A presentation by Sophia Efstathiou at the BSA Futures of Ageing Conference held on 19 July 2010 at the British Library Conference Centre, London, UK.

1. Could Ageing Brains
Be Wiser?
Wisdom, Heuristics and Ageing
Dr. Sophia Efstathiou, Philosophy, Southampton
AGEING, BODY AND SOCIETY STUDY GROUP
British Sociological Association

2. Brain-training
doesn’t work

3. But some training is
needed...!

4. Is (hopefully) increasing age not
just a harbinger of impairments
but also of increasing wisdom?
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5. Join psychology and philosophy to answer
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6. My answer:
• Understand knowledge as an ability
that is non‐cogni4ve, and wisdom as
the result of training that ability.
• Then we might understand why
cogni4ve ability might deteriorate
with age, but wisdom increase.
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7. The Frame
• Paul Baltes’s research on wisdom, The
Psychologist (Baltes and Kunzman
2003).
• Linked up to John Hyman’s discussion
of knowledge, The Philosophical
Quarterly (Hyman 1999).
• Gerd Gigerenzer on Simple Heuris6cs
That Make Us Smart (1999), to finish.
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8. 1. Ageing and Wisdom:
A psychological perspec4ve
• Wisdom has been taken as a mark of
opBmal human development
• Psychologist Paul Baltes and his
group: wisdom is not an effect of just
ageing.
Baltes Paul B. and Ute Kunzmann (2003), Wisdom, The
Psychologist, Vol 16 no. 3, pp 131 -133
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9. 1. Ageing and Wisdom:
A psychological perspec4ve
Wisdom = expert knowledge and
judgment about important, difficult
and uncertain quesBons associated
with the meaning and conduct of life
(Baltes and Kunzman 2003, 131).
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10. 1. Ageing and Wisdom:
A psychological perspec4ve
Experiments:
• asking subjects quesBons about
a number of difficult scenarios,
• collecBng and raBng think‐aloud
answers.
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11. 1. Ageing and Wisdom:
A psychological perspec4ve
e.g. :
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12. 1. Ageing and Wisdom:
A psychological perspec4ve
e.g. : What would you say to a 15
year‐old girl who wanted to get
married immediately?
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13. 1. Ageing and Wisdom:
A psychological perspec4ve
e.g. ‘Well, on the surface, this seems like an easy
problem. On average, marriage for 15 year‐old girls
is not a good thing. On the other hand, thinking
about geWng married is not the same as actually
doing it. I guess many girls think about it without
geWng married in the end... There are situaBons
where the average case doesn’t fit. Perhaps special
life circumstances are involved. The girl may have a
terminal illness. She may not be from this country
or perhaps she lives in another culture...’ (Baltes
and Kunzman 2003, 131) 13

14. 1. A psychological perspec4ve
5 criteria to define ‘wisdom‐related knowledge’ (131‐2):
1. factual knowledge about life and life development
2. procedural knowledge, knowledge about strategies for life
progression,
3. knowledge about lives’ context and their dynamic,
4. knowledge about value rela6vism and tolerance, and
5. knowledge indicaBve of the awareness and management of
uncertainty.
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15. NOTICE: psychological defini4on
• involves knowledge and not
exclusively cogniBve knowledge
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16. NOTICE: psychological defini4on
• involves knowledge and not
exclusively cogniBve knowledge
• emerge during a window at late
adolescence/early adulthood
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17. NOTICE: psychological defini4on
• involves knowledge and not exclusively
cogniBve knowledge
• emerge during a window at late
adolescence/early adulthood
• predictors for wisdom‐related
knowledge: personality; experiences 17

18. Increasing wisdom possible,
with age:
‘If such a coaliBon is present, some individuals
conBnue a developmental trajectory toward
higher levels of wisdom‐related knowledge.
(...) A high level of wisdom‐related
knowledge, then, appears to be more
prevalent in older adults, although simply
geWng older is not a sufficient
condiBon.’ (Baltes and Kunzman 2003, 132)
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19. Psychological evidence:
• wisdom‐related knowledge not just due
to ageing, BUT higher in older adults.
• wisdom‐related knowledge is not just
cogni4ve knowledge: mental
deterioraBon and wisdom enhancement
can happen side by side.
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20. PHILOSOPHICAL evidence?
• What is wisdom, really, i.e. beyond the
construct offered here by Baltes and
Kunzman, such that it could behave as
these researchers describe?
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21. PHILOSOPHICAL evidence?
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22. PHILOSOPHICAL evidence?
One answer:
Knowledge = ‘the ability to act, to refrain
from acBng, to believe, desire, or doubt
for reasons that are facts’ (Hyman 1999,
451).
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23. PHILOSOPHICAL evidence:
accommodates the observaBons of
Baltes and Kunzman
1. knowledge‐related wisdom can be
modulated by experience, it is an ability
2. involves ‘mo6va6onal’ and ‘emoBonal’
characterisBcs as well as cogniBve ones
(Baltes and Kunzman 2003, 132), things
like ac6ng, refraining from ac6ng and
desiring, as well as believing or doubBng.
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24. A More Complete Picture
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25. And some Hope?
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26. Emergent Hypotheses?
What sort of experience or prac4ce,
maaers for increasing wisdom?
One answer: pracBces that enhance
‘ecological’ ra4onality, as opposed to
logical raBonality (Gigerenzer and the
ABC group)
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27. Emergent Hypotheses?
• ABC group: intelligent behavior = the
ecologically advantageous use of
heuris4cs in decision‐making situaBons.
• Sugges4on: figure out heuris4cs
associated with enhanced wisdom?
Could include cogniBve and non‐
cogniBve content.
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28. CONCLUSION
SOCRATES: Now my art of midwifery is just like theirs in
most respects. The difference is that I aaend men and
not women, and that I watch over the labor of their
souls, not of their bodies. And the most important
thing about my art is the ability to apply all possible
tests to the offspring, to determine whether the young
mind is being delivered of a phantom, that is, an error,
or a ferBle truth. For one thing which I have in
common with the ordinary midwives is that I myself
am barren of wisdom. (Thaeatetus, 150 b7‐c5, Cooper
(1997), p. 167.)
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