INT’L. J. AGING AND HUMAN DEVELOPMENT, Vol. 77(2) 127-147, 2013

INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES IN WISDOM CONCEPTIONS: RELATIONSHIPS TO GRATITUDE AND WISDOM

SUSANNE KÖNIG JUDITH GLÜCK University of Klagenfurt, Austria

ABSTRACT

Previous research has shown that most laypeople hold one of two typical conceptions of wisdom—a cognitive or an integrative conception. The current study extends previous research by including a qualitative assessment of people’s views of what wisdom is and how it develops, and by relating wisdom conceptions are related to levels of wisdom and gratitude. A sample of 443 young adults rated the relevance of cognitive, reflective, and affective aspects for wisdom. Cluster analyses confirmed the two typical wisdom conceptions: a primarily cognitive view of wisdom and a view emphasizing the integration of cognition, reflection, and affect. The two groups also differed in freely-generated characteristics of wisdom and its development. Additionally, the integrative conception was more frequent in individuals with higher levels of gratitude and wisdom. In sum, laypeople’s conceptions of wisdom vary along similar lines as those of wisdom psychologists.

Wisdom is a highly valued virtue across time and cultures (e.g., Assmann, 1994; Dahlsgard, Peterson, & Seligman, 2005), and often considered as a desirable endpoint of human development (e.g., Baltes & Smith, 1990; Clayton & Birren, 1980). In psychology, the topic has gained in attention over the last 3 decades. Much emphasis has been on studying laypeople’s views of wisdom (Clayton & Birren, 1980; Glück, Bischof, & Siebenhüner, 2012; Hershey & Farrell, 1997; 127 Ó 2013, Baywood Publishing Co., Inc. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.2190/AG.77.2.c http://baywood.com

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Holliday & Chandler, 1986; Jason, Reichler, King, Madsen, Camacho, & Marchese, 2001; Sternberg, 1985; for a review, see Bluck & Glück, 2005) and on developing psychological models and measures of wisdom (for overviews of current work, see Glück, 2013; Staudinger & Glück, 2011). Both research lines show much convergence, but also some differences. Agreement exists that wisdom is a highly complex construct encompassing cognitive, emotional, and motivational aspects (Bluck & Glück, 2005; Staudinger & Glück, 2011). However, there are quite fundamental discrepancies in how certain aspects are weighted. Specifically, both laypeople’s and experts’ views are divided concerning the question whether a rich knowledge base is perceived as a sufficient criterion for wisdom (Glück & Bluck, 2011; Takahashi & Overton, 2005). In terms of psychological conceptualizations, scholars following a cognitionoriented approach have defined wisdom, for example, as expertise in the fundamental pragmatics of life (Berlin wisdom model, e.g., Baltes & Smith, 1990; Baltes & Staudinger, 2000), or as the application of tacit knowledge to real-life problems (balance theory of wisdom; Sternberg, 1998, 2001). Other scholars, in contrast, based their definitions on personality research and focused on the integration of cognition with personality and affect. Wisdom in this vein has been defined, for example, as a personality characteristic with cognitive, reflective, and affective dimensions (Ardelt, 2003, 2004, 2011), or as final stage of self-transcendence (Le & Levenson, 2005; Levenson, Jennings, Aldwin, & Shiraishi, 2005). Hence, among both laypeople and experts, conceptions that focus on wisdom as a cognitive construct can be distinguished from conceptions that additionally include non-cognitive aspects, such as personality or life attitudes (Glück & Bluck, 2011; Takahashi & Overton, 2005). Concerning psychological models of wisdom, Staudinger and Glück (2011) recently suggested to differentiate between models of general wisdom (insight into life in general, not necessarily obtained through first-person experience with life challenges) and personal wisdom (insight into one’s own life, typically obtained through successful mastering of crises in one’s own life). This differentiation reflects a similar perspective and comes to the same classification, but on a different basis: the distinction between general and personal wisdom focuses on the type of knowledge a person has acquired and the way it has been acquired, rather than on the question whether wisdom goes beyond knowledge. Hence, in the following, the terminology “general vs. personal wisdom” is used for psychological wisdom models, and “cognitive vs. integrative conceptions” for lay theories of wisdom. The present study further investigates individual differences in lay conceptions of wisdom. Participants gave free accounts of characteristics of wisdom and its development, rated a number of cognitive, reflective, and affective characteristics for their relevance to wisdom, and completed scale measures of gratitude and wisdom. Following Glück and Bluck (2011), we first cluster-analyzed the ratings of cognitive, reflective, and affective characteristics, replicating the cognitive and integrative conceptions of wisdom. Then, we related cluster membership to

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content categories for the freely generated characteristics of wisdom and its development. Thus, the present study extends Glück and Bluck (2011) by including a qualitative approach to ensure that the full spectrum of characteristics people associate with wisdom are taken into account. Additionally, we related wisdom conceptions to age, gender, trait gratitude, and wisdom itself (operationalized as self-transcendence). It seems interesting to study whether people with different conceptions of wisdom also differ in actual levels of wisdom for several reasons. First, people’s conceptions of wisdom are probably related to how they think about the world, life, and themselves. People whose conceptions of wisdom include aspects like empathy and concern for others may generally be more aware of their interrelatededness with other people, which is related to both gratitude and personal wisdom (Ardelt, 2003, 2005; Emmons & Kneezel, 2005; Le & Levenson, 2005; McCullough, Kilpatrick, Emmons, & Larson, 2001; McCullough & Tsang, 2004; Solomon, 2004). In the following, we first review the existing literature on subjective wisdom theories in more detail, with an emphasis on core characteristics and individual differences.

LAYPEOPLE’S CONCEPTIONS OF WISDOM Summarizing the evidence on lay conceptions of wisdom, Bluck and Glück (2005) found that there is a clear common core of five characteristics that people consider to be essential to wisdom: A cognitive basis includes aspects of both fluid and crystallized intelligence, but the emphasis is on the latter (life knowledge and experience). Insight refers to the ability and motivation to clearly understand complex life problems, and to search for new/additional information when needed. A reflective attitude includes the motivation to think deeply about oneself, other people, and the world, as well as a self-critical attitude that includes unobtrusiveness and introspectiveness. Concern for others is the willingness and ability to understand other people’s perspectives and feelings, including empathy, kindness, and respect toward others. Finally, real world skills refer to practical skills that allow wisdom to be manifested in real life, including good judgment, advice-giving, and social skills. In sum, these five components reflect cognitive, reflective, and affective components of wisdom (Ardelt, 2003; Clayton & Birren, 1980). Despite this consensus, however, individual differences have been found. Lay perceptions of wisdom vary as a function of chronological age (Clayton & Birren, 1980; Glück & Bluck, 2011; Glück, Bluck, Baron, & McAdams, 2005), profession (Sternberg, 1985), culture (Takahashi & Bordia, 2000; Takahashi & Overton, 2002; Yang, 2001), and gender (Aldwin, 2009; Glück et al., 2012; Glück, Strasser, & Bluck, 2009). Concerning the distinction of cognitive and integrative conceptions of wisdom, integrative conceptions were found to be more prevalent in women and older participants (Glück & Bluck, 2011) and in “Eastern” as compared to “Western” samples (Takahashi & Overton, 2005).

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CONCEPTIONS OF HOW WISDOM DEVELOPS Most laypeople (e.g., Bluck & Glück, 2004, 2005; Glück & Bluck, 2011; Glück et al., 2005) and scholars (e.g., Ardelt, 2005; Baltes, Staudinger, Maercker, & Smith, 1995; Kinnier, Tribbensee, Rose, & Vaughan, 2001; Kramer, 2000) agree that life experience, especially the experience and successful mastering of difficult challenges, play a role in the development of wisdom. However, models of general and personal wisdom differ in the emphasis they put on first-person experience with difficult life challenges. For example, in the general-wisdom tradition, Baltes and co-workers (e.g., Baltes, Glück, & Kunzmann, 2002; Baltes & Staudinger, 2000) proposed that a coalition of three main factors is conducive for the attainment of wisdom: person-related factors such us intelligence and certain personality characteristics, expertise-specific factors such as mentorship and experience, and contextual factors such as age, profession, and historical period. Concerning personal wisdom, Glück and Bluck (2013) suggested that life-changing experiences are the main catalyst of the development of wisdom. Wisdom is fostered if the individual has sufficient levels of certain personal resources to deal with, reflect upon, and integrate a challenge. Generally, models of personal wisdom (e.g., Aldwin & Levenson, 2001; Ardelt, 2004, 2011) view personal challenges as more important than models of general wisdom (e.g., Baltes & Staudinger, 2000). However, up to now, few studies have explored the development of wisdom in the context of real life (see, however, Ardelt, 2005; Kinnier et al., 2001). Concerning laypeople’s views of how wisdom develops, the pattern is similar. Glück and Bluck (2011) found that cognitive and integrative conceptions of wisdom are related to views about the development of wisdom: while participants with a cognitive view put most weight on learning from experiences and from wise individuals, those with an integrative view rated highly emotional personal life experiences as equally important. In addition to relating conceptions of wisdom to age and gender, we were interested in relating them to relevant personality characteristics. Specifically, we investigated whether levels of gratitude and wisdom are related to laypeople’s conceptions of wisdom. Gratitude is often considered to be a highly interpersonal emotion (Emmons, 2004; Emmons & Crumpler, 2000; McCullough et al., 2001; Roberts, 2004), and reflection over one’s own life is seen as important for realizing one’s embededdness in the world and dependency on other people (Solomon, 2004). Therefore, we expected participants with an integrative conception of wisdom to show higher levels of gratitude than those with a cognitive conception. We also expected participants with an integrative conception to rate gratitude as more important to wisdom. As wisdom, especially if conceptualized as selftranscendence (e.g., Le & Levenson, 2005; Levenson et al., 2005), also represents a general view of oneself as interrelated with others and the world, we expected it to be related to an integrative conception of wisdom too.

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PREDICTIONS To summarize our predictions, in line with Glück and Bluck (2011), we expected to find two predominant clusters in laypeople’s views of wisdom, representing a cognitive and an integrative conception. Additionally, we expected to validate the two conceptions through participants’ responses to the open questions about what wisdom is and how it develops. Specifically, we assumed that participants with an integrative view of wisdom would more often mention socio-emotional and self-related aspects of wisdom. Finally, as mentioned above, we expected participants with an integrative conception to show higher levels of gratitude and wisdom. METHOD Participants In 2010, all students at the University of Klagenfurt, Austria, were invited per e-mail to complete an online questionnaire about conceptions of wisdom, sources of gratitude, and levels of wisdom and gratitude. In total, 527 students participated. However, 83 participants had to be excluded because relevant data were missing. The final sample thus consisted of 443 students, about half of them (47.4%) from the field of psychology. The mean age of the participants was 28.2 years (Mdn = 25, SD = 10.27, Min = 18, Max = 69), and 77.7% were female. The response rate is relatively low (below 10%, which is typical for student surveys at our university) and the sample is somewhat selective: of all students at Alpen-Adria-Universität Klagenfurt, 62.5% are female and only 12.1% are students of psychology (of those, 77.2% are female; see http://www.uni-klu.ac.at/ studabt/downloads/tab_1a_12W.pdf). Thus, psychology students are strongly overrepresented in the sample, likely because they are more interested in participating in psychological studies than other students are. As Glück and Bluck (2011) found that participants below age 30 were more likely to hold a cognitive view of wisdom, we divided the sample into two age groups: Participants younger than 30 years (71.8%), and participants aged 30 and above (28.9%). Procedure and Measures The first part of the online questionnaire assessed participants’ conceptions of wisdom. They were asked about public figures they considered to be wise, characteristics they associated with wise persons, and their views of how a person can achieve wisdom. Additionally, they were presented with a list of 53 concepts and characteristics to be rated concerning their relevance to wisdom, and a scale measure of wisdom. The second part of the online survey contained questions concerning what participants were grateful for and why, as well as measures of trait gratitude. Completion of the questionnaire took about 30 minutes.

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Materials and Measures For an overview of open ended questions and a detailed description of the used scales and items, see Table 1. Only measures relevant for the present study are included. Scale Measures of Wisdom and Gratitude

To measure wisdom, we chose a revised version of the Adult SelfTranscendence Inventory (ASTI; Levenson et al., 2005) that we received from the scale authors. The revised ASTI is a self-report measure consisting of 34 items, 25 of which assess facets of self-transcendence. The scale was translated into German and back-translated by native German and English speakers to optimize the translation. We selected the ASTI for this study from the available measures of wisdom for substantive as well as empirical reasons. Substantively, our hypotheses about wisdom and gratitude are most compatible with a conception of wisdom that includes interrelatedness to others and the world, with the self being both in giving and in receiving roles. This notion is better covered by Levenson et al.’s (2005) conception of wisdom as self-transcendence than by the conceptions underlying other available wisdom scales (Ardelt, 2003; Webster, 2007). Empirically, we recently investigated relationships between four different measures of wisdom (Glück, König, Naschenweng, Redzanowski, Dorner, Skasser, et al., in press) and found that the ASTI had the highest correlations with all the other scales and most subscales, suggesting that it taps variance that cuts across all wisdom measures. With respect to gratitude, we used three different measures. The Gratitude Resentment and Appreciation Scale (GRAT) (Watkins, Woodward, Stone, & Kolts, 2003) measures three different aspects of gratitude—Sense of Abundance, Simple Appreciation, and Appreciation of Others—whereas the Gratitude Questionnaire-6 (GQ6) (McCullough, Emmons, & Tsang, 2002) is a brief sixitem measure of general gratitude. Cronbach’s alphas for the measures from the current study are reported in Table 1. We additionally included an item that measures how often participants feel grateful in their everyday life. Selection of Cognitive, Reflective, and Affective Items

The list of 53 characteristics that participants rated for their relevance to wisdom had originally been created for a different purpose, and it contained wisdomrelated but also neutral items (such as ambition, courage, or health). The wisdomrelated items were derived from research on laypeople’s conceptions of wisdom (e.g., Bluck & Glück, 2005), and current psychological wisdom models (e.g., Ardelt, 2003, 2004, 2011; Baltes & Staudinger, 2000; Webster, 2003, 2007). Out of the 53 wisdom characteristics, those clearly representing cognitive, reflective,

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Table 1. Overview of Measures (in the Same Order as in the Questionnaire) Measures

Description of Scales and Items

I. Wisdom Wisdom Characteristics

Open question “Can you think of characteristics typically associated with people who are considered to be wise?”; (min = 2, max = 5)

Aspects of Wisdoma

Relevance of cognitive, reflective, affective aspects, and gratitude to wisdom; 5-point rating scale from 0 (”not important”) to 4 (”very important to wisdom”)

Adult Self-Transcendence Inventorya (ASTI) (Levenson et al., 2005)

Scale of 25 items

Development of Wisdom

Open question

II. Gratitude Gratitude Resentment and Appreciation Scaleb (GRAT) (Watkins et al., 2003)

Wisdom as culminating point of self-transcendence (e.g., “I often engage in quiet contemplation”; a = .78); assessed through a 4-point rating scale ranging from 0 (”strongly disagree”) to 3 (”strongly agree”); a = .78 How can a person achieve wisdom? (open-ended free narrative)

44 items and 3 scales; Sense of Abundance (17 items): Absence of feelings of deprivation (e.g., “I think that life handed me a short stick”; a = .91) Simple Appreciation (14 items): Gratitude toward simple pleasures (e.g., “I love to sit and watch the snow fall”; a = .89) Appreciation of Others (10 items): Gratitude toward people (e.g., “I’m really thankful for friends and family”; a = .75) 5-point rating scale from 1 (”strongly disagree”) to 5 (”strongly agree”)

Gratitude Questionnaire-6 (GQ6) (McCullough et al., 2002)

Unidimensional (6 items) Frequency, intensity, span, and density of gratitude in individual’s lives (e.g., “I am grateful to a wide variety of people”; a = .67) 5-point rating scale from 1 (”strongly disagree”) to 5 (”strongly agree”)

Gratitude-Frequency Item

Frequency of gratitude experiences in participant’s daily lives (”How often do you feel grateful”); from 1 (”never”) to 5 (”very often”)

aFor analysis, scales were recoded from 1 to 5, respectively 1-4. bItem 23 of the original GRAT has been excluded as Thanksgiving is not celebrated as

insensitively in Austria.

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and affective characteristics were selected for the cluster analysis. The main goal of this selection was to include only items that would be clearly indicative of one and only one of the three domains. Three wisdom researchers from our team independently selected relevant characteristics from the list, and all characteristics selected by all three researchers were included. Those selected by two researchers were discussed until an agreement was reached. We explicitly did not consider participants’ important ratings of the characteristics for these ratings because we wanted to take a theory-based and not a data-driven approach. Knowledge, intelligence, prudence, and problem-solving skills were considered as representing the cognitive component (a = .67). The affective component included empathy, helpfulness, love, and orientation toward the common good (a = .70). The reflective component included reflection and insight (a = .64). A principal factor analysis with varimax rotation of the above mentioned items confirmed the three components. Together they explained 58.1% of the total variance, with factor loadings ranging from .54 to .87. Coded Variables Responses to each open-ended question were coded using inductive qualitative content analysis (Mayring, 2007). In a first, exploratory step, the first author and another experienced wisdom researcher identified and refined content categories in a third of the responses, following the detailed protocol proposed by Mayring (2007). When the category definitions were sufficiently reliable, they coded all the responses. A randomly selected subset of 200 responses was then independently coded by another trained coder; coder agreements are presented in the following. Characteristics of Wisdom and How It Develops

The characteristics that participants associated with wisdom were inductively grouped into 14 categories (see Table 2); Cohen’s Kappa for inter-coder agreement was .86. Concerning participants’ free descriptions of how wisdom develops 13 content-categories were identified (see Table 3); Kappa was .79. Thus, participants’ accounts of wisdom and its development were not sufficiently described by the distinction of cognitive, reflective, and affective aspects. RESULTS First, we report descriptive statistics of the three wisdom components, and results of the hierarchical cluster analysis. Then, we analyze cluster differences concerning categories of what wisdom is and how it develops, and scale measures of gratitude and wisdom.

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Table 2. Categories and Examples of Characteristics Associated with Wise People (in Descending Order) Categories

Examples

Cognitive Abilities (301)

Intelligence; ability to understand complex issues; educated; knowledgeable, problem-solving

Concern for others (203)

Empathetic; understanding; warmhearted; good listener; fairness; social competencies

Life experience (188)

Life experiences; being old; having a lot of life experience; having faced difficult challenges

Openness (138)

Openness; tolerance; flexibility; interests

Reflection (106)

Reflectiveness; to reconsider; being able to learn from one’s own mistakes

Balance & Inner Harmony (101)

Inner stability; patience; inner peace

Positive Attitude & Humor (63)

Humor; cheerfulness; optimism; life satisfaction; positive life attitude

Authenticity & Honesty (42)

Being transparent; being direct and consistent; honesty

Modesty & Humility (33)

Being cautious and modest; non-arrogant; nonegocentrism; humble

Charisma (26)

Charisma; stable personality; strong aura

Creativity & Critical Thinking (25)

Spontaneity; being inventive and ready-witted; being critical; to find new solutions; to go against the tide

Morality/Values (21)

Moral sensitiveness; living up to certain values and ideas; being ethically right

Transcendence (17)

Spirituality; religiosity; connection to nature; perceiving higher coherences; seeing the whole

Other (38)

Timeless; widely recognized; famous; environmental; decidedness; discipline

Note: Number in parentheses represents the number of participants who mentioned at least one characteristic of the respective category.

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Table 3. Categories and Examples Concerning the Development of Wisdom (in Descending Order) Categories

Examples

Life experience/Age (235) Wisdom develops through a lot of life experience, thus, age is probably also relevant Life experience and its Life experience and mastering of difficult events accumulation over the life span Openness (153) A positive and interested attitude toward new experiences, ideas, and perspectives

Wisdom develops through openness to new experiences Being tolerance of others views and opinions Cosmopolitanism

Reflection (137)

Self-reflection: To reflect a lot over oneself; to learn from one’s own mistakes and experiences The motivation to question and analyze onself as well General reflection: To learn from mistakes and experience of others, to deliberate a lot about as others and the world the world Concerns for Others (123) Being empathetic Unlimited love for other people A positive, caring attitude Fairness toward others and/or humankind at large Lifelong Learning (108) The motivation to learn and grow throughout the life course Cognition (94) Cognitive aspects and predecessors of wisdom (fluid and crystallized intelligence)

Wisdom develops through the willingness to broaden one’s horizon concerning all aspects of life Willingness to develop oneself further Factual and general knowledge, education Intelligence Problem-solving skills

Self-respect and self-esteem: Love for oneself, satisfaction with oneself Awareness, acceptance, Non-egoism: Not being self-centered; modesty and integration of positive Rich self-knowledge: Rich knowledge about oneself; as well as negative facets to accept good and bad characteristics of oneself of the self Relation to Oneself (90)

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Table 3. (Cont’d.) Categories

Examples

Positive Attitude (90)

Acceptance of one’s own life as lived Through a certain life attitude and lifestyle Acceptance of the actual circumstances

“Thinking positively,” accepting things that cannot be changed and finding some food in them Transcendence (53) Perceiving one’s self and life as part of a larger whole, feeling connected to others, nature, or God Calmness & Patience (46) Patience and calmness, in life in general as well as in difficult situations Mentoring (34) Learning from others and teaching others

An individual can achieve wisdom through the knowledge that he is part of a greater whole Faith and spirituality

Inner calmness and mental balance Through time and patience to mature

Mentor: To learn from other people; to have wise examples Guidance: Giving advice to others; to guide others in difficult situations

Not or Only Partly Influencable (18)

Either one is wise or not Wisdom is only partly influencable

Other (36)

Health Certain personality characteristics To strive for values

Note: Number in parentheses represents the number of participants who mentioned the specific category at least once.

Cognitive, Reflective, and Affective Wisdom Components For all analysis, scales were recoded into 1–5. Table 4 shows the means and standard deviations of the items representing the cognitive, reflective, and affective component of wisdom. The two reflective items, that is, insight and reflection, had the highest mean ratings, prudence and orientation toward the common good had the lowest (below the midpoint of the scale).

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Table 4. Means and Frequencies for the Wisdom Items Scale value frequency Mean (SD)

1

2

3

4

5

Cognitive Component Knowledge Intelligence Prudence Problem-solving skills

3.79 (0.67) 4.15 (0.89) 4.00 (0.95) 2.94 (1.02) 4.09 (0.94)

3 6 8 4

17 21 38 28

78 100 84 69

158 158 157 166

187 158 156 176

Reflective Component Insight Reflection

4.32 (0.75) 4.29 (0.87) 4.35 (0.89)

6 3

10 17

54 55

151 115

222 253

Affective Component Empathy Helpfulness Love Orientation toward the common good

3.59 (0.77) 4.00 (1.00) 3.85 (1.03) 3.79 (1.18)

8 10 21

27 35 50

93 105 19

145 154 123

170 139 159

2.71 (1.05)

14

40

122

153

114

Cluster Analysis In order to identify reliable subgroups of wisdom conceptions, a hierarchical cluster analysis using Ward’s method was conducted with the means of the cognitive, reflective, and affective component. A clear two-factor solution was suggested. To ensure the cluster membership resulting of the cluster analysis, a cross-validation procedure was conducted (see Milligan & Cooper, 1987). The sample was randomly split into two subsamples, and hierarchical cluster analysis was performed for each sample. Then, the resulting means of the hierarchical clusters were used as starting values for a k-means cluster analysis in both subsamples. This analysis was performed twice in each subsample. In the first analysis, the means of the respective sample were used as starting values, in the second analysis, the means of the other sample were used. To assess the similarity of the cluster structures obtained in the two analyses, cluster membership of the two cluster analyses was then cross-tabulated for each subsample. The agreement between the cluster assignments of each participant in the two analyses was highly satisfactory (Kappa_subsample1 = 1.00, Kappa_subsample2 = .98). Thus, the cluster structure is highly consistent across the two subsamples. This is supported by the fact that a hierarchical cluster analysis with all 10 items (rather than the means of the three scales) also suggested a two cluster solution (cross-validation: Kappa_subsample1 = .99, Kappa_subsample2 = .83).

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Cluster 1 contained 47.6% and Cluster 2 52.4% of the participants. As Figure 1 shows, both clusters viewed the cognitive component as relevant to wisdom (Cluster 1: M = 3.84, SD = 0.58; Cluster 2: M = 3.75, SD = 0.75). Cluster 1 also rated the reflective component as highly important (M = 3.85, SD = 0.74), but viewed the affective component as less central, though still slightly above the scale midpoint (M = 3.09, SD = 0.72). Thus, members of this cluster primarily focused on cognitive and reflective aspects of wisdom, and represented the cognitive conception of wisdom. Cluster 2, in contrast, viewed the reflective component (M = 4.75, SD = 0.44) and the affective component (M = 4.03, SD = 0.50) as clearly more important than Cluster 1 did. Hence, Cluster 2 was labeled the integrative conception of wisdom. Contrary to expectations, cluster membership was not significantly related to gender; 54.4% of the women and 45.5% of the men were represented in the integrative cluster. However, cluster membership was significantly related to age, c2(1, N = 443) = 8.19, p = .004: Participants above age 30 were more likely to hold an integrative conception of wisdom (63.2%) than younger participants (48.1%). Both these findings are highly consistent with previous work (Glück & Bluck, 2011).

Figure 1. Mean differences in the three wisdom components.

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Relation of Cluster Membership to Open-Ended Questions Wisdom Characteristics

All participants listed at least two characteristics of wise individuals (M = 3.72, SD = 1.07). Interestingly, participants with an integrative wisdom conception listed more wisdom characteristics (M = 3.94, SD = 1.05) than participants with a cognitive concept of wisdom (M = 3.48, SD = 1.05), t(433) = –4.54, p < .001, and referred to more different content categories (integrative: M = 3.02; SD = 0.96; cognitive: M = 2.67, SD = .95; t(441) = –3,70, p < .001, the category other not included). Independent of cluster membership, the most frequent categories were cognitive abilities, mentioned by 67.9% of the 443 participants at least once, concern for others (45.8%), life experience (42.2%), openness (31.2%), and reflection (23.9%, see also Table 2). The two clusters were quite similar concerning most categories, but they differed in three categories: in line with the higher ratings of reflective and affective aspects, significantly more participants with an integrative than with a cognitive conception mentioned reflection (29.7% vs. 17.5%, c2(1, N = 443) = 9.04, p = .003), concern for others (56.0% vs. 34.3%, c2(1, N = 443) = 20.56, p < .001), and positive life attitude/humor (19.0% vs. 9.0%, c2(1, N = 443) = 8.99, p = .003) as important characteristics of wise individuals. Development of Wisdom

Concerning the question how a person can achieve wisdom, participants in the integrative cluster again mentioned more different content categories (M = 2.96, SD = 1.86) than participants in the cognitive cluster (M = 2.52, SD = 1.38), t(436) = –2.76 , p = .01 (category other not included). The most frequent categories were life experience/age, which was mentioned by 53.7% of the 438 participants at least once, openness (34.9%), reflection (31.3%), and social aspects (28.1%, cf. Table 3). The two clusters differed significantly in several categories: Reflection (41.1% vs. 30.0%, c2(1, N = 438) = 5.93, p = .02), social aspects (35.1% vs. 20.3%, c2(1, N = 438) = 11.80, p = .001), a positive attitude (24.2% vs. 16.4%, c2(1, N = 438) = 4.09, p = .04), transcendence (16.5% vs. 7.2%, c2(1, N = 438) = 8.70, p = .003), and relation to oneself (26.0% vs. 14.5%, c2(1, N = 438) = 8.82, p = .003) were significantly more often mentioned by participants with an integrative conception of wisdom. Participants with a cognitive conception, in contrast, referred slightly more often to life experience/age (57.5% vs. 47.6%, c2(1, N = 438) = 4.26, p = .04), and tendentially to cognition (25.1% vs. 18.2%, c2(1, N = 438) = 3.12, p = .08).

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Relation of Cluster Membership to Gratitude and Wisdom as Self-Transcendence Gratitude scores were overall quite high, but there were significant differences between the two clusters. As expected, participants with an integrative view of wisdom scored higher in all trait-type measures of gratitude than participants with a more cognitive wisdom conception, and they rated gratitude as more important to wisdom in general (for means, standard deviations, and statistics, see Table 5). They also scored higher in wisdom as self-transcendence (M = 3.02, SD = 0.32) than participants of the cognitive cluster (M = 2.79, SD = 0.30), t(441) = –7.52, p < .001. DISCUSSION Glück and Bluck (2011) suggested two predominant wisdom conceptions in laypeople’s views of wisdom in Western societies: cognitive and integrative conceptions. The present study confirmed these two conceptions in a large sample of young adults. However, this study is novel in relating the two typical wisdom conceptions to the full spectrum of wisdom characteristics and aspects that participants associated with the development of wisdom in open-ended questions. In addition to validating the two conceptions, the goal of this analysis was to gain

Table 5. Mean Differences of Integrative and Cognitive Wisdom Conceptions in Measures of Gratitude Cluster membership

Gratitude measures

Integrative conception M (SD)

Cognitive conception M (SD)

Difference t-Tests

GRAT Sense of abundance Simple appreciation Appreciation of others

4.36 (0.53) 4.46 (0.54) 4.18 (0.49)

4.15 (0.65) 4.03 (0.64) 3.99 (0.58)

t(433) = –3.84, p < .001 t(433) = –7.46, p < .001 t(433) = –3.62, p < .001

GQ6

4.32 (0.55)

4.08 (0.62)

t(433) = –4.17, p < .001

Gratitude-frequency item

4.07 (0.67)

3.79 (0.68)

t(432) = –4.22, p = .001

Importance of gratitude to wisdom

3.78 (1.08)

2.92 (1.14)

t(441) = –8.10, p < .001

Note: Because of mean scores were left skewed, non-parametric statistical methods were additionally performed, confirming all mentioned findings.

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more in-depth insight into individual differences in subjective theories of wisdom by using content analysis of open-ended questions. We also related the two wisdom conceptions to gratitude and wisdom, expecting individuals with an integrative conception to score higher in both. Individual Conceptions of Wisdom As expected, cluster analysis revealed an integrative and a cognitive cluster in our sample of 443 young adults: In line with the findings of Glück and Bluck (2011; see also Takahashi & Overton, 2005) participants with an integrative view (52.4% of all participants) rated the cognitive component (knowledge, intelligence, problem-solving, and prudence) as relevant to wisdom, but they rated the affective component defined by compassion, love, helpfulness, and orientation toward the common good, and also the reflective component (reflection and insight) as noticeably more important than participants with a cognitive view of wisdom did. Differences between the two clusters were also evident in participants’ responses to an open-ended question concerning characteristics associated with wisdom: significantly more participants in the integrative cluster than in the cognitive cluster referred to reflection, concern for others, and humor/positive life-attitude, providing further evidence for the two different conceptions. Together, these findings show that individuals` conceptions of wisdom vary along similar lines as psychological wisdom theories (e.g., Ardelt, 2003, 2011; Baltes & Smith, 1990; Baltes & Staudinger, 2000). Individual Differences

The two wisdom conceptions were not significantly related to gender, although women (54.4%) were somewhat more likely than men (45.5%) to hold an integrative conception of wisdom. This difference is actually larger than the one found by Glück and Bluck (2011), but it did not get significant because the sample size is smaller than in that study. Thus, gender differences in conceptions of wisdom may not be nonexistent, but they are small. In terms of age differences, we found that participants above age 30 were more likely to hold an integrative conception of wisdom (63.2%), while younger participants were more likely to hold a cognitive view of wisdom (51.9%). Similar findings were also reported by Glück and Bluck (2011) and Clayton and Birren (1980), who found that wisdom conceptions get more differentiated with age (see also Glück et al., 2005). Although all this evidence is cross-sectional rather than longitudinal, these findings suggest that people’s conceptions of wisdom are not stable across the adult life-span; rather, they seem to be influenced by life experiences. It seems likely that our wisdom conceptions reflect the issues that we are struggling with in our current life situation (Glück et al., 2005). In young adulthood, where intimate relationships and perhaps parenthood become

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important issues in many people’s lives, people may become more aware of the importance of caring relations to others. The Development of Wisdom Participants with an integrative view of wisdom named significantly more different aspects they view as supportive for the development of wisdom. Thus, these individuals may have a more differentiated view of how people can achieve wisdom in their lives. In terms of content domains, the integrative view was significantly related to reflection, concern for others, positive life attitude, transcendence, and relation to oneself. Notably, the category relation to oneself is probably highly related to reflection as it includes aspects such as rich self-knowledge, non-egoism, and self-awareness which are related to a general reflective attitude toward oneself and the world. Transcendence included aspects such as spirituality and connection to nature, and was at least partly found in previous lay studies of wisdom (e.g., Jason et al., 2001). Similarly, self-transcendence is also included in current psychological models of wisdom (e.g., Ardelt, 2003, 2004; Levenson et al., 2005), and some studies focused on spirituality as correlate of wisdom (e.g., Le & Levenson, 2005; Wink & Dillon, 2003). Participants with a more cognitive view of wisdom, in contrast, viewed life experiences and being old, and tendentially cognition (e.g., factual and general knowledge, education, intelligence) to be more relevant for the attainment of wisdom. Thus, these differences confirm the findings of Glück and Bluck (2011), but are also consistent with different views held by experts (e.g., Ardelt, 2004, 2005; Baltes & Staudinger, 2000; Glück & Bluck, 2013; Staudinger & Glück, 2011). Together, the present findings concerning both what wisdom is and how it develops suggest that some people view wisdom as strongly related to a certain attitude toward oneself (i.e., rich insight into oneself and one’s own life) and others (i.e., empathy and concern for other people), while other people relate wisdom to insight into life in general, associating it with cognition and experience. In this vein, the two types of lay conceptions seem to come rather close to the distinction between theories of personal and general wisdom (Staudinger & Glück, 2011). People do not only differ in their opinions concerning whether wisdom goes beyond knowledge, but also in their view concerning the types of knowledge wisdom implies and the way through which they have been acquired. Relation of Wisdom Conceptions to Gratitude and Wisdom Participants in the integrative cluster scored higher in wisdom (measured as self-transcendence; Le & Levenson, 2005; Levenson et al., 2005) and in all scale measures of gratitude (McCullough et al., 2002; Watkins et al., 2003) than participants in the cognitive or general-wisdom cluster. They also rated

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gratitude to be more relevant for wisdom in general. All of these findings are in line with our hypothesis. Why is a person’s conception of wisdom related to their own wisdom and gratitude? First, what people think about wisdom may influence their way of reflecting about themselves and the world and their actual behavior toward others, which may in turn lead to higher levels of both gratitude and wisdom. In other words, viewing affective and self-related aspects as relevant parts of wisdom may lead to an awareness of one’s interrelatededness with other people and the world and to higher levels of empathy and prosociality, two important aspects of both gratitude and personal wisdom (Ardelt, 2003, 2005; Emmons & Kneezel, 2005; Le & Levenson, 2005; McCullough et al., 2001; McCullough & Tsang, 2004; Solomon, 2004). An influence in the opposite direction may be more plausible, however: Individuals who have reached a certain level of personal wisdom and gratitude, are more aware than others of their interrelatedness with others and the relevance of socio-emotional aspects for living a good life. This awareness may influence their view of what wisdom is. In any case, results suggest that an appreciative attitude toward the positive in one’s life and the world (Lambert, Graham, & Fincham, 2009; Wood, Froh, & Geraghty, 2010) is related to integrative (or personal) conceptions of wisdom held by laypeople. LIMITATIONS AND CONCLUSION Limitations of the current study mainly concern the sample composition and aspects of social desirability. First, the sample consisted of students, including a large number of female psychology students. Thus, the participants may have a higher average tendency to reflect upon themselves and “think psychologically.” Also, scale scores indicated a potential influence of social desirability, but unfortunately we did not include a social-desirability scale in our questionnaire. In spite of these limitations, the present study provides new informative insights into the wisdom conceptions of young adults, as an additional qualitative approach has been included. The findings also suggest that personality aspects such as gratitude play a relevant role in laypeople’s views of personal wisdom, although further research is clearly needed. REFERENCES Aldwin, C. M. (2009). Gender and wisdom: A brief overview. Research in Human Development, 6, 1-8. Aldwin, C. M., & Levenson, M. R. (2001). Stress, coping, and health at midlife: A developmental perspective. In M. E. Lachman (Ed.), Handbook of midlife development (pp. 188-214). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley. Ardelt, M. (2003). Empirical assessment of a three-dimensional wisdom scale. Research on Aging, 25, 275-324. Ardelt, M. (2004). Wisdom as expert knowledge system: A critical review of a contemporary operationalization of an ancient concept. Human Development, 47, 257-285.

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Direct reprint requests to: Susanne König Department of Psychology Alpen-Adria University Klagenfurt Universitaetsstrasse 65-67 9020 Klagenfurt, Austria e-mail: [email protected]