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A recent American study reveals that wisdom would take different forms in women and in men. The latter would be more inclined to develop their decisiveness and control of their emotions, while women would show more compassion and reflect more on themselves.
“Women and men show some differences in the subdomains of wisdom”, according to researchers at the University of California, San Diego. “We might think that Wisdom as a whole is androgynous (i.e. does not belong to a specific sex group)”, they say in their study published in the journal Frontiers in Psychology. But this is obviously not the case.
Women would be more compassionate
To reach this conclusion, the scientists measured the level of wisdom of 659 participants, aged 27 to 103, using the San Diego Wisdom Scale (SD-WISE) and the three-dimensional wisdom (3D-WS). These scales make it possible to break down wisdom into several elements, such as empathy and compassion, control of one’s emotions, personal reflection (understanding and trying to improve one’s own behavior), decisiveness, acceptance of uncertainty, acceptance of diverse points of view or spirituality.
Women scored higher on compassion and other pro-social components of wisdom, as other previous studies have found. But the San Diego researchers also observed that the fairer sex was better at personal reflections.
For their part, the men did better in decision-making and in controlling their emotions.
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Different biological factors
These different forms of wisdom between men and women could be explained, according to the authors of the study, by biological factors linked in particular to hormones, but also by socio-cultural factors. The difference in treatment between the two sexes from childhood could contribute to these different forms of wisdom.
According to the researchers, wise people would live longer. “Wisdom has been shown to be linked to better mental health and possibly greater longevity”explain Emily Treichler and Dilip Jeste of the University of California, San Diego. “Wise people tend to experience higher well-being, greater life satisfaction, more optimism, and are better able to handle losses and other situations of adversity.”