Development of wisdom-related knowledge in adolescence and young adulthood

grantor: University of TorontoThis study examined the development of wisdom-related knowledge over the transitional period extending from middle adolescence into early adulthood. Wisdom-related knowledge, as a form of "real-world" intelligence, was measured in two domains: (1) hypothetical scenarios about life problems of others and (2) one's own "real-life" problems. The sample consisted of 128 individuals distributed equally across four age groups (15-16 years, 17-18 years, 20-22 years, 25-27 years) which were balanced on the basis of gender, race (African-American and white), and social class (middle class and working class). Participants were administered a semi-structured interview in which they were asked to discuss (1) hypothetical scenarios about life problems of others and (2) their own stressful life events. Interview protocols were coded for level of wisdom-related knowledge. The coding system, which assessed general criteria (i.e., factual and procedural knowledge) as well as specific meta-level criteria (i.e., contextualism, relativism, and uncertainty) for wisdom, was adapted from Staudinger, Smith, and Baltes' (1994) wisdom coding system. Results of analyses revealed main effects of age and gender for both scenario and stressful life event protocols. The pattern of age effects for scenarios varied with the nature of the life problem. An important factor in the general age effect for stressful life events was an increase in "relativistic thinking" and "thinking about uncertainty" in the older age groups. Gender analyses indicated that wisdom scores averaged across scenarios and wisdom scores for Stressful life events were higher for females than males. This gender difference resulted mainly from (1) higher scores for females on the scenario about making friends and (2) a greater focus on "self-issues" by females when discussing their own stressful life events. No race or social class differences were found. A main effect of problem type was found with wisdom-related knowledge about one's own real-life problem exceeding wisdom-related knowledge about hypothetical life problems of others.Ph.D