Lecture 11: wisdom and happiness

characteristics of wisdom

Individuals who are reputed to be wise possess a distinctive problem-solving style, which combines a sensitivity to the problem's complexity and potential lack of structure with reflection upon and awareness of their own limitations.

This cognitive style is especially effective in social contexts, which give rise to particularly complex and ill-structured problems.

In wise individuals, it is complemented by an equally distinctive capacity for empathy: the processing of affective information, which pertains to the emotional and motivational states of other people involved in a given situation.

Wise people are also characterized by a distinctive personality style: they typically have a strong sense of identity and autonomy, are predisposed toward interior life, are good at harnessing experience to achieve a better understanding of the external world, and are tolerant of ambiguity and contradiction.

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dimensions of wisdom

Ardelt (2004): cognitive,
reflective,
affective

Ardelt (1997):

cognitive,
affective,
conative

The bottom line: wisdom is a profoundly cognitive phenomenon.

Its problem solving aspects are clearly related to general intelligence and creativity. Its affective and conative facets too are interpretable in terms computation, simply because emotion and motivation are the brain's means of facilitating particular kinds of information processing.

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dimensions of wisdom

Ardelt (2004): like general intelligence, wisdom is a useful latent variable; people who scored high on the cognitive dimensions of the personality questionnaire also tended to score high on its affective and reflective dimensions.

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practical wisdom

Unlike general intelligence, however, wisdom is more than an intellectual skill or a piece of abstract knowledge about the human condition: it is about "what a person is like rather than what a person knows" (Ardelt, 2004).

As such, practical wisdom — phronesis — interacts just as one would expect with the individual's personal development over the course of a lifetime. Wisdom is widely considered both to develop with age (which is understandable, given the cognitive and affective sophistication it depends upon), and to be in itself a life goal worthy of pursuit.

Wisdom has its own rewards: the wisdom factor is a better statistical predictor of life satisfaction in old age than objective variables such as physical health, socioeconomic status, financial situation, physical environment, and social involvement.

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wisdom and aging: men

49% of the variance are shared by the two latent constructs.

Cognitive component contributes to wisdom particularly strongly.

wisdom and aging: women

58% of the variance are shared by the two latent constructs.

Cognitive and reflective components contribute to wisdom equally.

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roots of well-being

Why is it that the objective indicators of a person's well-being are so weakly correlated with his or her happiness — eudaimonia — whether or not the latter is brought about by practical wisdom (phronesis)??

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roots of well-being

Why it is that the objective indicators of a person's well-being are so weakly correlated with his or her happiness — eudaimonia — whether or not the latter is brought about by practical wisdom (phronesis)??

The resolution of this issue lies in following realization:

happiness, similarly to wisdom, is mediated by a bundle of cognitive, affective, and motivational processes, and is, therefore, a matter of the person's construal of his or her life situation rather than of its objective qualities (Lyubomirsky, 2001).

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implications of happiness being subjective

Because subjective happiness is mediated by the construal processes (which include social comparison, post-decision rationalization, event analysis self-reflection), "happy and unhappy individuals appear to experience — indeed, to reside in — different subjective worlds" (Lyubomirsky, 2001).

As with general intelligence, the construal processes are strongly influenced by genetic factors, and the cluster of cognitive traits affecting a person's predisposition to happiness is highly heritable:

about 50% of the population variance in subjective well-being is accounted for by genetics.

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factors contributing to happiness

Only about 50% of the population variance in subjective well-being is accounted for by genetics; 10% of the rest is attributable to environmental factors.

This leaves considerable room for improvement along those cognitive dimensions that are under the individual's control — a discovery that offers hope that people can learn to be happier.

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factors contributing to happiness (after Lyubomirsky)

An empirical investigation by Lyubomirsky et al. — see slides.

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circumstances vs. activity (Sheldon and Lyubomirsky, 2004)

Activity-based well-being change lasted; circumstance-based happiness change did not.

In a separate study, participants tracked either activity-based positive changes or circumstantially based positive changes in their lives. Subjects in the former group reported a weaker sense of "having gotten used to the change, such that it does not give the same boost as before." Thus, activity changes are characterized by less hedonic adaptation than circumstantial changes.

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helpful and unhelpful interventions

Changes in well-being over the course of two 6-week interventions.

TOP: performing acts of kindness.

BOTTOM: counting one's blessings.

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neural correlates of well-being (Urry et al., 2004)

Correlations between self-report measures and electroencephalographic alpha power at the frontocentral sites.

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neural correlates of well-being

A topographic representation of correlations between total psychological well-being and electroencephalographic asymmetry across the entire scalp.

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summary: a recipe for sustained happiness