| Modern psychologists generally regard wisdom as mature understanding and conduct of life; however, most wisdom studies have been conducted in Western culture. Little is known about wisdom in other cultures, even though cultures may significantly shape the structure of wisdom; for example, Chinese culture emphasizes connections in society, nature, and universe more than Western culture does, thus the structure of wisdom among Mainland Chinese may differ from that of Westerners. We conducted three studies to find a proper measure/representation for wisdom among Mainland Chinese. In study 1, wisdom was measured by Ardelt's self-report wisdom scale, but the three-dimensional wisdom structure was not found. In study 2, we identified five wisdom components from the implicit theory of wisdom among 100 Mainland Chinese. Most of these components corresponded to those identified in the implicit theory of wisdom among westerners; yet some of them were uniquely Chinese. The Mainland Chinese Wisdom Model was developed based on these five conceptual components. In study 3, a Mainland Chinese Wisdom Paradigm was developed based on the Mainland Chinese Wisdom Model and the Berlin Wisdom Paradigm (general and personal). The participants' wisdom performance was videotaped and then rated on the Mainland Chinese and Berlin Wisdom criteria. Their videotaped facial expression was analyzed by software. The results revealed that our Chinese wisdom measurement is reliable and valid; the Berlin Wisdom rating and the Mainland Chinese Wisdom rating were highly consistent with each other; finally, the feeling of surprise may contribute to wisdom performance. |
