Tem

2/3 FEB

Birren and Svensson, Wisdom in History (2005)

• 2005 -- Wisdom in History -- This article gives us a broader historical perspective than earlier ones, but also a good summary of the paths taken by researchers (14-29).

• 1st historical treatment (in the course)that hits on the Enlightenment and Scientific Revolution.

• Connects with ancients on relation between knowledge and wisdom.
• Uncertainty: maybe wisdom is required where there is uncertainty. Knowledge reduces uncertainty. What follows?

• Compare the following two hypotheses:

• 1. Wisdom disappears after the Scientific Revolution because we know a lot more now about how to live. (post renaissance, Bacon might have thought wisdom one of the "idols of the tribe")
• 2. Wisdom disappears after the Scientific Revolution because scientific culture downplays the problem of finding "precepts for living" (We've talked about this already, but perhaps there are second thoughts.)

• New detail on Socratic wisdom: Socrates' mantra: No man (or woman) errs willingly.
• Discussion of Plato: repeats a version of Laouvie-Vief's thesis: note p. 5
• Note Aristotle paragraph at bot of 5.

• What follows from the way wisdom can move from secular to religious culture so easily?
• Recurrent theme in historical discussion: models of wisdom that involve transcendence or paradigm shift (Greek, Judaic, Christian, Islamic culture, , vs. models that remain "immanent" in daily life (Confucian, Hellenistic, some biblical sources, Aristotlean, contemporary secular (post renaissance/enlightenment)

• Wisdom in the psychological sciences

• Not really a central topic immediately. Not susceptible to rigorous definition or a bottom up approach (though now we'll see that in Hall's reporting, in the day (pre-80s), this was harder to see. So you have to have really good vision (like William James and John Dewey) to see it). Also, Erikson, Jung.

• Definitions of wisdom present in Sternberg. table on 16-18. Look at Baltes and Smith. Note how the relative weight cognitive capacities changes across the definitions. Can you notice tensions between particular definitions. Page through the brief discussion of research projects, p. 16-25.

• Discuss "meta-cognitive" dimension of wisdom. (17)
• Wisdom and age (19)

• First characterization of Berlin Wisdom Paradigm: also Hall 49. Note method, model included historical study. criticisms (note positive aspect here). Ardelt trajectory (Hall)
• Sternberg's direction: relation of wisdom to intelligence and creativity (note on method here: use of constructs.)
• Taranto: focus on human limitation.
• Kramer: organismic. cognition/affect. five functions.
• McKee and Barber: "seeing through illusion"
• Meacham: fallibility of knowledge. balance of positivity/doubt.
• Chandler and Holliday: most well developed construct after Baltes. (23)

Hall, Wisdom, Chapter 3 "Heart and Mind"

• Note that Hall is telling something of the "sociology of knowledge" about the rise of wisdom research.
• Vivian Clayton -- reflects on family member's traits. poses question of meaning of wisdom and relation to age. Follow statement on p. 43. Compare to Gisela. Also, note from the end of the chapter about her story. Choice, seeing wisdom easier than doing it.

• Erikson -- idea of wisdom as end stage "8" of process of self-realization. (really more "rationalist psychology")

• Interesting hypothesis in face of growth of knowledge in gerontology about decay of faculties. Correction to last week's

• Hall's account of Genesis myth as also about acquiring "original wisdom" -- wisdom as the price of seeing things clearly. wisdom as necessarily acquired through transgression vs. living within limits. also "dark wisdom".
• Baltes, Smith, Staudinger, Kunzemann. -- Berlin Wisdom Paradigm -- brief overview, 49ff. Note how he derived his construct and method of research. +96
• Early critics: Carstensen and Ardelt -- felt Baltes Wisdom Paradigm (BWP) didn't focus enough on emotion.

Hall, Chapter 4, "Emotional Regulation"

• Emotional regulation as a compensating strength of aging.

• "Carstensen and her colleagues have proposed that successful emotional regulation is tightly connected to a persons sense of time—usually, but not always, time as it is reflected by one's age and stage of life. "According to our theory, this isn't a quality of aging per se, but of time horizons," she explained. "When your time perspective shortens, as it does when you come closer to the ends of things, you tend to focus on emotionally meaningful goals. " 63

• socioemotional selectivity theory (Cartensen's) - How can the benefits of this view become available to the young?

Emotional Resilience: *Job's emotional resilience. Is it patience or resilience? What is the diff?

• problem in history of philosophy -- downplaying of emotion. But then Hume, and James' "What is an Emotion?"

• Gross: "reappraisal" and "reflection" as techniques of emotional regulation. vs. rumination 66. note mechanism suggested for each. (Note connection to therapeutic writing. Possible topic for short research.) Notice this way of thinking suggests that emotional regulation is trainable.

• Cartensens' research in assisted living homes. counterintuitive answers. (67) "time horizon" theory. Implications.

• Carstensen on the paradigmatic tasks of the young: "knowledge trajectory" (70); "collectors" 71,

• 71: neuroscience on learning from loss; affect forecasting; young as steep "discounters"; greater appetite for risk, less for ambiguity.

• 73: emotional resilience in Davidson's longitudinal neuroscience research: correlation of emotional regulation and brain pattern. Gabrielli studies on young amygdalas. Gross on male/female emotional processing.

• positive illusion (optimism bias) (compare to Seneca's advice

• "Grandparent hypothesis"

• Concluding Group Discussion: Is emotional regulation something that a young person could use to mimic the emotional regulative experience of older people? Is such a goal possible, desirable?

Wisdom Observations #2

1

• "(1) My roommate had a big paper due for her nursing class yesterday, but we had a few birthday parties this past weekend. I saw wisdom in my roommate’s decision to skip some of the weekend’s festivities to get her paper done, instead of saving it until Sunday night. I think she made a good choice in her decision to put school first, and she exhibited a good amount of wisdom.

• (2) I had a tough decision to make over the weekend, and as I was problem-solving with my mom, she showed strong wisdom in the advice she gave me. I respect my mom’s advice for my situation, and the suggestions she gave me were very wise and had my best interests in mind."

2

• Places I've seen wisdom:

• -In my jazz class, my jazz professor decided on the first day that he was no longer going to use a textbook or traditional teaching methods to teach the course; instead, he wanted to focus entirely on listening and the music in order to teach jazz. He said he believed the music should be felt and this could only be gained through listening and experience.
• I have a good friend who played soccer on a few teams up to high school. She was one of the best players and by her junior year she started getting offers from a few large colleges who began competing over her. She was offered a full ride to Nevada and was planning on going there. In one of the final games of her senior high school season she tore her ACL for the third time in her left knee. It was heartbreaking and she had to decide what to do. She made the hard decision to stop playing soccer forever and to give up the sport she loved. Now she is a junior engineer at GU and excelling in many ways.

3

• "Daily experience of wisdom

• When having coffee at a downtown location of Starbucks, a woman in a wheelchair passing by caught the attention of two female religious studies students and came in to talk to them. The students joined in conversation with her over her pet dog (which was a wooden sculpture of a dog), and after a short chat, they chose to pray over her. While the conversation was short, the eye contact they all maintained appeared to be sincere and the woman was pleased to be in conversation with the students.

• After she left, another patron came over and praised the students for their kindness and generosity to the woman. He commented that their spontaneity inspired him. What I thought was a moment of foolishness in choosing to walk the dog on campus in the afternoon, instead of writing this, turned out to have been a good choice. I met a student, who after spending some time playing with my dog, told me that this meant a great deal to her today, as the day had not been going well. I wished her well.

"

4

• "There are many situations in my daily experiences in which I think wisdom is evident or in question. Last week, one of my roommates was treating the rest of our house pretty poorly. She was being very unkind, and I just tried to ignore it and let her cool off. That was foolish because I should have told her that behavior isn't okay with the rest of us instead of let her get away with it. Because the situation lasted longer than one would anticipate, I eventually felt the need to talk to her. I asked her how she was doing and tried to engage in dialogue about her actions which I felt was wise because it showed her I cared about her feelings but also let her know that she can't act that way in the future.

• Another situation in the week where I was unwise, as you could guess, would be with homework. I had an assignment due for one of my classes on Monday morning at 9am. I had plenty of time to work on it, but it seemed extremely quick and easy so I put it off until Sunday night. That was stupid because there were parts to the assignment I couldn't complete. To combat that - I was wise and used my resources to complete the assignment on time.

• The final situation was one where I showed wisdom. My friend was having issues with his girlfriend and their relationship and I was able to put myself in her shoes and try to make the situation best for both of them. Even though it was not the easiest route, it was the best thing to do and showed wisdom on his part as well to be mature and do the right thing. "

5

Last week I went to visit my grandpa. He asked me to do some of his laundry, so I did. While loading the wash machine, I noticed a plethora of notes hanging on the cabinet above. They said things like, "Add 3/4 cup of soap," "Select REGULAR wash," and "Need to turn water on because you turned it off before leaving last time." It was wise of him to first recognize his forgetfulness, and then make accommodations that would help him in the future. While leaving the notes for himself, he had to somewhat predict that his forgetfulness would limit his ability to do laundry the way it is supposed to be done. The notes help eliminate difficulty and confusion for him (that is, when I'm not there to do laundry for him)!

6

This weekend I was going to the basketball game with some of my friends. One of them decided she had too much homework and studying to do because she has tests this week, so she didn’t go to the game. I thought she portrayed wisdom in this decision because although she had the opportunity to go have fun and wanted to, she instead made the better, more beneficial decision of getting work done so she wasn’t as stressed for the week.

For the last couple of weeks my housemate has been making the wise decision of on every Sunday, making a meal schedule of what she will be making for lunches and dinners all week so that way when she goes grocery shopping, she knows exactly what to buy and doesn’t waste money on unnecessary items. I think this is wise because she then has her week planned out for her, which eliminates stress and also is not wasting money, which leaves her more money for other expenses instead.

My friend is worried about the amount of money she has been spending lately, so she sat down and made a budget to manage her expenses. After that, she went along with our friends while they went shopping and found a jacket that she really wanted. She ended up making the wise decision of not getting the jacket because she knew it would exceed her budget and she wouldn’t have enough money for groceries for the week.