The Wisdom in Virtue: Pursuit of Virtue Predicts Wise Reasoning About Personal Conflicts

Abstract

Most people can reason relatively wisely about others' social conflicts, but often struggle to do so about their own (i.e., Solomon's Paradox; Grossmann & Kross, 2014). We suggest that true wisdom should involve the ability to reason wisely about others' and one's own social conflicts.The present studies investigate the pursuit of virtue as a construct that predicts this broader capacity for wisdom. Results across two studies support prior Solomon's Paradox findings: participants (N = 623) expressed greater wisdom (e.g., intellectual humility, adopting outsider's perspectives) about others' social conflicts than their own. The pursuit of virtue (e.g., pursuing personal ideals and contributing to others) moderated these results. In both studies, high virtue pursuit was associated with a greater endorsement of wise reasoning strategies for one's own personal conflicts, reducing the discrepancy in wise reasoning between one's own and others' social conflicts. Implications and mechanisms are explored and discussed. Wisdom and Virtue. In accordance with philosophers who spoke of wisdom and virtue as inextricably linked, researchers acknowledge that virtuous motives are a central component of wisdom (e.g., Baltes & Staudinger, 2000). In the psychological literature, wisdom and virtue are often juxtaposed, with both being said to encourage greater empathy, selflessness, and compassion (Le, 2011;Dambrun & Ricard, 2011). Yet, despite the two concepts often being discussed together, little has been done to explore exactly how virtue may be related to wisdom.Contemporary operationalizations of wisdom suggest it is comprised of multiple subcomponents (e.g., intellectual humility, perspective-taking, search for compromise; recognition of change; Grossmann et al., 2010). In limited work thus far, research suggests that virtue may be able to promote several of wisdom's subcomponents. For example, those who expressed virtuous motives-defined as a desire to act beyond personal interests and develop the best in oneself-were also more likely to minimize self-focus (Huta & Ryan, 2010), and express greater growth and insight after difficult life experiences (Bauer, McAdams & Pals, 2008).Further, research by Kunzmann & Baltes (2003) found that wisdom-related knowledge is positively associated with the importance of personal growth and the well-being of others. These findings suggest that pursuing virtue reduces a focus on egocentric views, and increases the value of others' unique experiences and perspectives, both central tenets of wise reasoning (Grossmann, Na, Varnum, Kitayama, & Nisbett, 2013). If this is true, then pursuing virtue should encourage the recognition that one's personal perspectives may not be enough to fully understand a conflict, promoting wisdom about one's own conflicts as well as others'.Research Overview. The first goal of the present studies was to replicate Solomon's Paradox, demonstrating that people tend to reason more wisely about others' conflicts than their own. Our second goal was to test our...

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