To fully understand wisdom, culture must be taken into account. Several previous studies have shown that people in diverse cultures define wisdom differently. Two studies investigated the concept of wisdom in Taiwanese Chinese culture through examination of implicit theories of wisdom. In study 1, a master list of the behavioral attributes of a wise person was compiled from the responses of 296 adult participants. Another group of adult participants ( N = 616) was asked to rate this master list for wisdom in study 2. The ratings were factor analyzed. Results show that Taiwanese Chinese have well-formed conceptions of wisdom consisting of four factors: competencies and knowledge, benevolence and compassion, openness and profundity, and modesty and unobtrusiveness. A tentative definition of wisdom is proposed according to these findings.

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This review summarises the most recent developments in ginseng analysis, in particular the novel approaches in sample pre-treatment and the use of high-performance liquid-chromatography-mass spectrometry. The review also presents novel data on analysing ginseng extracts by nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy and high-resolution mass spectrometry (Fourier transform mass spectrometry) in the context of metabolomics.

The present study proposes to define wisdom as a real-life process which consists of three core componentsintegration, embodiment, and positive effects. Two studies were conducted to test whether those three components play an essential role in wisdom as it emerges in real-life contexts. In Study 1, an open-ended questionnaire asking Taiwanese Chinese to nominate wise individuals was given to more than 80 participants of a diverse range of occupations and age groups who resided in different parts of Taiwan. After analyzing and rating participants' reasons for their nominations, the results show that wisdom is perceived to include those three core components. In Study 2, semi-structured interviews were conducted on 66 wisdom nominees who agreed to participate. Analysis of these interview transcripts yielded 220 wisdom incidents. It was found that wisdom incidents with core components made explicit received higher wisdom ratings than the same incidents without making the three core components explicit. The present findings suggest that wisdom could be defined more broadly, as a special kind of reallife process that is accomplished after a person cognitively makes an unusual integration, embodies his or her ideas through action, and hence brings forth positive effects to both self and others.