Self-Reported Wisdom and Happiness: An Empirical Investigation

By A. Bergsma, Monika Ardelt. Journal of Happiness Studies, 2011

122 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Possible tensions between wisdom and happiness have been extensively debated in philosophy. Some regard wisdom as the ‘supreme part of happiness’, whereas other think that a more accurate and wiser view on reality might reduce happiness. Analyzing a Dutch internet survey of 7037 respondents, we discovered that wisdom and happiness were modestly positively related. Wisdom, measured with the Three-Dimensional Wisdom Scale (3D-WS), explained 9.2% of the variation in hedonic happiness. The correlation with the reflective dimension of wisdom was the strongest. In addition, wisdom was more important for happiness among adults with only an elementary education. Our results suggest that happiness and wisdom do not conflict.

Subfields: Applied Psychology, Neuropsychology and Physiological Psychology, Social Psychology

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/13f90e18a3ac3b5c7fb3c73c3f0c468d8a573fda

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Applied Psychology

1. L. Pearce
2. S. Etezadi
3. D. Pushkar
4. Bernard McKenna
5. David Rooney
6. H. Zacher

In Neuropsychology and Physiological Psychology

1. L. Pearce
2. S. Etezadi
3. D. Pushkar
4. Bernard McKenna
5. David Rooney
6. H. Zacher
7. C. Rudolph
8. D. Kooij

In Social Psychology

1. L. Pearce
2. S. Etezadi
3. D. Pushkar
4. Bernard McKenna
5. David Rooney
6. H. Zacher
7. A. Hirschi
8. Claire S. Johnston

Citations in the corpus

• Why are Wise People Happier? An Explanatory Model of Wisdom and Emotional Well-Being in Older Adults (2013, background): “Indeed, Brugman (2006) notes that in the wisdom literature of the west, well-being is generally thought of as a consequence of wisdom.”
• Leaders’ Personal Wisdom and Leader–Member Exchange Quality: The Role of Individualized Consideration (2014, background): “Over the past two decades, Ardelt’s research showed that personal wisdom positively predicted life satisfaction (Ardelt 1997; Bergsma and Ardelt 2012),”
• HAPPINESS: HISTORY OF THE CONCEPT (2015, unknown): “For instance, the classic notion of ‘wisdom’ has crumbled in a set of rather loosely related traits (Bergsma & Ardelt 2012).”