Tem

9/10 FEB

Baltes & Smith, "Toward a Psychology of Wisdom and its Ontegenesis" 1990

• Motivations for the Berlin Paradigm's research:

• study of peak performance,
• positive aspects of aging,
• work on intelligence that reflects a concern with context and life pragmatics, Baltes & Smith p. 87

• Point on method in discussion of problem of giving a scientific treatment of wisdom, p. 89. Wittgenstein quote. Baltes acknowledges that there are limits and differences in studying wisdom, for example, need to compare results with lived experience of wisdom. Not typical in science.

• Fundamental assumption #1: Wisdom is an "expert knowledge system"
• Fundamental assumption:#2: A dual-process model of intelligence (Mechanics / Pragmatics) is most relevant to understanding wisdom.

• Focus on p. 94 figure 5.1. Mechanics of intelligence decline, but pragmatics increase over time.

• Fundamental assumption #3: Wisdom is about life pragmatics, understood as life planning, management, review.

• Wisdom defined as "expert knowledge involving good judgement and advice in the domain, fundamental pragmatics of life" 95

• The "Baltes Five" Criteria Construct for Wisdom:

• Rich factual knowledge: accumulation of knowledge which facilitates predictive ability to see how relationships, causes, and meanings will interact in a situation. "a representation of the expected sequential flow of events in a particular situation" (both general: knowing how people work, for example; and specific: knowing how a particular person might respond or think about something; how a particular life problem tends to go...

• Rich procedural knowledge: accumulation of knowledge which facilitates understanding of strategies of problem solving, advice seeking. "A repertoire of mental procedures." (This would include characteristic bias and ways that knowledge seeking goes wrong.)

• Life span contextualism: understanding a problem in awareness of it's place in the life span.

• Relativism: Understanding and taking into account the range of values, goals, and priorities that specific human lives embody.

• Uncertainty: awareness of limits of knowledge in general and in particular factual cases. but also "strategies for managing and dealing with uncertainty" 103.

• Two sets of predictions:

• Wisdom has a culturally accessible and commonly held meaning
• Ontogenesis of wisdom in general, specific, and modifying factors (Fig 5.2)

• Research on everyday concepts of wisdom (106)

• Implicit theories (Holiday and Chandler)
• Sworka - good character increasing associated with wisdom by older test subjects

• Research on wisdom as expert knowledge (108)

• follow preliminary findings 110

Think Aloud Exercise

Tuesday Wisdom Think Aloud Scenarios

Wednesday Wisdom Think Aloud Scenarios

Baltes & Freund, "Wisdom as Meta-Heuristic and SOC" 2002

• Sophia vs. Phronesis (one more time)

• Selection, Optimization, and Compensation is a collection of behavioral strategies for managing life pragmatics.

• Note definition of wisdom p. 251: strategies for peak or optimal functioning. but must be normative. Need to actually know something about what is really important in human flourishing to produce wisdom Baltes & Co. are siding with the traditions of philosophy and religion on this one. Wisdom is normative.

• Good review of Baltes (Berlin) Paradigm: note detail on "recognition and management of uncertainty" p. 253. The "Socrates criterion"

• Wisdom as Meta-heuristic. Definition p. 255. "a heuristic can be defined as a "useful shortcut, an approximation, or a rule of thumb for guiding search" "If wisdom as a meta-heuristic operates effectively, the expectation is that its use creates the cognitive and motivational foundation from which well-being can be achieved. In this sense, wisdom can be seen as the embodiment of the best subjective belief about laws of life that a culture has to offer and that individuals under favorable conditions are able to acquire."

Quick exercise: identify contemporary meta-heuristics in your experience

• SOC -- a heuristic for delineating, pursuing, and reviewing goals. (It's a heuristic for life management, so relevant to the Baltes paradigm)

• Selection -- of goals -- can be either elective selection or loss selection. Deliberate, articulate... approach vs. avoidance goals. gloss on loss aversion research.

• Optimization -- of means. "Acquire and invest" - sub-skills like "monitoring between actual and desired state" - ability to delay gratification (Mischel [1]) - note practicum skills here!

• Compensation -- response to loss of means. Response to events. from getting glasses and hearing aid to giving up goals like golf or running. but also giving up developmentally inappropriate goals (throughout the life span)

• Proverbs as heuristics -- study found that SOC strategies were selected more often and faster than non-SOC strategies. Proverbs can be associated with S, O, or C.

• Study showing SOC associated with "positive functioning" (NOTE: This relates to the "hard problem" of wisdom. Figuring out whether wisdom really "works".) p. 264, read par.

• Rubenstein quote at 265. Brim's "My Father's Window Box"

Kunzman and Baltes, "The Psychology of Wisdom: Theoretical and Practical Challenges"

• Challenges:

1. defining wisdom in a way that separates it from other human excellences.
2. formulating a definition of wisdom that can be empirically investigated.

• Distinction between implicit and explicit (112).

• Three types of wisdom constructs:

1. wisdom as aspect of personality development in later life (Erikson) - characterized by detachment from self-interest (note: not the only option)
2. post-formal thinking (gisela); "Dialectical thinking derives from the insight that knowledge about self & others, and the world evolves in an everlasting process of theses, antitheses, and syntheses. From this perspective, wisdom has been described as the integration of different modes of knowing" 115
3. form of intelligence and expertise (Baltes)

• Note: We'll add at least a fourth to this when we look at culture and wisdom later in the term.

• clearer explanation (than Baltes and Smith) of "cognitive mechanics" vs. "cognitive pragmatics" (116)

• "Big Picture" Review Model on p. 120. Note how it points to further topics that we will discuss in the semester. Note on 122: at young ages, we over identify high IQ individuals as wise. (Parallel to misperception of old as wise.)

• Discussion Topic: Must wisdom be oriented toward the individual and common good? sketch arguments together briefly.

• Empirical Results from "Think Aloud" research:

1. High scores rare.
2. Late adolescence and early adulthood is primary age window for onset of wisdom. Age doesn't predict score increases after that.
3. Development of wisdom beyond it's early onset depends upon "expertise-enhancing" factors, such as development of social/cognitive style, presence of role models, and motivational preferences such as an interest in understanding others. Personality not predicted as a factor (note contrast to happiness research).

More Constructs, or, What's still Missing...

• The Baltes paradigm is impressive, but does show some limits to a scientific construct for wisdom.

• Defining what you look for and then trying to find it through a rigorous procedure.
• Need for an empirical and countable phenomenon might be structuring the focus of the construct.

• Some dimensions of wisdom still ahead in the course:

• How is wisdom connected to morality?
• Is there more depth to wisdom than the Baltes paradigm finds?
• Shouldn't we expect wisdom to change us? Sage models imply this.