A Critical Review of a Contemporary Operationalization of an Ancient Concept

Cognition Expert knowledge Wisdom-related knowledge Paul B. Baltes and his colleagues, who are among the most prominent con-temporary wisdom researchers, define wisdom as ‘expert knowledge in the do-main fundamental pragmatics of life. ’ By contrast, this article argues that the definition, operationalization, and measurement of wisdom should not be re-duced to expertise and that the term wisdom should be reserved for wise per-sons rather than expert knowledge. In fact, evidence from their research con-firms that Baltes et al. primarily assess expert or intellectual knowledge in the wisdom domain ‘fundamental pragmatics of life ’ rather than how wise people are. As an alternative, a model of wisdom is presented that defines, operational-izes, and measures wisdom as an integration of cognitive, reflective, and affec-tive personality characteristics. During the last two decades, researchers in the behavioral sciences have shown renewed interest in the ancient concept of wisdom [Chinen, 1984; Clayton & Bir