlds and psychological structures and processes (Fiske, et al., 1998; Kitayama, et al., 2010; Kitayama, Markus, & Kurokawa, 2000).
In Western culture personal control and mastery are valued as critical precedents for the successful aging and therefore wisdom. It makes sense that where the independent and autonomous individuality is a norm, wisdom is regarded as the ultimate stage in human’s positive human development and thus as a target to attain. In this model of sociality and the self popular in modern social psychology and psychosocial developmental studies, wisdom ought to increase with age at least to certain later life stages as life experiences are expected to accumulate. Erickson’s generativity and integrity comes only after middle ages and coping strategies increase with age (Vaillant, 2002).
Advances toward personal growth or toward the ideal outcomes of personality are of main interest and even personal adjustment tends to be understood as an extended effort to maintain the personal growth (Staudinger & Kunzmann, 2005): Individuals are expected to adjust one’s self to meet his/her own expectations and work for the good of self (aging well) rather than the group, the institution, or the nation (Vaillant, 2002; Carstensen, Isaacowitz, & Charles, 1999). With few exceptions, the majority of scientific studies of wisdom tend to apply psychological perspectives focusing merely on wisdom as a psychological capacity in individual worlds. Furthermore, most contemporary social psychological theorizing and empirical studies take the individual person as a given, a naturally isolable analytic category (Fiske, et al., 1998), and, thus, ignore the way the psyche is attuned to cultural meanings, expectations, institutions, relationships, and daily practices,
Whereas wisdom is understood as the highest outcome of self-promotive efforts in Western culture, it lays upon self-criticizing in East Asian culture (Fiske, et al., 1998; Kitayama, et al., 2010; Kitayama, Markus, & Kurokawa, 2000). The focus of life in this culture is the self in relation to others and thus their self-fulfillment should be granted from mutually interdependent relations. Social relationships, roles, norms, and group solidarity are more fundamental and more valued than self-expression. Thus, their psychological processes differ from those of people who predicate their thoughts, feelings, evaluations, plans, and actions on the model of independence. In this culture, people are expected to honor social relations and adjust to meet others’ expectations and work for the good of others. In this regard, wisdom can often times be analogous with sagacity in decision makings that can turn out less intrusive and more harmonious ones.
The interdependent individuals are extensively and constantly expected to conform to norms and to meet collective requirements of social relationships and institutions. From this perspective, an assertive, autonomous, self-centered person is regarded as immature and uncultivated. The maturity, unlike what Vaillant (2002) defined as integrative, spiritual mind that increase with age, develops with self-denying and criticizing of being self-focused while losing interests in the others’ perspective and flexible adaptation to the social requirement of each particular situation. It is not unusual in East Asian countries to see many political and social leaders voluntarily resign for a significant misconduct or immoral actions done by their men (and not even by themselves) for the sake of public acceptance and forgiveness. Wisdom for them pays more attention to the self which is experienced as a relational part of a greater whole rather than as a separate or categorical entity. Also, wisdom for them can be still, if not more, meaningful when it remains unnoticed by others, whereas the self is motivated to discover and identify positively valued internal attributes, including wisdom and ultimately to express it out in Western culture.
In society where the self is encouraged to establish its clear identity and takes charge of life transitions and developmental stages in constant control, wisdom is upward and inbound and therefore strategic, analytic, and exclusive. In contrary, when the self is promoted as wise by finding deficit in them and harmony in relations and sagacity in actions of decision makings and advices, it is downward and outbound and thus reflective, synthetic, and inclusive. Whereas wisdom is a self-enhancing entity in the West, it seeks to eliminate the deficit in the East that the self finds by missing a common, culturally elaborated practice of self-improvement which promotes harmony or unity in the relationship. It simultaneously affirms one’s identity as an interdependent being committed to the shared value of the collective reality and relationship (Fiske, et al., 1998). In this regard, wisdom is less self-promotive and rather more relation-bound, moderate, and self-temperate.
An experimental study found that the strongest predictor of wellbeing and health was personal control in the United States, but the absence of relational strain in Japan (Kitayama, et al., 2010). Humility and modesty are no doubt one of the most needed personality traits in Asian cultural contexts as the self is harmoniously connected to others with minimal strain and tension (Kitayama, et al., 2010; Fiske, et al., 1998). Wisdom becomes more omnipresent instead of scarce over the life course, in this regard, and therefore less challenging. Acknowledging the increasing presence of wisdom with age leads us to be more time-flexible and less tense which otherwise might be gradually more severe with age in the mirage of chasing it. Yes. I believe wisdom increases with age and it makes much more sense in the Eastern culture where wisdom is one to realize in relations and not a hill to occupy in one’s own will.
References
Carstensen, L.L., Isaacowitz, D.M., & Charles, S.T. (1999). Taking time seriously: A theory of socioemotional selectivity. American Psychologist, 54, 165-181.
Fiske, Alan Page., Kitayama, Shinobu., Markus, Hazel Rose., & Nisbett, Richard E.. (1998). In Gilbert, D. T., Fiske, S. T., & Lindzey, G. (Eds.). The handbook of social psychology. Boston: McGraw-Hill. Pp.915-981
Kitayama, S., Karasawa, M., Curhan, K. B., Ryff, C. D., & Markus, H. R. (2010). Independence and interdependence predict health and wellbeing: divergent patterns in the United States and Japan. Frontiers in psychology, 1.
Kitayama, S., Hazel Rose, M., & Masaru, K. (2000). Culture, Emotion, and Well-being: Good Feelings in Japan and the United States. Cognition and Emotion, 14(1), 93.
Staudinger, U. M., & Kunzmann, U. (2005). Special Section – Human Development and Well-Being – Positive Adult Personality Development: Adjustment and/or Growth? European psychologist., 10(4), 320.
Vaillant, G. (2002). Aging well: Surprising guideposts to a happier life from the landmark Harvard Study of Adult Development. Boston, MA: Little, Brown.
