Wisdom at the end of life: Hospice patients’ reflections on the meaning of life and death

The processes of aging and confronting mortality are often accompanied by unique psychological challenges. From the perspective of positive psychology, such challenges can yield opportunities for growth, including increased wisdom. This qualitative study explored 15 terminally ill hospice patients’ perspectives on wisdom, the dying process, and the meaning of life using consensual qualitative research methods. Most participants cited humility as a key component of wisdom, emphasizing that “Wisdom is when we realize ‘I don’t really know much’.” Other components of wisdom included self-knowledge, rationality, experiential learning, listening to and learning from others, and sharing knowledge with others. Participants also suggested that the process of facing illness and death presents opportunities for positive growth, including changing priorities and learning to appreciate life more fully in the present moment. In considering the sources of meaning in their lives, participants emphasized relational connections, personal growth, spirituality, vocational fulfilment, and living a full life. Participants also shared their reflections on important past experiences and regrets. Lastly, participants offered advice to others based on their experiences facing illness and mortality. Implications for psychological care of the dying and future research are discussed.     

Meaning making,self‐determination theory,and the question of wisdom in personality

Self‐determination theory (SDT) has advanced the most comprehensive model of motives for human flourishing in the field of personality psychology and beyond. In this article, we evaluate SDT relative to the process of meaning making, particularly from a narrative perspective, showing what SDT can and cannot explain about the construction of self‐identity and its relation to human flourishing. On the one hand, SDT explains how subjective assessments of need fulfillment drive the process of self‐determined living. The internal motives that follow such fulfillment serve as important themes in people's life stories that predict several markers of hedonic and eudaimonic well‐being. On the other hand, SDT's focus on subjective fulfillment limits what SDT can explain about how wisdom, which is a canonical good of both eudaimonia and meaning making, helps people make sense of life's more difficult or unfulfilling events. SDT may facilitate a facet of wisdom that is more subjective and experiential but not the critical facet of wisdom defined by objectively more complex structures of interpretation.     

Reconciling the Stoic and the Sceptic: Hume on Philosophy as a Way of Life and the Plurality of Happy Lives

On the one hand, Hume accepts the view – which he attributes primarily to Stoicism – that there exists a determinate best and happiest life for human beings, a way of life led by a figure whom Hume calls ‘the true philosopher’. On the other hand, Hume accepts that view – which he attributes to Scepticism – that there exists a vast plurality of good and happy lives, each potentially equally choiceworthy. In this paper, I reconcile Hume's apparently conflicting commitments: I argue that Hume's ‘Sceptical’ pluralism about the character of the happiest life need not conflict with his ‘Stoic’ advocacy of the supreme happiness of the true philosopher, given Hume's flexible understanding of how one might live as a true philosopher.     

善的多元论与合理性

当代西方伦理学家布兰特和罗尔斯,一个注重现实的伦理道德规范,一个深究善的合理性之所在,都是既诉诸现实的人类理性、又关注社会生活实际,但分别独特地阐明了善恶规则的多元性与道德善的合理性,并致力于解答个人与社会、功利与道德、情感与理性、个人的自由平等与社会公平正义等的矛盾统一.他们的基本出发点和主要理论极富启发意义,而缺乏历史观的共同缺陷则是我们应当引以为戒的.     

The Death of a Child and the Birth of Practical Wisdom

This paper explores the notion of practical wisdom asan alternative to current formulations of criticalthinking. The practical realm is that ofill-structured problems that emerge from life aslived; it is a realm of legitimate uncertainty andambiguity that requires an ethical responsiveness orpractical wisdom. The death of a child is a case inpoint. The author identifies and examines threeaspects of practical wisdom – the ethical claims ofpartiality, a yielding responsiveness and the play ofthought – and juxtaposes them with aspects of criticalthinking. The work of Martha Nussbaum and RichardPaul are interwoven throughout the discussion. Theauthor concludes that the discourse of criticalthinking is in danger of lapsing into a form of moralescapism wherein all we are rationally responsible foris thinking correctly. Practical wisdom, on theother hand, recognizes that thinking is not simply anintellectual cognitive act of an individual but adance between the life of a child and the love of anelder, a conversation between what is and what couldbe, an openness to passionate sorrow and surprise, aplay between understanding and perception. As such,practical wisdom provides a more likely account ofliving in good faith with oneself and others.     

Relationships Between Dimensions of Depressive Experience and Perceptions of the Lives of People in General

This study examines relationships between depression and perceptions of the lives of people in general. One hundred fourteen college students completed the Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale (Radloff, 1977), the Depressive Experiences Questionnaire (Blatt, D'Afflitti, & Quinlan, 1976), and two instruments that asked subjects to make judgments about the frequency of various positive and negative outcomes in other people's lives. Highly Dependent and highly Self-Critical women perceived people's lives as characterized by much misfortune, failure, and unhappiness. Unexpectedly, Efficacy scores, which are negatively related to depression, were also associated with negative perceptions of people's lives in women. Among the men, overall depression was not related to perceptions of how frequently people succeed at specific, concrete life tasks, but depressed subjects perceived others as experiencing a tow level of subjective well-being. Implications for the notion of a depressive negative bias toward the self are discussed.     

The Fascination of Wisdom: Its Nature, Ontogeny, and Function

ABSTRACT— Wisdom has intrigued both scholars and laypersons since antiquity. On the one hand, its seemingly ethereal yet obvious qualities are timeless and universal. On the other hand, these same qualities are evolving and responsive to historical and cultural change. Novel societal and personal dilemmas emerge over time, and the ways and means to deal with recurring dilemmas are revisited and updated with prudence. Building on philosophical analyses of the role of theoretical and practical wisdom in good conduct and judgment about life matters, psychologists have begun to apply scientific methods to questions about the nature, function, and ontogeny of wisdom. We outline these research directions and focus on the Berlin Wisdom Paradigm, which was one of the first attempts to bring wisdom into the laboratory. Future research on wisdom would profit from interdisciplinary collaboration and creative application of new methods drawn from developmental, social, and cognitive psychology.     

Making things better and learning a lesson: experiencing wisdom across the lifespan

Autobiographical memory narratives concerning times in which individuals said, thought, or did something wise were collected from adolescents and young and old adults. This "wisdom of experience" procedure is shown to be a valid means of studying experienced wisdom in everyday lives across the life span. Results show that all age groups use experienced wisdom to transform negative to positive life situations and are equally likely to link these experienced wisdom events to larger temporal life periods. Young and older adults also relate wisdom experiences to the life story by explaining how they are connected to later life consequences or to the direction that their life has taken. Unlike adolescents, older and, especially, young adults report having learned lessons about themselves or having gained a life philosophy from the wisdom-related event. Thus, the wisdom-of-experience procedure highlights both similarities and differences in the life span manifestation of experienced wisdom.     

Children's right to be hostile: Emotions and agency through psychodynamic lens

This paper explores children's hostility towards adult researchers and shows how individual acts of hostility might be linked to wider contexts in children's lives and to their relationships with others. Drawing on ethnographic research with children in Slovakia and psychodynamic theories of Alfred Adler and Anna Freud, the paper argues for hostility to be seen as a legitimate form of children's political agency and one which might require escape from adult logics and interpretations. It suggests that children's hostility towards the researcher should be seen as a right before it is considered a problem, and it should not on its own exclude children from participation in research. Tracing the emotional dynamics of research-participant encounters and their links to other social relationships, personal histories and emotional materials, the paper suggests that recognising children's agency as too elusive for adult interpretations might facilitate new forms of research participation, one which would not rest as heavily on the adult conceptions of childhood.     

Virtue and the Good Life in the Early Confucian Tradition

This essay examines the role of virtue and the status of non‐moral goods in conceptions of the good human life through an exploration of the thought of Confucius and Mencius. Both Confucius and Mencius lived in quite similar worlds, but their conceptualizations of the world differed from each another. This difference led them to hold different views on the role of virtue and the status of non‐moral goods. On the one hand, Confucius highlighted the self‐sufficiency of virtue, but he acknowledged and appreciated the intrinsic and instrumental value of non‐moral goods. On the other hand, while Mencius underscored the role of virtue as the best means to the best ends, he tried to depreciate the value of non‐moral goods. As a consequence, even though their conceptions of the good life were essentially predicated on virtue, they parted company concerning the status of non‐moral goods in human life.     

Meaning without fulfilment

Some philosophers argue that a necessary component of a meaningful life is positive affect. The implication of this type of view is that a meaningful life necessarily feels good. I respond primarily to Susan Wolf's version of this type of view; for Wolf, meaningful lives are necessarily fulfilling lives. In contrast to Wolf, I argue that people do sometimes find parts of their lives to be meaningful when the feeling of fulfilment is absent. I propose an alternative subjective condition that does not involve positive affect. I argue that meaningful parts of our lives obtain their value through their relationship to our practical identities.     

The Dark Night of the Soul: spiritual distress and its psychiatric implications

The Dark Night of the Soul is an expression describing phases in a person's spiritual life associated with a crisis of faith or spiritual concerns about the relationship with God, and which has intrinsic aspects of spiritual growth. This paper is concerned with the way in which those going through periods of angst and disillusionment do not see them as pathological phenomena. On the contrary, through a process of attribution of religious meaning they view them as opportunities for reflecting on their lives and as agents for beneficial change. Similarities and differences between the Dark Night and a depressive episode are discussed and illustrated using the accounts of five important religious figures. Their narratives have been constructed using original texts and their biographies. The Dark Night has clinical implications owing to the risk of its being pathologised, serving as a reminder of the importance of incorporating existential issues into clinical practice.     

In the eye of the beholder: views of psychological well-being among middle-aged and older adults

Although the topic of psychological well-being has generated considerable research, few studies have investigated how adults themselves define positive functioning. To probe their conceptions of well-being, interviews were conducted with a community sample of 171 middle-aged (M = 52.5 years, SD = 8.7) and older (M = 73.5 years, SD = 6.1) men and women. Questions pertained to general life evaluations, past life experiences, conceptions of well-being, and views of the aging process. Responses indicated that both age groups and sexes emphasized an "others orientation" (being a caring, compassionate person, and having good relationships) in defining well-being. Middle-aged respondents stressed self-confidence, self-acceptance, and self-knowledge, whereas older persons cited accepting change as an important quality of positive functioning. In addition to attention to positive relations with others as an index of well-being, lay views pointed to a sense of humor, enjoying life, and accepting change as criteria of successful aging.     

Wisdom and Learning from Important and Meaningful Life Experiences

According to the wisdom literature, learning from important and meaningful life experiences can foster wisdom. Leading others is one such experience. This paper explores empirically whether and how learning acquired from leadership experience can foster wisdom, which is defined as a real-life process encompassing three core components: cognitive integration, embodiment in actions, and positive effects for oneself and others. This paper consists of two studies. Study 1 investigated the learning acquired from leadership experience and its relationship with wisdom. Eight leaders in higher education in Taiwan participated in five interviews spanning 2 years which explored the lessons learned from their leadership experience. Analysis of the interviews found that leaders acquired rich and multidimensional learning from their leadership experience and that components of wisdom were involved in their learning and their application of the lessons learned. Study 2 examined whether the results of Study 1 could be generalized to a wider population of higher education leaders. An inventory of learning and wisdom compiled from Study 1 was administered to 94 Taiwanese higher education leaders twice within 8 months. Multivariate statistical analysis showed that leaders’ responses to items of both acquired learning and components of wisdom increased in 8 months and that these increases were strongly correlated. Results suggest that learning from important and meaningful life experiences can foster wisdom.     

Older is wiser? It depends who you ask… and how you ask

Interacting with older adults can trigger a number of stereotypes. Negative stereotypes tend to dominate, but a persistent positive perception of aging in the popular psyche is that age brings wisdom. Despite this common belief, previous research suggests that the relationship between age and wisdom is weak and inconsistent. We propose that this is due to opposing perceptions of aging – gains in life experience and socioemotional skills, counteracted by declines in cognitive skill – that also vary with characteristics of the perceiver and the context. We investigated these paradoxical perceptions of aging by asking younger (aged 20–40) and older (aged 60–80) adult judges to rate adult speakers (aged 30–89) on the basis of their responses to three narrative prompts. Several aspects of wisdom were judged, including those related to cognitive skills, and those related to socioemotional aspects of wisdom. We examined the impact on ratings of speaker and rater characteristics, as well as the interaction of these characteristics with the dimension being rated. Findings showed that the wisdom ratings were higher for speakers with better verbal fluency, and that the relationship between age and perceived wisdom was moderated by the speaker’s gender. Consistent with prior work, speaker age (relative to rater’s age) had a negative effect on cognitive aspects of wisdom, but a positive effect on socio-affective aspects of wisdom. Implications for understanding age-related stereotypes and conceptions of wisdom are discussed.     

Paradoxes of happiness

To get happiness forget about it; then, with any luck, happiness will come as a by-product in pursuing meaningful activities and relationships. This adage is known as the paradox of happiness, but actually it contains a number of different paradoxes concerning aims, success, freedom, and attitudes. These paradoxes enhance our understanding of the complexity of happiness and its interaction with other values in good lives, that is, lives which are happy as well as morally decent, meaningful, and fulfilling. Yet, each paradox conveys a one-sided truth that needs to be balanced with others. Happiness, understood as subjective well-being, involves positively evaluating our lives and living with a sense of well-being. As such, it should not be confused with either pleasure or normative conceptions of “true” happiness.     

Quality of Life of the Hidden Youth in Hong Kong

Hidden youth was a phenomenon which originated in Japan and later spread to Hong Kong. The youth were described as being in a state of social isolation, marginalization, and prone to emotional disturbances. This may imply that they were suffering from a poor quality of life. However, direct contact with the hidden youth found that some of them are satisfied with their lives. The present study aims to investigate the relationship between the hidden youth’s quality of life and their period and level of social withdrawal. A total of 588 of the hidden youth took part in the study. With the use of mean plots in ANOVA, correlation analysis, regression analysis, and mediation analysis, it was found that the longer the period of social withdrawal, the better the quality of life. The positive correlation between the two variables was mediated by positive emotions derived from social support. On the other hand, as the level of social withdrawal increased, the quality of life decreased. The negative association between the two variables was mediated by negative emotions caused by low levels of social support and a high sense of loneliness. These findings suggest that being “hidden” is the preferred lifestyle of young people and it should not be regarded as a problem that undermines their quality of life.     

More Appreciation of Life or Regretting the Test? Experiences of Living as a Mutation Carrier of Huntington’s Disease

Little is known about how the knowledge of being a mutation carrier for Huntington’s disease (HD) influences lives, emotionally and socially. In this qualitative study 10 interviews were conducted to explore the long term (>5 years) experiences of being a mutation carrier. The results showed a broad variety of both positive and negative impact on the carriers’ lives. The most prominent positive changes reported were a greater appreciation of life and a tendency to bring the family closer together. On the other hand, some participants expressed decisional regrets and discussed the negative impact this knowledge had on their psychological well-being. The knowledge variously served as either a motivator or an obstacle in pursuing further education, career or investment in personal health. Deeper understanding of people’s reactions to the certainty of knowing they will become affected with HD is essential for the genetic counseling team in order to provide appropriate support.     

Experimental manipulations to reduce the negative effects of money

People generally consider money a necessary evil because it invokes dual effects. On one hand, it increases people's productivity and performance, but it also decreases people's sensitivity to others. I conducted three experimental studies with an attempt to reduce the negative effects of money. Results indicated that when money was framed as a social incentive, its negative effect was attenuated and people exerted more helping behavior in both hypothetical and real‐life scenarios. However, when a social incentive was framed in monetary terms, the negative effect of money prevailed in hypothetical but not in real‐life scenarios. Results suggested that money itself is not the root of evil or good, but rather its effects are influenced by our perceptions of its role.