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Wise Reasoning in the Face of Everyday Life Challenges

Igor Grossmann
Tanja M. Gerlach
Jaap J. A. Denissen
All your life you’re told forgiveness is for you. But we’re never told why it’s for you. It means you’re working on owning your life.
Shani Tran
Therapist and Founder, The Shani Project
Forgiveness is nothing less than the way we heal the world. We heal the world by healing each and every one of our hearts. The process is simple, but it is not easy.
Archbishop Desmond Tutu
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Wise Reasoning in the Face of Everyday Life Challenges

Igor Grossmann
Tanja M. Gerlach
Jaap J. A. Denissen
NO. of participants
Date
2016
Type of Evidence
Type of Paper
Primary Empirical Study
Empiricism
open access
Yes
No
sample size
176

How stable vs. dynamic is wisdom in daily life? We conducted a daily diary study of wise reasoning (WR) by recording people’s reflections on daily challenges in terms of three facets: intellectual humility, self-transcendence, and consideration of others’ perspectives/compromise. We observed substantial and systematic intraindividual variability in WR, with wiser reasoning in the social versus nonsocial contexts. State-level WR variability was potent in predicting a bigger-picture construal of the event, more positive (vs. negative) emotions, greater emotional complexity, lower emotional reactivity, less thought suppression, and more reappraisal and forgiveness. In contrast, on the trait level, we observed only a few associations to emotional complexity and reappraisal. We discuss implications for conceptualization and measurement of wisdom-related thought.

Research
Europe
Mental Health Professionals
Supporting Research
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