The Effects of Emotional Context upon Wisdom-Related Performance
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Authors
Vogel, Eric B.
Issue Date
2002
Type
Dissertation
Language
en
Keywords
Alternative Title
Abstract
Psychology research in the area of wisdom has grown in the last decade. A review of the literature suggests that a group of researchers at the Max Planck Institute in Berlin is the first to attempt to quantitatively assess wisdom. They have defined wisdom as expert knowledge in the fundamental pragmatics of life and used advice-giving ability as an indicator of wisdom in their research. This study proposes that their definition and method overlook the likely impact of the relational, emotional context of advice-giving upon wisdom-related performance, as evidenced by a variety of sources in the literature. This study compares the wisdom-related performance of subjects assessed using the methods of the Planck Institute with subjects assessed using methods intended to more closely mimic the relational and emotional context of real-life advice-giving circumstances. The presence of a close relationship between advisee and advisor was found to be associated with higher levels of wisdom-related performance. The implications of the findings are discussed.