Creativity and Wisdom – Positive Psychology Development in Later Life PS 277 – Lecture 10

Outline  Creativity and Age Trends  Wisdom and Aging

Wisdom, Morality, and Creativity?  King Solomon’s dilemma in Bible – how was this wise? creative? moral?  Can you think of some examples of wise people?  How about some examples of moral people?

Qualitative Changes in Cognition – Continued Positive Development into Later Life?  Piaget’s stages and adolescence  Can people go beyond formal operations?  Moral and social reasoning across adulthood  Focusing on the positive in psychology

Patterns of Evidence Regarding Age and Creativity (Simonton)  Typical age curve of creative productivity  Career age, not chronological age  Timing of pattern varies somewhat by discipline  Creative products are most likely from those who are most productive overall

Darwin’s Creativity  Did Darwin follow this age curve?  His theory of natural selection was developed early, by around 1839, age 30  Not published until 1859 (Origin of Species), when Wallace forced his hand – was trying to develop support for 20 years  Later life work was notable until mid-1870’s (Descent of Man, Emotions), then less so, tho continued to work till death

Late Life Creativity? – the Swan Song  Simonton studied compositions of 172 classical composers (e.g., Beethoven’s 9 th symphony)  Late life works were somewhat “special”: simpler, shorter, but higher in aesthetic significance, perhaps more “interior” or inward in focus  Key predictor seems to be time to death, and Simonton argues this is person’s attempt to contemplate and transcend approaching death

The Berlin Psychology of Wisdom Model (Baltes & Staudinger)  Problem solving and advice in practical life experiences – key criteria for judging include:  Factual and procedural knowledge  Life-span contextualism – recognizing person’s life context in your advice  Value relativism for person, despite universal values  Understanding and management of uncertainty

Judging People’s Everyday Life Reasoning  “A recent decision for me was my daughter’s choice to leave the public school and take Grade 11 at a private school. Probably a few years ago I would have recommended against, but now I realized that I was sort of in favor of it. In the past I had always supported the public school system as being the basis for a good society. But when it comes down to a specific instance, you’ve got one shot at it with yourself and your child so it doesn’t matter what your overall principles are, you better do what is right for this particular person at the time. This was a moral issue for me because I’m very interested and concerned about society and my own support of certain community structures and everyone’s welfare. And supporting her change was something I wouldn’t have contemplated 5 or 6 years ago as even being possible” (father, age 54).  Is this wise? Is it moral?

Relations of Wisdom Patterns with Chronological Age

What are important predictors of wisdom in everyday reasoning?  IQ?  Expertise in life?  Personality?  Creativity, cognitive style?

Predictors of Wisdom – Baltes and Staudinger Model

Collaborative Cognition and Wisdom – Are Two Heads Better Than One?  Staudinger and Baltes (1999) – “interactive minds” model of wisdom  Wisdom can be fostered by working in a social context  4 groups: a) respond to wisdom question immediately, b) take some time to think on own, c) discuss the problem with another person, d) engage in virtual internal dialogue with another person of their choice  Talking with another was helpful, imagining a dialogue with another also somewhat helpful  Chapter 9 – maybe not always better in terms of memory

Representing the Voices of Others in Decision-Making  Woman in her 60’s, talking about her moral learning in life:  “We had a wonderful Sunday school teacher and she taught me through from 10 until I was a teenager…And I stayed with her a year while I was going to high school before the bus service went in. So she taught me in her daily living too. She was very, very kind. She just taught me by example to be honest and caring and to help others and she brought out a lot of my talents. I think she was quite an outstanding person, and like she’s still in my mind today, and things that happen, I don’t know why but I see her and I think, ‘I wonder how she would have handled this,’ and I seem to be able to reason out things just from the way she taught me…I think it made me a better wife and mother and grandmother.”

Different Wisdom Traditions  Baltes & Staudinger’s “wisdom as expertise” model is strongly weighted towards the cognitive aspects  Others emphasize integrating thinking and emotions (Labouvie–Vief)  “Golden mean” tradition of ancients =  “A wise person has learned to balance the opposing valences of three aspects of behavior: cognition, affect, and volition. A wise person weighs the knowns and unknowns, resists overwhelming emotion while maintaining interest, and carefully chooses when and where to take action (Birren & Fisher, 1990).”