Age And Gender Differences In Wisdo

Are there age and sex differences in wisdom? On this issue,there was a consistent view in traditional Chinese and Western culture,that was,“Compared with the young and women,the old and men are more wise”.In traditional society,because of the social model image of the elderly and the social role division of men,they had more voice and opportunities to show their wisdom.As a result,the public was more likely to make higher evaluation on the above two groups of people in the level of wisdom.It can be seen from the above that both the elderly and the men show the higher level of wisdom in terms of both public perception and real performance.However,with the advent of the information age and the increasing democratization of society,the speed of knowledge updating is unprecedented,the young no longer need to acquire and inherit the norms of behavior,values and etiquette of their elders;With the vigorous development of the women’s liberation movement,women’s social status has been improved unprecedentedly and their educational opportunities,knowledge and cultural levels have risen significantly.Therefore,the wisdom situation created by the traditional social environment and the wisdom impression formed by the public also changed,and people began to re-examine the age and gender differences of wisdom.This paper explored age and gender differences in wisdom from the perspectives of public perception and task performance,including four studies.Study 1 examined the public’s cognition of the difference in wisdom level among the different ages and genders,including study 1A and 1B.The evaluated objects were abstract groups.Study 1A used E-prime program to explore the explicit score of subjects towards the age and gender differences of wisdom level.Study 1B used Mouse Tracker program to explore subjects’ implicit attitudes towards the wisdom level of different ages and genders.The results showed that the public tended to think that there was no significant difference in the wisdom level of age,and the men had both high and low wisdom images.Study 2 examined subjects’ cognition of the differences in wisdom types among the different ages and genders,including study 2A and 2B.The evaluated objects were abstract groups.Study 2A used E-prime program to explore the explicit scores of subjects towards the age and gender differences of wisdom types.Study 2B used Mouse Tracker program to explore subjects’ implicit attitudes toward the wisdom types of the different ages and genders.The results show that: In terms of wisdom type,the public thinks that the natural wisdom of the young and men is significantly higher than that of the old and women,while the human wisdom of the old and women is significantly higher than that of the young and men.In study 3,an open-ended questionnaire was used to investigate the ordinary people who nominated life wise nominees and wisdom events.The results showed that: As to the life wise nominees,in terms of gender,males accounted for a much higher proportion than females,and there were gender differences in the life wise nominees of different genders.In terms of age,the majority are in early youth and early middle age.As to life wisdom events,wisdom events embody three types of wisdom including human wisdom,natural wisdom and mixed wisdom.There was no significant difference in the types of wisdom events in the age and gender of the life wise nominees.In study 4,wisdom tasks including human wisdom tasks and natural wisdom tasks,were developed to measure the difference in wisdom degree of subjects of different ages and genders when solving and processing different tasks.The results show that the scores of natural wisdom task and human wisdom task of the young are significantly higher than those of the old.Women scored significantly higher on human wisdom tasks than men.To sum up,the study draws the following conclusions:(1)When the evaluation objects were abstract people,the public believed that there was no significant difference in the wisdom level of age,and the men had both high and low wisdom images;The public believes that the young and men have more natural wisdom,while the old and women have more human wisdom.(2)When the nominees were daily acquaintances,the young and the middle-aged and men were more likely to be nominated as life wise nominees by the public,and there was no significant difference in the types of wisdom events in the age and gender of the life wise nominees.(3)In terms of the performance of wisdom tasks,the young are higher than the old in both natural and human wisdom,and women are higher than men in human wisdom.The study is conducive to understanding the public perception of the wisdom of people of different ages and genders and the real wisdom of people of different ages and genders,revealing whether there is a difference between the public perception and the objective reality,and providing empirical basis for the development of related research in the future.It is instrumental to maintain a more rational attitude towards the issues of age and gender differences,and also provided certain reference for the formulation of relevant laws,regulations and institutional guidelines.