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Stories of Wisdom to Live By: Developing Wisdom in a Narrative Mode

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The Scientific Study of Personal Wisdom

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Abstract

Any complete science of personal wisdom must consider wisdom in a narrative mode. We argue that life narratives not only offer a rich viewpoint from which to study personal wisdom, but from a process perspective, we propose that crafting meaningful stories may be central to the development of personal wisdom itself. In particular, we point to two capacities that may be particularly important to the development of wisdom: autobiographical reasoning and narrative simulation. Autobiographical reasoning refers to the sophistication with which we reflect on our lives and gain insight from past experiences. Narrative simulation concerns our ability to project ourselves into the storyworld of historical and/or literary figures who are exemplars of wisdom and also our ability to simulate hypothetical narratives of our own lives that have not yet come to pass. Some evidence for this view is provided from a study on engagement with cultural master narratives of wisdom.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Robert Sternberg’s (1998) balance theory of wisdom is very similar to the Berlin wisdom paradigm, proposing the wisdom involves balanced judgments promoting the common good—decisions that, in principle, might be better made by a group than by any one individual. As most studies have been done within the Berlin paradigm, we will direct our focus to methodological discussion on those studies.

  2. 2.

    The specifics of this procedure are discussed most thoroughly in the Manual for the Assessment of Wisdom-Related Knowledge (Staudinger, Smith, & Baltes, 1994).

  3. 3.

    Evidence from the study of mirror neurons sheds some light on the biological basis of our capacity for social simulation.

  4. 4.

    The stories told about the lives of many historical figures have reached a canonical status in our culture (e.g., Gandhi, Jesus).

  5. 5.

    For examples of master narrative analyses on gender, see Bamberg (2004) and Thorne and McLean (2003); on sexual identity, see Hammack, Thompson, and Pilecki (2009) and Weststrate and McLean (2010); and on national identity, see Hammack (2006).

  6. 6.

    We find an analogous process in Pakistan, where most of those interviewed from children to the elderly spontaneously chose Mohammed as the wisest person in history and used his life and words as a reference point to discuss wisdom in their own lives (Ferrari, Khan, Benayon, & Nero, 2011).

  7. 7.

    All names are pseudonyms.

  8. 8.

    One limitation of the study being presented here is that we did not measure intelligence. It is possible that the participant’s nomination of Hitler might indicate a lack of knowledge about who Hitler was.

  9. 9.

    Elaboration refers to the degree of detail, vividness, and emotional depth provided in stories about a lost possible self.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Applied Psychology and Human Development, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto, Bloor Street West 252, M5S 1V6, Toronto, ON, Canada

    Michel Ferrari & Nic M. Weststrate

  2. Department of Adult Education and Counselling Psychology, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto, Bloor Street West 252, M5S 1V6, Toronto, ON, Canada

    Anda Petro

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  1. OISE, Applied Psychology and Human Development, University of Toronto, Bloor Street West 252, Toronto, M5S 1V6, Ontario, Canada

    Michel Ferrari

  2. Ontario Inst. Studies in Education, Dept. Human Development &, University of Toronto, Bloor Street West 252, Toronto, M5S 1V6, Ontario, Canada

    Nicholas Weststrate

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Ferrari, M., Weststrate, N.M., Petro, A. (2013). Stories of Wisdom to Live By: Developing Wisdom in a Narrative Mode. In: Ferrari, M., Weststrate, N. (eds) The Scientific Study of Personal Wisdom. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-9231-1_7

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