2020.10.24 13:54
Is Spirituality a Component of Wisdom?
https://neurosciencenews.com/wisdom-spirituality-psychology-17204/
2020.10.24 14:10
2020.10.24 19:10
Volume 132, January 2021, Pages 174-181
Author links open overlay panelDilip V.Jesteabc1Michael L.Thomasd1JinyuanLiubeRebecca E.DalyabXin M.TubeEmily B.H.TreichlerabfBarton W.Palmerabg2Ellen E.Leeabg2
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https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpsychires.2020.09.033Get rights and content
Wisdom has gained increasing interest among researchers as a personality trait relevant to well-being and mental health. We previously reported development of a new 24-item San Diego Wisdom Scale (SD-WISE), with good to excellent psychometric properties, comprised of six subscales: pro-social behaviors, emotional regulation, self-reflection (insight), tolerance for divergent values (acceptance of uncertainty), decisiveness, and social advising. There is controversy about whether spirituality is a marker of wisdom. The present cross-sectional study sought to address that question by developing a new SD-WISE subscale of spirituality and examining its associations with various relevant measures.
Data were collected from a national-level sample of 1,786 community-dwelling adults age 20–82 years, as part of an Amazon M-Turk cohort. Participants completed the 24-item SD-WISE along with several subscales of a commonly used Brief Multidimensional Measure of Religiousness/Spirituality, along with validated scales for well-being, resilience, happiness, depression, anxiety, loneliness, and social network.
Using latent variable models, we developed a Spirituality subscale, which demonstrated acceptable psychometric properties including a unidimensional factor structure and good reliability. Spirituality correlated positively with age and was higher in women than in men. The expanded 28-item, 7-subscale SD-WISE total score (called the Jeste-Thomas Wisdom Index or JTWI) demonstrated acceptable psychometric properties. The Spirituality subscale was positively correlated with good mental health and well-being, and negatively correlated with poor mental health. However, compared to other components of wisdom, the Spirituality factor showed weaker (i.e., small-to-medium vs. medium-to-large) association with the SD-WISE higher-order Wisdom factor (JTWI).
Similar to other components as well as overall wisdom, spirituality is significantly associated with better mental health and well-being, and may add to the predictive utility of the total wisdom score. Spirituality is, however, a weaker contributor to overall wisdom than components like pro-social behaviors and emotional regulation. Longitudinal studies of larger and more diverse samples are needed to explore mediation effects of these constructs on well-being and health.
2020.10.24 20:04
Researchers Develop New Tool to Assess Individual’s Level of Wisdom
September 20, 2017 | Scott LaFee
Researchers at University of San Diego School of Medicine have developed a new tool called the San Diego Wisdom Scale (SD-WISE) to assess an individual’s level of wisdom, based upon a conceptualization of wisdom as a trait with a neurobiological as well as psychosocial basis.
The findings are published in the September 2017 issue of the Journal of Psychiatric Research.
“There is evidence to suggest that the level of wisdom is dictated to a large degree by neurobiology, and that distinct regions and systems in the brain govern the identified components of wisdom,” said Dilip Jeste, MD, Distinguished Professor of Psychiatry and Neurosciences and director of the UC San Diego Center for Healthy Aging.
“There are measures now that assess a person’s level of wisdom, but they do not incorporate these emerging neurobiological models of the trait. SD-WISE reflects the latest thinking. We believe it may be a useful tool in clinical practice, in addition to its value in bio-psycho-social research, especially investigations into the neurobiology of wisdom and possible interventions to enhance it.”
Jeste, with colleagues at UC San Diego and Veterans Affairs San Diego Healthcare System, randomly recruited 524 residents of San Diego County, ages 25 to 104, from an on-going longitudinal investigation called the Successful Aging Evaluation (SAGE) study, focusing on physical, cognitive, and psychosocial aspects of successful aging across the adult lifespan. Slightly more than half of the SD-WISE participants were female. More than three-fourths identified their race or ethnicity as non-Latino white. A majority had some college education. The mean age was 58.
Participants were administered the SD-WISE along with two existing measures: the 12-item Three-Dimensional Wisdom Scale and the 40-item Self-Assessed Wisdom Scale.
“Both scales are well-established and well-respected,” said Michael L. Thomas, PhD, assistant professor of psychiatry at UC San Diego School of Medicine and Veterans Affairs San Diego Healthcare System and first author of the study. “They have demonstrated reliability and validity as scientific tools and were good measures against which to compare SD-WISE.”
SD-WISE differed from the other scales in that its set of statements (which participants agreed or disagreed with on a scale of one to five) was predicated upon a literature review and an expert consensus, which Jeste and others have described in earlier published research. Studies suggest that wisdom may be defined by six specific domains and that these domains are linked to distinct regions of the brain, based upon neuroimaging and other scientific evidence.
For example, the domain of prosocial attitudes and behaviors, such as empathy, altruism and social cooperation, is facilitated by the prefrontal cortex (PFC), located in the front part of the brain and responsible to complex executive functions. The other domains are social decision-making/pragmatic knowledge of life, emotional regulation, reflection/self-understanding, tolerance of diverse values, and ability to effectively deal with uncertainty and ambiguity in life.
All of these domains are associated with specific brain regions, including different parts of the PFC, the limbic system and amygdala, and specific neurotransmitters, especially monoamines.
The researchers found that SD-WISE successfully measured five of the six targeted domains, and made effective distinctions between individuals’ differing degrees of wisdom. The sixth domain — social decision-making — was partially covered as “social advising.”
The results showed that SD-WISE is a reliable and valid scale, said Jeste. Wisdom, as measured with SD-WISE, correlated with measures of psychological well-being. Importantly, the overall results supported the notion that wisdom is a specific entity with different components.
Study authors note this first testing of SD-WISE had limitations. Participants reflected a narrow demographic, primarily Caucasians and persons with higher education. The data were also self-reported, which aids in practical testing, but may be vulnerable to biases.
“This was a first field test of SD-WISE and results are encouraging, but more work remains.Its reliability and validity need to be evaluated further across different socio-cultural, racial-ethnic and national samples,” said Jeste. “Nonetheless, its potential value is considerable. With SD-WISE and other measures, existing or yet to be created, we can study wisdom and its development across the lifespan. Advances in neuroimaging, genetics and other sciences can help reveal how wisdom works biologically within the brain. These tools provide us with the ability to study, understand and possibly influence the development of wisdom in unprecedented ways.”
Co-authors of the study include: Katherine J. Bangen, Barton W. Palmer, and Colin A. Depp, UC San Diego and Veterans Affairs San Diego Healthcare System; A’verria Sirkin, Julie A. Avanzino, Danielle Glorioso, and Rebecca E. Daly, UC San Diego.
Funding for this research came, in part, the National Institute of Mental Health (R01MH094151-05, R01MH099987-04, K23MH102420); VA Clinical Science Research & Development Award (1IK2CX000938) and the Stein Institute for Research on Aging.
We all know that maintaining a healthy insight is what we need in order to stay sane
in this complex life and world. We all need to have the wisdom to do that
until the last day. I'm glad to know that some experts in psychology and psychiatry
have analyzed the components of wisdom as their research project to further
help us understand the wisdom we all need so much every day.