Is spirituality a component of wisdom? Study of 1,786 adults using expanded San Diego Wisdom Scale (Jeste-Thomas Wisdom Index)

Abstract

Wisdom has gained increasing interest among researchers as a personality trait relevant to well-being and mental health. We previously reported development of a new 24-item San Diego Wisdom Scale (SD-WISE), with good to excellent psychometric properties, comprised of six subscales: pro-social behaviors, emotional regulation, self-reflection (insight), tolerance for divergent values (acceptance of uncertainty), decisiveness, and social advising. There is controversy about whether spirituality is a marker of wisdom. The present crosssectional study sought to address that question by developing a new SD-WISE subscale of spirituality and examining its associations with various relevant measures. Methods: Data were collected from a national-level sample of 1,786 community-dwelling adults age 20-82 years, as part of an Amazon M-Turk cohort. Participants completed the 24-item SD-WISE along with several subscales of a commonly used Brief Multidimensional Measure of Religiousness/Spirituality, along with validated scales for well-being, resilience, happiness, depression, anxiety, loneliness, and social network. Results: Using latent variable models, we developed a Spirituality subscale, which demonstrated acceptable psychometric properties including a unidimensional factor structure and good reliability. Spirituality correlated positively with age and was higher in women than in men. The expanded 28-item, 7-subscale SD-WISE total score (called the Jeste-Thomas Wisdom Index or JTWI) demonstrated acceptable psychometric properties. The Spirituality subscale was positively correlated with good mental health and well-being, and negatively correlated with poor mental health. However, compared to other components of wisdom, the Spirituality factor showed weaker (i.e., small-to-medium vs. medium-to-large) association with the SD-WISE higher-order Wisdom factor (JTWI). Conclusion: Similar to other components as well as overall wisdom, spirituality is significantly associated with better mental health and well-being, and may add to the predictive utility of the total wisdom score. Spirituality is, however, a weaker contributor to overall wisdom than components like pro-social behaviors and emotional regulation. Longitudinal studies of larger and more diverse samples are needed to explore mediation effects of these constructs on well-being and health.

Compassion toward others and self-compassion predict mental and physical well-being: a 5-year longitudinal study of 1090 community-dwelling adults across the lifespan

“…Our finding of both CTO and CTS being predictors of lower loneliness at follow-up provides support to the previous findings of a significant inverse correlation ( r = 0.51–0.76) between loneliness and compassion or wisdom in at least four different cross-sectional studies [ 35 , 38 – 40 ]. Though further empirical evidence is warranted, compassionate behavior can be a less socially threatening way to connect with others, as it is likely to be well-received and reciprocated [ 94 ].…”

“…On the other hand, the longitudinal findings appear to have a floor effect with CTS, such that individuals with lower CTS at baseline did not have CTSrelated improvement in physical health. Furthermore, CTO and CTS were not linked to physical health in adults 60+ years of age, Our finding of both CTO and CTS being predictors of lower loneliness at follow-up provides support to the previous findings of a significant inverse correlation (r = 0.51-0.76) between loneliness and compassion or wisdom in at least four different cross-sectional studies [35,[38][39][40]. Though further empirical evidence is warranted, compassionate behavior can be a less socially threatening way to connect with others, as it is likely to be well-received and reciprocated [94].…”

“…Our earlier cross-sectional study suggested three age groups in which loneliness seemed to peak-late 20s, mid-50s, and late 80s [35]. A consistent finding in four published studies has been a strong inverse correlation between loneliness and wisdom, a multi-component personality trait, and its main component-pro-social behaviors of empathy and compassion [35,[38][39][40]. A recent study using EEG also provided neurobiological support to the negative association between these traits [41].…”

Consumer Wisdom for Personal Well‐Being and the Greater Good: Scale Development and Validation

“…Also, each of the six dimensions of the CWS had four items. Future work might look to expand the dimensions and/or the items for additional richness (as done recently with the SD‐WISE scale, Jeste et al, 2020) or reduce them to make the scale more tractable (cf. Richins, 2004, on her materialism scale).…”

Navigating the Perfect Storm of Ageism, Mentalism, and Ableism: A Prevention Model

“…It has several components: pro-social behaviors including empathy, compassion, altruism, and a sense of fairness; decision-making, emotion regulation, self-reflection or insight, acceptance of uncertainty or divergent perspectives, decisiveness or ability to make timely or effective decisions, general knowledge of life and social decision making and spirituality. 14 , 15 Wisdom is associated with well-being, happiness, life satisfaction, and resilience. Possessing and nurturing wisdom is extremely important for individuals and society.…”