How to measure wisdom: content, reliability, and validity of five measures.

Wisdom is a field of growing interest both inside and outside academic psychology, and researchers are increasingly interested in using measures of wisdom in their work. However, wisdom is a highly complex construct, and its various operationalizations are based on quite different definitions. Which measure a researcher chooses for a particular research project may have a strong influence on the results. This study compares four well-established measures of wisdom-the Self-Assessed Wisdom Scale (Webster, 2003, 2007), the Three-Dimensional Wisdom Scale (Ardelt, 2003), the Adult Self-Transcendence Inventory (Levenson et al., 2005), and the Berlin Wisdom Paradigm (Baltes and Smith, 1990; Baltes and Staudinger, 2000)-with respect to content, reliability, factorial structure, and construct validity (relationships to wisdom nomination, interview-based wisdom ratings, and correlates of wisdom). The sample consisted of 47 wisdom nominees and 123 control participants. While none of the measures performed "better" than the others by absolute standards, recommendations are given for researchers to select the most suitable measure for their substantive interests. In addition, a "Brief Wisdom Screening Scale" is introduced that contains those 20 items from the three self-report scales that were most highly correlated with the common factor across the scales.

Who knows who is wise? Self and peer ratings of wisdom.

OBJECTIVES: This study investigated relationships between three measures of wisdom: self-ratings, peer ratings, and a self-report scale. We expected to find a zero or negative correlation between the self-rating and the average peer rating and low positive correlations of both to the self-report scale. We also tested whether there would be more convergence among measures in the top scorers. METHOD: A total of 179 members of 17 university departments were rated by their department colleagues with respect to wisdom; about half of them also rated themselves and filled out a wisdom self-report scale (Three-Dimensional Wisdom Scale [3D-WS]; Ardelt, M. (2003)). RESULTS: There were no significant relationships among the three measures of wisdom, neither in the total sample nor among the top scorers. DISCUSSION: Depending on the focus of research, peer ratings may be a more suitable measure of wisdom than self-report scales or performance measures.