Do individual wisdom concepts depend on value?

Abstract

Psychological wisdom concepts were reviewed. 304 people aged 18-85 were tested with use of a questionnaire aimed at learning individual (popular) wisdom concepts. Popular wisdom concepts take into account broad declarative and procedural knowledge, life experience of a person and the features of his/her character. Explicitly, under a half of respondents take the following wisdom criteria into account (also acknowledged by the psychological concepts): balancing own profits with concern for others and relation to existential problems, such as sense and direction of life. The respondents lack the consciousness that wisdom is associated with: acting for common (global) good, deep and conscious reflection of value system (consciousness of subjective value system relativity, reflecting on the issue of objective values), the consciousness of limited nature of knowledge and logical thinking and developing relativistic and dialectic thinking. 5 clusters were differentiated, representing popular wisdom concept types. In order to verify the hypothesis about the connection between popular wisdom concepts and the value system of the research participants, value questionnaires were used: Scheler’s (SWS) and Schwarz’s Portrait Value Questionnaire (PVQ). The hypothesis was confirmed. Popular wisdom concepts (what people consider to be wisdom) are connected with values appreciated by them.