The Wisdom Acquired During Emergencies Scale – Development and Validity

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic and its related lockdown restrictions had repercussions on health status, psychological states of mind, and emotion regulation. Attitudes towards these restrictions, beliefs, emotions and behaviours could be wise, as in the acceptance of, and adaptation to, these constraints. On the other hand, they could be unwise, as in the rejection of rules and limitations, denial of the consequences, irrational beliefs, self-accusation, rage and general intolerance. This study aims to introduce the development and validation of the 25-item Wisdom Acquired During Emergencies Scale (WADES). It is a measure to assess the wisdom and self-regulation that are needed to cope with unexpected and unpredictable emergency situations. On the basis of a preliminary study (N1=212 Italian adults), a multiple-choice scale of 52 items was developed. In the reliability study (N2=1777), items were scaled, analysed according to the optimal score technique and selected to provide a final and reliable version (Cronbach’s α=0.83). The validity study (N3=1,345, N4=1,445, N5= 878) provided correlations with established scales measuring, for example, traditional wisdom, emotion regulation, empathy, post-traumatic growth, collectivism, conscientiousness and satisfaction with life. The results confirmed that high scores on the WADES are associated with the ability to regulate emotions, control impulses and develop goals in emotional situations, to tolerate current difficulties, while developing new attitudes, values and behaviours, entailing changes in self-perception and relationships. It was thus confirmed that high WADES scores indicate a higher degree of acquired wisdom.

A mixed-method study on adolescents’ well-being during the COVID-19 syndemic emergency

“…Given that frequently occurring words reflect recurring themes in a textual corpus and serve as the foundation for more complex coding categories, this is a preliminary form of analysis. The most frequently occurring words in the data set (with the number of occurrences reported in brackets) were: friends (137), family (51), to hang out (38), sport (18), music (18), boyfriend (16), to play (15), time (15), to meet (10), to chat (9), to watch (8), to listen (8), home (7), to help (7), people (6), on-line (5), to sleep (5) and alcohol (4). Even this initial look at the data provides some insight into the contents of adolescents' strategies for coping with difficulties related to the syndemic; however, this level of interpretation is still quite biased (e.g., word frequency count is not weighted in relation to the length of responses), and it does not reveal the underlying structures in the data or the associations between words.…”

“…It is also worth reporting the various studies during these syndemic years that also noted people's ability to detect positive aspects related to the emergency situation. For example, one line of research focused on the development of a form of wisdom derived from the ability to detect positive opportunities (such as spending more time with family members, developing forms of solidarity with other people) to develop new attitudes, behaviors, and values 16 . Other studies have pointed out that the emotional impact of syndemia, although predominantly characterized by emotions such as anxiety, sadness, and fear, over time also brings out positive emotions such as hope, trust, and tranquility 17 .…”