How Similar are Wise Men and Women? A Comparison Across Two Age Cohorts

Abstract

Orwoll and Achenbaum (1993) suggest that the path to wisdom might be considerably different for men and women, although a wise person might have integrated the feminine and masculine aspects of wisdom. Using samples of 464 undergraduate college students and 178 older adults (age 52+), univariate and multivariate analyses of variance revealed that wisdom (measured by cognitive, reflective, and affective characteristics) was unrelated to gender. Women, however, tended to score higher on the affective dimension of wisdom than men. By contrast, men tended to outperform women on the cognitive wisdom dimension only among the older cohort. The results might reflect gender-specific socialization practices and changes in those practices for the younger cohort. As predicted, no significant differences between men and women were found in the three dimensions of wisdom among the top 25% of wisdom scorers, suggesting that relatively wise persons have integrated the cognitive and affective dimensions of wisdom.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

I would like to thank Anthony Stewart, Steve Jacobs, Orli Zaprir, Carla Edwards, Anna Campbell, Lisa Hamilton, Stephen Mayer, Dana Federici, Amy Monk, Brad Tripp, Elizabeth Brown, and Yvonne Combs for their help at various stages of the research project and to the research participants for their time and commitment to the study. The research was in part supported by a grant from NIH/NIA (R03 AG14855-01), a Research Initiation Project Award from the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at the University of Florida, a grant from the John T. Templeton Foundation, and by the University of Florida Center for Spirituality and Health.