Wisdom affinity in the general population

Abstract

Background Wisdom is an important coping resource for difficult and ambiguous life situations. Wisdom trainings have been developed in clinical and non-clinical settings. What has been missing so far are representative data on wisdom affinity from the general population. These are important regarding needs assessments and identification of risk groups with low wisdom affinity and potential problems in coping with difficult and ambiguous life situations. Method The study examined a population-representative sample of 2509 persons. Socio-demographic data, presence of chronic and mental illnesses was assessed, and wisdom attitudes by the 12-WD Wisdom Scale. The surveys were carried out by means of interviews and self-report questionnaires at the respondents’ homes, done by an experienced social research company (USUMA GmbH). Results Only 6% of the whole sample appeared to be highly wisdom-affirmative (12-WD mean score 10 on scale 0–10), whereas 4% may appear low wisdom-affirm, due to very low agreement (12 WD mean score 0–4). Most of the moderately wisdom-affirm people had a religious denomination (70.9%), whereas only 57–59% of the high or low wisdom-affirm persons reported religious affiliations. Low wisdom-affirm were most often chronically ill (25%), with mental or physical illness in similar frequency, and had significantly more unemployment times than persons with higher wisdom scores. Wisdom affinity was independent from age, gender and age, household situation, and higher school education. Conclusion It must be assumed that people with socio-medical risk factors also have impairments in their wisdom-related problem-solving strategies, and that these can be of interest for transdiagnostic wisdom trainings in prevention or rehabilitation, which has shown positive effects.