What predicts wisdom-related performance? A first look at personality,intelligence, and facilitative experiential contexts

Wisdom has long been suggested as a desired goal of development (see e.g. Clayton and Birren, 1980; Erikson, 1959; Hall, 1922; Staudinger and Baltes, 1994). Questions concerning the empirical investigation of wisdom and its ontogeny, however, are largely still open. It is suggested that besides person characteristics, certain types of experience may facilitate wisdom-related performance. A sample of clinical psychologists (n=36) and highly educated control professionals (n=54) ranging in age from 25 to 82 years responded verbally to two wisdom-related tasks involving life planning and completed a psychometric battery of intelligence and personality measures. Three primary findings were obtained. First, training and practice in clinical psychology was the strongest predictor of wisdom-related performance (26%) and, in addition, showed some overlap with personality variables in this predictive relationship. Second, 14% of the variance in wisdom-related performance was accounted for by standard psychometric measures of personality and intelligence. Personality variables were stronger predictors than variables of intelligence. Important personality predictors were Openness to Experience and a middle-range location on the Introversion–Extraversion dimension. Third, wisdom-related performance maintained a sizable degree of measurement independence (uniqueness). Predictive relationships were consistent with research on naive conceptions of wisdom and our own theoretical account of the ontogenesis of wisdom-related performance. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Perception and Belief

An attempt is made to pinpoint the way in which perception is related to belief. Although, for familiar reasons, it is not true to say that we necessarily believe in the existence of the objects we perceive, nor that they actually have their ostensible characteristics, it is argued that the relation between perception and belief is more than merely contingent
There are two main issues to address. the first is that 'collateral' beliefs may impede perceptual belief. It is argued that this still assigns an essential role to belief in perception, though the belief may be of an attenuated form. the second is Fred Dretske's claim that even attenuated belief may be entirely absent from perception. It is argued that (a) 'non-epistemic'perception can be understood only by employing the concept of 'epistemic'perception; (b) that the former can occur only partially—i.e., within perceptions that are otherwise epistemic; and (c) that by switching attention from the perception of objects to the Phenomenological tradition's concern with the perception of world, we can see that perception must be entirely permeated with 'doxastic'force.     

Perceptions of Genius: Einstein,Lesser Mortals and Shooting Stars

This paper elucidates the conceptual nature of the term ‘genius’. Two studies are reported. In the first, a total of 349 undergraduates were asked in 1984, 1991, 1993, 1994 and 1997 to nominate three geniuses. The main findings were: that Einstein is regarded as a stereotypical genius: that a small number of other individuals are also frequently nominated: that a large number receive occasional nominations: that the membership of this large group is often very transitory and that the ratings of an established genius such as Mozart can be boosted considerably, but temporarily, by a major anniversary. The second study used 61 subjects and 94 nominated geniuses. It was found that the nominated geniuses had been heard of on 76.7% of possible occasions, but were agreed to be geniuses on only 26.2% of possible occasions. Wide variations were found between the figures as a function of the field in which nominated geniuses worked, with artists and sports players achieving the highest and lowest ‘agreed’ figures respectively. The subjectivity and transience of the concept of genius was apparent in both studies.