| All people, everywhere, value wisdom. The historical literature illustrates that wisdom was a topic of interest to people long before its adoption as a field of study by empirical psychology near the middle of the Twentieth Century. Interest in the topic has steadily increased, especially in the fields of developmental psychology and gerontology. Wisdom is a multi-dimensional topic that has been investigated by researchers in diverse fields (Assmann, 1994; Baltes, 1997; Sternberg, 2000). Few, if any, multi-cultural studies of wise individuals have been conducted, however.;This study represents a qualitative inquiry into the lives of twenty individuals who were selected as being wise through a unique three-tiered process of networking and collaboration by their peers. These individuals represent five different cultures: Japanese, Kenyan, Navajo, Saami-Norwegian, and Western European. Five women and fifteen men participated in life history interviews, where they were also asked to reiterate their culture's views on wisdom. The participants ranged in age from 43 years old to over 100 years old. The "wise ones" who were selected for this study displayed similar attitudes toward others and the environment. They appeared to implicitly understand the ultimate consequences in human interactions. They told of personal experiences that illustrated an uncommon "common sense" and an ability to exercise good judgment in matters concerning their communities.;Eight common categories were isolated and identified from the data. Every category was descriptive in some way of each participant. Specifically, these categories were: (a) the participants admire and are grateful for their cultures and heritage; (b) the participants have been honed by adversities (as in a refiner's fire); (c) the participants were disciplined and principled; (d) the participants sought to maintain balance in their lives; (e) the participants exemplified self-sufficiency; (f) the participants were motivated by the "common good"; (g) the participants implicitly sought knowledge and wisdom; (h) the participants were humble. These characteristics seemed uninfluenced by culture, gender, occupation, or age, leading to a tentative speculation that wisdom may be a "culture-free" phenomenon. |
