Loneliness affects wisdom

Our level of wisdom varies dramatically according to the situations and is affected by factors like loneliness and togetherness, a new study has found.

The findings were published in the journal Social Psychological and Personality Science.

The study defines wise reasoning as a combination of such abilities as intellectual humility, consideration of others’ perspective and looking for compromise.

“This research does not dismiss that there is a personality component to wisdom, but that is not the whole picture,” said Igor Grossmann from the University of Waterloo in Canada. “Situations in daily life affect our personality and ability to reason wisely,” said Grossmann.

The observation that wise reasoning varies dramatically across situations in daily life suggests that while it fluctuates, wisdom may not be as rare as we think, researchers said.