Psy 220

Reflecting on Wisdom

Psy 220

28 March 2013

By: Amber Nielsen

“Wisdom is a deep understanding and realization of people, things, events or situations, resulting in the ability to apply perceptions, judgments and actions in keeping with this understanding” (Wikipedia, 2012). Wisdom personifies a particular kind of knowledge, intelligence, and judgment concentrated on the behavior of an honorable life. Wise people have cultured life’s most important teachings. The broad scope of people’s understanding includes the uncertainties of life— that is, knowing what cannot be definitively known. Wisdom is not that of someone well educated, but that of one whom retains the ability of a happy and healthy life.

The attributes that are commonly associated with wise people are: Reasoning Ability, Sagacity, Learning from Ideas and the Environment, Judgment, Expeditious use of Information and Perspicacity. Reasoning Ability is the uncommon ability to look at a problem and solve it through good logical reasoning ability, by applying knowledge to particular problems, by integrating information and theories in new ways, and by possessing a huge store of knowledge. Sagacity is the keen understanding of human nature, thoughtfulness, fairness, good listening abilities, knowledge of self and placing value on the advice and knowledge of others. Learning from Ideas and the Environment places value on ideas, is perceptive, and learns from others’ mistakes. Judgment has good sensible judgment at all times, takes a long-term rather than a short-term view, and thinks before acting and speaking. Expeditious use of Information learns and retains information from experience (both mistakes and successes), willingness to change one’s mind based on new experience. Perspicacity Demonstrates perceptiveness, intuition, ability to see through things, read between the lines; and discern the truth and the right thing to do. (Bumgardener & Crothers, 2009)

I had a role model to display it all...