News

Are old people really wise? Scholars tackle murky concept of wisdom

admin — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 16:48:00 GMT

This article offers some further information on the opinions and research of some recipients of the 2008 Defining Wisdom grants.

Source: MSNBC

There is more information than ever at our fingertips, yet we’re none the wiser it seems.

And many old people are wise, as most of them will tell you, but sometimes they can’t remember your name, so how smart is that?

It’s paradoxes like these that lie at the heart of a new $2 million research project called Defining Wisdom. Based at the University of Chicago, the four-year initiative, supported by the Templeton Foundation, has enlisted 23 scholars ranging from historians to economists to psychologists to computer scientists to examine the idea of wisdom, with the aim of cultivating it and better understanding its nature.

The wisdom of the swarm

admin — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 16:43:00 GMT

This article offers an example of wisdom in the context of the biological sciences, suggesting that some insects form swarms in order to avoid predation.

Source: The Scientist

The propensity of locusts to form huge swarms and blanket landscapes may have evolved as a strategy to disrupt foraging by predators such as small mammals, lizards, and birds, according to research published today.

"If the [locusts] are dispersed and in large numbers, a predator can move through an environment preying on the food and sustain itself," explained Andy Reynolds, a biomathematician at Rothamsted Research in the UK and lead author on the paper, which appears in today's (Dec. 18) issue of Current Biology. "If the [locusts] bunch up and form large groups, then from the point of view of a predator, the environment is sparse."

A New Science of Virtues Grant Competition

admin — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 23:20:00 GMT

The Arete Initiative at the University of Chicago is pleased to announce a new $3 million research program on a New Science of Virtues. This is a multidisciplinary research initiative that seeks contributions from individuals and from teams of investigators working within the humanities and the sciences. We support highly original, scholarly projects that demonstrate promise of a distinctive contribution to virtue research and have the potential to begin a new field of interdisciplinary study.

In 2010, about twenty (20), two-year research grants will be awarded ranging from $50,000 to $300,000. Scholars and scientists from around the world are invited to submit Letters of Intent (LOI) as entry into a research grant competition.

For a description of the required Letter of Intent and more information about a New Science of Virtues, go to: www.scienceofvirtues.org or contact us directly at virtues@uchicago.edu

Defining Wisdom RFP Project featured in the "Templeton Report"

jdarragh — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 22:18:00 GMT

The Nov. 12, 2008 issue of the Templeton Report featured an overview of the Defining Wisdom RFP Project at the University of Chicago. The Templeton Report: News from the John Templeton Foudation is a twice monthly electronic newsletter from the foundation featuring itesm on current research, initiatives, and events.

Read the report (link).

Subscribe to the Templeton Report (link)

Update to Richard Trowbridge's Work

jdarragh — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 17:35:00 GMT

Richard Trowbridge has been collecting and commenting on empirical studies of Wisdom for many years. In addition to his dissertation, he maintains the list on his website. For those digging into the subject, this is a wealth of information. His site, wisdomcenteredlife.org is a wealth of information:

From his January, 2008 update:

The fact that empirical psychologists have found any way to study wisdom seems a major advance: before 1980, there had never been an empirical study of wisdom published in a scholarly journal. Research to date has hardly revealed truths about wisdom that go beyond ancient and medieval texts. Nonetheless, if wisdom is to assume once again an important place in the lives of thoughtful people, empirical research will likely be vital to its revival. The Defining Wisdom project of the University of Chicago, which in 2008 will be awarding 20 young researchers substantial grants for the study of wisdom, may well prove a watershed for wisdom's resurgence. Later, the University will be offering grants to a number of senior researchers into wisdom. It seems that with Positive Psychology, and the empirical study of spirituality, love, and wellness in a holistic sense, there is a shift occurring in Western sensibilities. In philosophy, virtue ethics is concerned with practical wisdom, phronesis), and Bent Flyvbjerg (Making Social Science Matter: Why Social Inquiry Fails and How It Can Succeed Again, New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001) has introduced a framework for phronetic social science.

2008 Defining Wisdom Grant Competition: Award Announcements

jdarragh — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 14:57:00 GMT

DEFINING WISDOM AWARDS ANNOUNCED

Congratulations to the award winners of the Defining Wisdom grant competition. Participants were chosen because each showed the promise of a distinctive contribution to wisdom research and the potential to help establish a new and rigorous field of research on the topic of wisdom. The Project Council was truly impressed by the presentations and discussions at the Defining Wisdom Symposium which recently took place in Chicago.

In addition to project presentations and discussions, each full proposal underwent a two-stage process of peer review (external review & Council review) in which it was rated according to the Defining Wisdom Evaluation Criteria. On August 23^rd, the Council met in closed session to deliberate and choose the few who would receive research funding in this inaugural RFA.

The University of Chicago and the John Templeton Foundation are pleased to announce the winners of the Defining Wisdom grant competition:

Deborah Coen
Assistant Professor, History
Columbia University, United States
Uncertain Ground: A Historical Tectonics of Wisdom

Melissa Ferguson
Assistant Professor, Psychology
Cornell University, United States
When Archimedes and King Solomon Meet: Wisdom as Intuitive Problem Solving

Judith Gluck
Professor, Psychology
Alpen-Adria-University, Austria
Wisdom and the Life Story: How Life Experiences Foster Wisdom

Jean Gordon
Associate Professor, Communication Sciences and Disorders
University of Iowa, United States
Wisdom in Words: The Relationship between Language Use and the Perception of Wisdom

Jeffrey Green
Assistant Professor, Psychology
Virginia Commonwealth University, United States
Wisdom as Learning from Life Experiences: Affective Forecasting for Benevolent and Selfish Behaviors

Joshua Greene
Assistant Professor, Psychology
Harvard University, United States
The Wisdom of Moral Principles

Ankur Gupta
Lecturer, Computer Science
Butler University, United States
Wisdom Is Compression: Data Compression as a Mathematical Measure of Wisdom

Ryan Hanley
Assistant Professor, Political Science
Marquette University, United States
Altruism's Wisdom

Matthew Jones
Associate Professor, History
Columbia University, United States
Formalism and Its Discontents: Mathematics and Wisdom in the European Enlightenment

Lauris Kaldjian
Associate Professor, Medicine
University of Iowa, Carver College of Medicine, United States
Wisdom, Ethics, and the Medical Professional

Ute Kunzmann
Professor, Psychology
Leipzig University, Germany
Wisdom-Related Knowledge and Behavior during Social Conflict

Michael Legaspi
Assistant Professor, Theology
Creighton University, United States
Wisdom as Skillful Interpretation: Scriptural Appropriation and the Hermeneutics of Recovery

Heidi Levitt
Associate Professor, Psychology
University of Memphis, United States
Principles Toward the Development of Professional Wisdom

Randall McNeill
Associate Professor, Classics
Lawrence University, United States
The Price of Wisdom: Community and the Individual in Greek and Roman Poetry

Seana Moran
Research Fellow, Stanford Center on Adolescence
Stanford University, United States
All the Wiser: Wisdom from a System Dynamics Perspective

Shabnam Mousavi
Visiting Research Scientist, Center for Adaptive Behavior and Cognition
Max Planck Institute for Human Development, Germany
Practical Wisdom as Heuristic Processes

Sendhil Mullainathan
Professor, Economics
Harvard University, United States
Wise Choices: The Interaction of Individual and Institutional Wisdom

Eddy Nahmias
Associate Professor, Philosophy, Neuroscience
Georgia State University, United States
Free Will and Wisdom in the Age of the Mind Sciences

John Pfaff
Associate Professor, Law
Fordham University, United States
Incorporating Systematic Sources of Knowledge into the Social Sciences and the Law

Michael Sargent
Associate Professor, Psychology
Bates College, United States
D*A*R*IA: Testing Model of Principled Reasoning

Valerie Tiberius
Associate Professor, Philosophy
University of Minnesota, United States
The Psychological Foundations of Reflective Wisdom

Neil Tsutsui
Assistant Professor, Environmental Science, Policy and Management
University of California Berkeley, United States
The Wisdom of the Ant: The Role of Experience in Sociality and Aggression

Keith Whitaker
Adjunct Asst. Professor, Center on Wealth and Philanthropy
Boston College, United States
Wisdom at Work: An Inquiry into Wealth Counseling as a Form of Practical Wisdom

"Templeton Foundation, U. of C. make wise funding decision" by Charles Storch, Chicago Tribune reporter, August 21, 2008

brendah — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 20:54:00 GMT

GRANTS AND GIVING

Templeton Foundation, U. of C. make wise funding decision

By Charles Storch

Chicago Tribune reporter

August 21, 2008

The wisdom of the ages could use freshening up.

That's the thinking at the John Templeton Foundation, which has teamed with the University of Chicago to see whether there are any bright new ideas about wisdom. They have invited 40 predominantly young scholars from around the world here for the next few days to present research proposals and compete for Templeton grants worth around $100,000 over two years.

This is not some fuzzy-headed exercise, said U. of C. psychology professor John Cacioppo, one of this project's principals.

"We're trying to develop a science of wisdom," he said. "We want to create a network of scholars across disciplines to help us bring this abstract concept under the lens of science."

The Templeton Foundation, founded by the late investor and philanthropist John Templeton, is known for handing out rich prizes and seeking answers to big ideas, whether they be about faith, science, human purpose, even unconditional love. Its exploration of wisdom is new, said Barnaby Marsh, the Philadelphia-area philanthropy's director of strategic initiatives.

Marsh observed that "a lot of the definitions of wisdom today are grounded in ancient writings, but are they relevant today? We need a new viewing of wisdom in the 21st Century."

For example, he asked, is wisdom more than the understanding and judgment that comes from knowledge and experience? Does it also require the humility of knowing one's areas of ignorance? Can wisdom be measured or taught?

Templeton is giving the U. of C. $2.96 million over three years to explore these and other notions; of that amount, $2 million will go to some 20 deep thinkers deemed to have the worthier research topics.

Last year, the school issued a worldwide call for proposals, limiting the field to experts who had received their "terminal" degree (PhD, MD, JD, etc.) no later than 1997.

"We thought we would start with young scholars in hopes of getting cutting-edge approaches," said Cacioppo.

He said he was stunned when 631 proposals were submitted. The submissions underwent a peer review by experts around the world and then by an 11-member council, which includes Cacioppo, other U. of C. faculty and Marsh. In January, the field was narrowed to 40. They are expected here Thursday and Friday for a "wisdom symposium" at U. of C.'s Gleacher Center downtown.

The council will hear their presentations Friday, then adjourn Saturday to pick 20 grant recipients. The selection probably will be announced about a week later.

The grant's main requirement is that the recipients reconvene annually over the next two years. Cacioppo expects a book to be produced from these studies. Marsh believes Templeton has made a wise investment in teaming with U. of C. Templeton is giving the school more than $4 million over three years for a similar exploration—of virtue.

Grants: The Department of Veteran Affairs is giving $3 million to a joint effort by Loyola University Chicago's Niehoff School of Nursing and Hines VA Hospital to help ease a critical shortage of nurses within the VA system and the Chicago area.

The Sisters of Mercy, Regional Community of Chicago, added $500,000 to the $1 million it previously gave to St. Xavier University's endowment campaign, which raised $2.5 million. The Chicago school also is to receive nearly $2 million over five years from the Education Department for a program to increase student engagement in learning.

Kraft Foods is giving $100,000 for large commercial coolers and freezers for Northern Illinois Food Bank and the Greater Chicago Food Depository.

People:Janet Fregulia is the new executive director of Moose Charities Inc. Succeeding her as chief executive of Women of the Moose is Barbara McPherson. ... Jennifer Strait joined Oak Park-River Forest Community Foundation as program officer. ... Youth Job Center of Evanston elected as its board president James Kauffman.

cstorch@tribune.com

http://www.chicagotribune.com/features/lifestyle/chi-giving-0821aug21,0,7795545.story

Loneliness: Human Nature and the Need for Social Connection is out

matthew — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 16:02:00 GMT

John Cacioppo and William Patrick have released a new book on Cacioppo's work over the past 30 years entitled Loneliness: Human Nature and the Need for Social Connection. Visit their website www.scienceofloneliness.com for more information.

Feeling cut off from others now and then is part of the human condition. By exploring this seemingly commonplace experience, John Cacioppo’s pioneering research gives us a fundamentally new way of understanding human nature and ourselves. His sophisticated studies relying on brain imaging, analysis of blood pressure, immune response, stress hormones, behavior, and even gene expression, show that human beings are simply far more intertwined and interdependent—physiologically as well as psychologically—than our cultural assumptions have ever allowed us to acknowledge.

Bringing urgency to the message, Cacioppo’s findings also show that prolonged loneliness can be as harmful to your health as smoking or obesity. On the flip side, they demonstrate the therapeutic power of social connection, and point the way toward making that healing balm available to everyone.

Cacioppo has worked with science writer William Patrick to trace the evolution of these tandem forces, showing how for our primitive ancestors, survival depended not on greater brawn, but on greater commitments to and from each other. Serving as a prompt to repair frayed social bonds, the pain of loneliness engendered a fear response so powerfully disruptive that even now, millions of years later, a persistent sense of rejection or isolation can impair DNA transcription in our immune cells. This disruption also impairs thinking, will power, and perseverance, as well as our ability to read social signals and exercise social skills. It also limits our ability to internally regulate our emotions—all of which can combine to trap us in self-defeating behaviors that reinforce the very isolation and rejection that we dread.

Loneliness shows each of us how to overcome this feedback loop of defensive behaviors to achieve better health and greater happiness. For society, the potential pay off is the greater prosperity and social cohesion that follows from increased social trust.

Ultimately, Loneliness demonstrates the irrationality of our culture’s intense focus on competition and individualism at the expense of family and community. It makes the case that the unit of one is actually an inadequate measure, even when it comes to the health and well being of the individual.

John Cacioppo is the Tiffany and Margaret Blake Distinguished Service Professor at the University of Chicago, and past President of the Association for Psychological Science. He lives in Chicago. William Patrick, formerly the science editor at Harvard University Press, is editor in chief of The Journal of Life Sciences. He lives in Ipswich, Massachusetts.

What Others Are Saying About Loneliness: Human Nature and the Need for Social Connection

“This wise, beautifully written, and often funny book brings the underlying science of social ties to life. It is a tour de force on one of the most significant known influences on human health.” —Shelley E. Taylor, Distinguished Professor, Department of Psychology, University of California, Los Angeles, and author of The Tending Instinct: Women, Men, and the Biology of Relationships.

“Both heartbreaking and illuminating, this fascinating book describes what psychologists and neuroscientists have discovered about our fundamental need to belong to others and the dire consequences of belonging only to ourselves. A masterful blend of biological and social science, Loneliness is one of the most important books about the human condition to appear in a decade.” —Daniel Gilbert, professor of psychology, Harvard University, and author of Stumbling on Happiness

“Just as hunger prevents us from starving and pain causes us to retreat from physical danger, the authors help us see that loneliness is a symptom of our basic need to connect. . . . This fascinating, complex, and yet highly accessible exploration reminds us that humans are inherently social creatures and that no child or adult can develop properly in the absence of strong social bonds.” —Melinda Blau, coauthor of Secrets of the Baby Whisperer, Secrets of the Baby Whisperer for Toddlers, and The Baby Whisperer Solves All Your Problems

“Based on years of research, this magnificent exposé discusses the loneliness many people feel, advising them to reach out to others. Our species naturally reciprocates social gestures.” —Frans de Waal, author of Our Inner Ape

“I never imagined that one book could explain so much about human nature. And yet this scientific exploration does not diminish us. Instead, it exalts our simple humanity. Loneliness is a beautiful message of human connection and a beautiful book.” —Sidney Poitier, Academy Award–winning actor and author of The Measure of a Man

"After reading this book you'll never want to be lonely again -- nor will you have to be." Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, C. S. and D. J. Davidson Professor of Psychology and Management, Claremont Graduate University, and author of Flow

Older Brain Really May Be a Wiser Brain

brendah — Thu, 22 May 2008 13:10:00 GMT

Older Brain Really May Be a Wiser Brain

The New York Times

By SARA REISTAD-LONG

Published: May 20, 2008

When older people can no longer remember names at a cocktail party, they tend to think that their brainpower is declining. But a growing number of studies suggest that this assumption is often wrong.

Instead, the research finds, the aging brain is simply taking in more data and trying to sift through a clutter of information, often to its long-term benefit.

The studies are analyzed in a new edition of a neurology book, “Progress in Brain Research.”

Some brains do deteriorate with age. Alzheimer’s disease, for example, strikes 13 percent of Americans 65 and older. But for most aging adults, the authors say, much of what occurs is a gradually widening focus of attention that makes it more difficult to latch onto just one fact, like a name or a telephone number. Although that can be frustrating, it is often useful.

“It may be that distractibility is not, in fact, a bad thing,” said Shelley H. Carson, a psychology researcher at Harvard whose work was cited in the book. “It may increase the amount of information available to the conscious mind.”

For example, in studies where subjects are asked to read passages that are interrupted with unexpected words or phrases, adults 60 and older work much more slowly than college students. Although the students plow through the texts at a consistent speed regardless of what the out-of-place words mean, older people slow down even more when the words are related to the topic at hand. That indicates that they are not just stumbling over the extra information, but are taking it in and processing it.

When both groups were later asked questions for which the out-of-place words might be answers, the older adults responded much better than the students.

“For the young people, it’s as if the distraction never happened,” said an author of the review, Lynn Hasher, a professor of psychology at the University of Toronto and a senior scientist at the Rotman Research Institute. “But for older adults, because they’ve retained all this extra data, they’re now suddenly the better problem solvers. They can transfer the information they’ve soaked up from one situation to another.”

Such tendencies can yield big advantages in the real world, where it is not always clear what information is important, or will become important. A seemingly irrelevant point or suggestion in a memo can take on new meaning if the original plan changes. Or extra details that stole your attention, like others’ yawning and fidgeting, may help you assess the speaker’s real impact.

“A broad attention span may enable older adults to ultimately know more about a situation and the indirect message of what’s going on than their younger peers,” Dr. Hasher said. “We believe that this characteristic may play a significant role in why we think of older people as wiser.”

In a 2003 study at Harvard, Dr. Carson and other researchers tested students’ ability to tune out irrelevant information when exposed to a barrage of stimuli. The more creative the students were thought to be, determined by a questionnaire on past achievements, the more trouble they had ignoring the unwanted data. A reduced ability to filter and set priorities, the scientists concluded, could contribute to original thinking.

This phenomenon, Dr. Carson said, is often linked to a decreased activity in the prefrontal cortex. Studies have found that people who suffered an injury or disease that lowered activity in that region became more interested in creative pursuits.

Jacqui Smith, a professor of psychology and research professor at the Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan, who was not involved in the current research, said there was a word for what results when the mind is able to assimilate data and put it in its proper place — wisdom.

“These findings are all very consistent with the context we’re building for what wisdom is,” she said. “If older people are taking in more information from a situation, and they’re then able to combine it with their comparatively greater store of general knowledge, they’re going to have a nice advantage.”

Source:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/20/health/research/20brai.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=older+brain+&st=nyt&oref=slogin

The Older-and-Wiser Hypothesis

brendah — Tue, 13 May 2008 16:31:00 GMT

The Older-and-Wiser Hypothesis

The New York Times

By STEPHEN S. HALL

Published: May 6, 2007

In 1950, the psychoanalyst Erik H. Erikson, in a famous treatise on the phases of life development, identified wisdom as a likely, but not inevitable, byproduct of growing older. Wisdom arose, he suggested, during the eighth and final stage of psychosocial development, which he described as “ego integrity versus despair.” If an individual had achieved enough “ego integrity” over the course of a lifetime, then the imminent approach of infirmity and death would be accompanied by the virtue of wisdom. Unfortunately for researchers who followed, Erikson didn’t bother to define wisdom.

As an ancient concept and esteemed human value, wisdom has historically been studied in the realms of philosophy and religion. The idea has been around at least since the Sumerians first etched bits of practical advice — “We are doomed to die; let us spend” — on clay tablets more than 5,000 years ago. But as a trait that might be captured by quantitative measures, it has been more like the woolly mammoth of ideas — big, shaggy and elusive. It is only in the last three decades that wisdom has received even glancing attention from social scientists. Erikson’s observations left the door open for the formal study of wisdom, and a few brave psychologists rushed in where others feared to tread.

In some respects, they have not moved far beyond the very first question about wisdom: What is it? And it won’t give anything away to reveal that 30 years after embarking on the empirical study of wisdom, psychologists still don’t agree on an answer. But it is also true that the journey in many ways may be as enlightening as the destination.

From the outset, it’s easier to define what wisdom isn’t. First of all, it isn’t necessarily or intrinsically a product of old age, although reaching an advanced age increases the odds of acquiring the kinds of life experiences and emotional maturity that cultivate wisdom, which is why aspects of wisdom are increasingly attracting the attention of gerontological psychologists. Second, if you think you’re wise, you’re probably not. As Gandhi (who topped the leader board a few years ago in a survey in which college students were asked to name wise people) put it, “It is unwise to be too sure of one’s own wisdom.” Indeed, a general thread running through modern wisdom research is that wise people tend to be humble and “other-centered” as opposed to self-centered.

“Wisdom is really hard to study — really hard,” says Robert J. Sternberg, a former president of the American Psychological Association who edited “Wisdom: Its Nature, Origins and Development,” one of the first academic books on the subject, in 1990, and also edited, with Jennifer Jordan, “A Handbook of Wisdom” in 2005. “People tend to pooh-pooh wisdom because, well, you know, what’s that? And how could you possibly define it? Isn’t it culturally relative?” And yet Sternberg, who is the dean of the School of Arts and Sciences at Tufts University, says he believes the cultivation of wisdom — even though the concept is “big, important and messy” — is essential to the future of society.

Certain qualities associated with wisdom recur in the academic literature: a clear-eyed view of human nature and the human predicament; emotional resiliency and the ability to cope in the face of adversity; an openness to other possibilities; forgiveness; humility; and a knack for learning from lifetime experiences. And yet as psychologists have noted, there is a yin-yang to the idea that makes it difficult to pin down. Wisdom is founded upon knowledge, but part of the physics of wisdom is shaped by uncertainty. Action is important, but so is judicious inaction. Emotion is central to wisdom, yet detachment is essential.

If you think all those attributes sound fuzzy, vague and absolutely refractory to quantification, you’ve got a lot of company in the academic community. But there is a delicious paradox at the heart of the study of wisdom. As difficult as it is to define, the mere contemplation of a definition is an irresistible exercise that says a lot about who we aspire to become over the course of a lifetime and what we value as a society. And little pieces of that evolving definition of wisdom — especially the ability to cope with adversity and the regulation of emotion with age — have begun to attract researchers with brain-scanning machines and serious chops in neuroscience.

“It’s very intriguing, and it’s becoming a big issue in our field,” says Suzanne Kunkel, director of the Scripps Gerontology Center at Miami University in Ohio. She noted that the number of formal talks about wisdom and the aging process has increased significantly at professional meetings. “Part of me is a little skeptical,” she says, reflecting the compelling ambivalence the subject elicits, “and part of me thinks there’s something there.”

For full article, visit:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/06/magazine/06Wisdom-t.html?pagewanted=1

The Wisdom Page Podcasts, Copthorne (Cop) Macdonald and Others Discuss Wisdom

brendah — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 20:46:00 GMT

Since 1995, THE WISDOM PAGE (now at www.wisdompage.com) has made wisdom-related resources available to the Internet community: information about the nature of wisdom and how it can be developed, various on-line texts concerning wisdom, references to books about wisdom, information about organizations that promote wisdom, wise activities, listserv groups concerned with aspects of wisdom, and streaming audio and video presentations related to wisdom. THE WISDOM PAGE PODCAST is the latest effort to serve the informational needs of wisdom-interested people worldwide. Individual podcast episodes by WISDOM PAGE founder Copthorne (Cop) Macdonald and others focus on issues related to the development of personal wisdom and the introduction of wise values into societal institutions. All audio episodes are in 32 kbps MP3 format that works well with either a hi-speed or a good quality 56K dialup connection.

Visit: http://www.wisdompage.com/TheWisdomPagePodcast.html

AEPL 2008 Summer Conference: Reclaiming the Wisdom Tradition for Education

brendah — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 16:41:00 GMT

May 29 - June 1, 2008 in Monterey Bay, California

Since the Enlightenment, public systems of education have tended to focus on the efficient transmission of acquired knowledge. Consequently, the deeper aim of education—the evocation of wisdom in the human person—has suffered a temporary eclipse.

Wisdom is personal and compassionate. It is not content to exist within the defined, secure borders of knowledge, which limits itself to proofs and facts. It seeks access to the farther reaches of consciousness where hard lines dissolve, where minds grow and meet, hearts reach out, and the self and the universe begin to converge.

These times in which wisdom is so conspicuously lacking may well be ripe for re-centering people’s understanding of the most basic aims of our educational endeavors: for reclaiming the spiritual, humanistic, and philosophical heart of education, and for bringing the findings of science to bear on the expansion of consciousness and the deepening of communication. With these aims in mind, this conference has been designed to consider and further the possibility of broad-based, wisdom-centered education.

For more information, please visit: http://www.aepl.org

James Surowiecki to Provide Opening Keynote for ISTE'S NECC 2008 in San Antonio

brendah — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 15:40:00 GMT

June 29 - July 2, 2008 in San Antonio, Texas

The International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE®) is pleased to announce that noted author and journalist James Surowiecki will deliver the opening keynote address at the 29th annual National Educational Computing Conference (NECC), to be held June 29 through July 2, 2008 at the Henry B. Gonzales Convention Center in San Antonio, Texas.

"We're very pleased to bring James Surowiecki to NECC audiences this year," says Leslie Conery, NECC Conference Chair and ISTE Deputy CEO. "His ideas for managing the 'wisdom of crowds' are tremendously relevant to what we do in education—from kids working together in the classroom, to school-wide and district leadership, to very large scale collaborative projects. Innovative and practical, his work focuses on the how-to of good group decisions. How do we dodge both groupthink and an over-reliance on outside experts? How do we gather and aggregate collective wisdom into a usable roadmap? This keynote should really set the stage for a wonderful conversation!"

Formerly a history professor at Yale, Surowiecki combines rigorous thought with entertaining examples from a wide array of disciplines. He writes a twice monthly column for "The New Yorker" magazine and is the author of "The Wisdom of Crowds." Before joining "The New Yorker," he wrote a financial column for "New York" magazine and was a contributing editor at "Fortune." Surowiecki has also written for a range of other publications, including "The New York Times Magazine," "Wired" and "The Wall Street Journal."

The world's most comprehensive Ed Tech event, NECC 2008: Convene, Connect, Transform, is presented by ISTE in cooperation with the Texas Computer Education Association. More than 17,000 teachers, teacher educators, technology coordinators, library media specialists, administrators, policy makers, industry representatives, and exhibitors from around the globe are expected to attend.

Billed as the most hands-on and interactive conference yet, NECC 2008 will provide attendees the opportunity to exchange ideas and collaborate with peers from around the globe. Conference offerings include hands-on labs; bring-your-own-laptop sessions; model classrooms and dedicated peer-to-peer learning spaces, including a Bloggers' Cafe and lounges for Podcasting and Second Life.

For nearly three decades, NECC has provided K–20 education professionals with an annual forum to learn, exchange, and survey advancements in the field of educational technology. Through hands-on and discussion-based workshops, lectures and interactive sessions, discussions with key industry speakers, and the largest vendor exhibition of its kind, NECC offers participants the unique opportunity to discover and share what they need to develop the appropriate use of technology in their classrooms, districts, and universities. NECC involves more than 700 local, regional, and national volunteers in the event.

Prospective attendees are encouraged to register soon, as housing resources and exhibit space fill up quickly every year. Travel information and a conference schedule with searchable program database are available at http://www.iste.org/necc/.

Full registration materials, including workshop titles and a schedule of social events, is available at http://www.iste.org/necc/, or by phoning toll-free (800) 280-6218. International inquiries should be directed to (541) 346-3537.

Applications for exhibit space and vendor sessions are available online at http://www.iste.org/necc/, or by phoning NECC 2008 Exhibit Management at (800) 280-6218 or (541) 346-3537. The fax number is (541) 346-3509; e-mail is neccexhibits@iste.org/.

The Wisdom Scorecard, Monika Ardelt, May 6, 2007

brendah — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 15:42:00 GMT

by Tom Jackson, New York Times Magazine.

Source: Monika Ardelt, University of Florida – Gainesville.

Can something as subjective as wisdom be measured like stress or cholesterol? Some researchers have been trying to do just that. Among them is Monika Ardelt, a sociology professor at the University of Florida in Gainesville. Ardelt developed a questionnaire that attempts to assess how wise people are. The questionnaire contains 39 statements in three dimensions – cognitive, reflective and affective. Press the begin button below to answer the questionnaire. Once you have completed all the questions, you can see your wisdom score by pressing the results button.

Follow this link to begin:

http://www.nytimes.com/ref/magazine/20070430_WISDOM.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

Defining Wisdom Grant Competition: Forty Finalists are Announced, Feb. 1, 2008

brendah — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 20:46:00 GMT

In November 2007, the Arete Initiative received over 600 applications for the Defining Wisdom grant competition. Applicants from over 35 countries submitted project ideas that represented practically all academic disciplines.

This past January, the Project Council met in Chicago and selected forty finalists whose proposals best suited the evaluation criteria. Most of the finalists reside in the United States; however, some are from Austria, Germany, the Netherlands, Poland, and United Kingdom. Also, the finalist pool represents a wide range of academic disciplines including, psychology, philosophy, religious studies, computer science, history, biological sciences/evolutionary ecology, classics, hispanic studies, ecology, economics, education, environmental science, law, medicine, methodology/history of science, music, political science, and speech pathology/audiology.

The Arete Initiative and Defining Wisdom Project Council look forward to reviewing the full proposals, and meeting each of the finalists in person at the Wisdom Symposium in Chicago, Illinois.

Congratulations to the following scholars:

Andrew Chen
Assistant Professor, Computer Science
Minnesota State University
United States
Project Title: Can The Collective Intelligence of The World-Wide Web Produce Wisdom? Is This the New Tower of Babel?

Parag Chordia
Assistant Professor, Music
Georgia Institute of Technology
United States
Project Title: The Muse Within: Understanding Musical Wisdom

Deborah Coen
Assistant Professor, History
Barnard College
United States
Project Title: Uncertain Ground: A Historical Tectonics of Wisdom

Melissa Ferguson
Assistant Professor, Psychology
Cornell University
United States
Project Title: When Archimedes and King Solomon Meet: Wisdom as Intuitive Problem Solving

Brent Field
Research Scholar, Psychology
Princeton University
United States
Project Title: Altruistic and Intuitive Aspects of Wisdom

Alicia Finch
Assistant Professor, Philosophy
Northern Illinois University
United States
Project Title: Practical Wisdom, Eudaimonia, and Surrender: A Philosophical Investigation

Judith Gluck
Professor, Psychology
Alpen-Adria-University
Austria
Project Title: Wisdom and the Life Story: How Life Experiences Foster Wisdom

Jennifer Goldman
Adjunct Instructor, Psychology
Columbia University
United States
Project Title: How Leaders Develop, Use and Cultivate Wisdom to Transform Systems in Long-term Conflict

Jean Gordon
Associate Professor, Speech Pathology
University of Iowa
United States
Project Title: Wisdom in Words: The Relationship between Language Use and the Perception of Wisdom

David Gortner
Assistant Professor, Religious Studies
Church Divinity School of the Pacific
United States
Project Title: "How is Wisdom Understood and Recognized? Examining Social Constructions of Wisdom in Different Religious and Cultural Contexts"

Jeffrey Green
Assistant Professor, Psychology
Virginia Commonwealth University
United States
Project Title: Wisdom as Learning From Mistakes: Affective Forecasting Regarding Virtues and Vices

Joshua Greene
Assistant Professor, Psychology
Harvard University
United States
Project Title: The Wisdom of Moral Principles

Ankur Gupta
Lecturer, Computer Science
Butler University
United States
Project Title: Wisdom Is Compression: Data Compression as a Mathematical Measure of Wisdom

C. Dominik Güss
Assistant Professor, Psychology
University of North Florida
United States
Project Title: Wisdom as Proverb Knowledge and the Ability to Solve Uncertain and Complex Problems

Ryan Hanley
Assistant Professor, Political Science
Marquette University
United States
Project Title: Altruism's Wisdom

Matthew Jones
Associate Professor, History
Columbia University
United States
Project Title: Formalism and Its Discontents: Mathematics and Wisdom in the European Enlightenment

Lauris Kaldjian
Associate Professor, Medicine
University of Iowa
Carver College of Medicine
United States
Project Title: Wisdom, Ethics, and the Medical Professional

Hilaire Kallendorf
Associate Professor, Hispanic Studies
Texas A&M University
United States
Project Title: "What Should I Do?": Wise Counsel from the Confessional for (Early) Modern Moral Dilemmas

Pawel Kawalec
Associate Professor, Methodology
Catholic University of Lublin
Poland
Project Title: A Model of Wisdom for an Integrated Management of Innovation

Sean Kelly
Professor, Philosophy
Harvard University
United States
Project Title: Saving Wisdom from Knowledge

Ute Kunzmann
Professor, Psychology
Leipzig University
Germany
Project Title: Wisdom-Related Knowledge and Behavior during Social Conflict

Michael Legaspi
Assistant Professor, Religious Studies
Creighton University
United States
Project Title: Wisdom as Skillful Interpretation: Scriptural Appropriation and the Hermeneutics of Recovery

Heidi Levitt
Associate Professor, Psychology
University of Memphis
United States
Project Title: Principles Toward the Development of Postmodern Professional Wisdom

Brian McCorkle
Assistant Professor, Religious Studies
Boston University
United States
Project Title: Wise Compassion": The Interplay of Wisdom and Compassion"

Randall McNeill
Associate Professor, Classics
Lawrence University
United States
Project Title: The Price of Wisdom: Community and the Individual in Greek and Roman Poetry

Seana Moran
Research Fellow, Education
Stanford University
United States
Project Title: All the Wiser

Shabnam Mousavi
Assistant Professor, Adaptive Behavior and Cognition
Max Planck Institute for Human Development
Germany
Project Title: Practical Wisdom as Heuristic Processes

Dean Moyar
Assistant Professor, Philosophy
John Hopkins University
United States
Project Title: The Wisdom of Justice: Reconciling the Claims of Morality and Right

Sendhil Mullainathan
Professor, Economics
Harvard University
United States
Project Title: Wise Choices: The Interaction of Individual and Institutional Wisdom

Edward Nahmias
Assistant Professor, Philosophy
Georgia State University
United States
Project Title: Free Will and Wisdom in the Age of the Mind Sciences

Nansook Park
Associate Professor, Psychology
University of Rhode Island
United States
Project Title: THE WISE AMONG US:Cross-Cultural Studies of How They Live And the Benefits They Give

John Pfaff
Associate Professor, Law
Fordham University
United States
Project Title: Helping the Law Determine What Science Knows

Martine Prange
Post-doctorate, Philosophy
University of Groningen
Netherlands
Project Title: Joyful Wisdom in Philosophy

Sean Rands
Lecturer, Clinical Veterinary Science
University of Bristol
United Kingdom
Project Title: The Evolutionary Ecology of Wisdom

Michael Sargent
Associate Professor, Psychology
Bates College
United States
Project Title: D*A*R*IA: A Model of Principled Reasoning

Stefan Schmidt
Lecturer, Director, Ecology
University Medical Center Freiburg
Germany
Project Title: Facing the Impossible: A Proposal to Measure and Teach Wisdom

Antje Stange
Visiting Scientist, Psychology
Georgia Institute of Technology
United States
Project Title: Mind and Virtue – Defining Wise Behaviors

Valerie Tiberius
Associate Professor, Philosophy
University of Minnesota
United States
Project Title: The Psychological Foundations of Reflective Wisdom

Neil Tsutsui
Assistant Professor, Environmental Science, Policy and Management
University of California – Berkeley
United States
Project Title: THE WISDOM OF THE ANT: The Role of Experience in Sociality and Aggression

Keith Whitaker
Adjunct Asst. Professor, Philosophy
Boston College
United States
Project Title: Wisdom at Work: An Inquiry into Wealth Counseling as a Form of Practical Wisdom

Grant Seeks “Wisdom” Scholars for U of C

brendah — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 20:33:00 GMT

Grant seeks “wisdom” scholars for U of C. Chicago Maroon.
By Supriya Sinhababu, Friday, November 2, 2007

Defining Wisdom, a project sponsored by the University’s Arete Initiative and funded by the John Templeton Foundation, is now accepting letters of intent from scholars seeking grants to study “wisdom.”

“One of the goals of this enterprise is to try to establish a field of wisdom research,” said Howard Nusbaum, a professor of psychology, who serves as a co-principal investigator for the project.

The project’s sponsor, Arete Initiative, serves to promote interdisciplinary efforts to tackle broad questions.

The project will accept three-page research proposals from scholars all over the world and across all disciplines until November 19. In an effort to support the research of younger scholars,applicants generally must have earned their Ph.D.s no more than 10 years ago.

“The process is to solicit these letters of intent to winnow out essentially 40 that would be selected for fuller proposals,” said Nusbaum. “From those, 20 final awards will be made.” The 40 finalists will present their proposals to the Project Council at a symposium scheduled for late August before final decisions are made in September.

The project stemmed in part from conversations between Nusbaum and co-principal investigator John Cacioppo, also a professor in psychology, about the nature of wisdom.

The topic also came up in discussions among members of an interdisciplinary research network, also funded by the Templeton Foundation, which already existed within the University.

“We started to think, maybe we could do a grant on wisdom,” said Nusbaum. “And then the Templeton Foundation thought it would also be good to get junior scholars interested in the problem.”

Intelligent decision making in different situations is a major component of wisdom that concerns Nusbaum and Cacioppo. Cacioppo gave the examples of the risk-benefit analysis employed by Enron’s former executives or the speed-accuracy tradeoffs one makes in completing everyday tasks.

“Are there some general principles that would be applicable across those domains?” he asked.

“Are there ways of scientifically analyzing the issues so that you can know what a ‘wise’ decision is?”

Because of the many perspectives from which one could approach the problem, Nusbaum and Cacioppo have selected a project council from a broad range of fields to judge the proposals. The disciplines of law, medicine, philosophy, and divinity, among others, are all represented in council members’ expertise.

“So far we have about 20 that initially came in, but we have a few trickling in each day,” said Brenda Huskey, who coordinates the project and serves as associate director of interdisciplinary programs. “We could potentially have 300–400 applicants, projected, but we won’t know until that day.”

Cacioppo has been impressed with the proposals so far.

“Some of them look fabulous,” he said. “The quality is very high. We’ll get many of them at the last moment, just like papers for courses.”

Though psychology is more heavily represented than other fields in these proposals, letters have been received from applicants in other domains.

“They’re coming from every discipline—throughout the humanities, sciences, math,” said Huskey. “So it’s going to be interesting. It’s a very diverse project.”

The project’s broad scope may be both a benefit and a disadvantage.

“I welcome the heterogeneity of the project,” said Cacioppo. “That’s a U of C thing. How can it be too broad?”

But Nusbaum worries that proposals may be difficult to judge because of their diverse nature. “I’m a little bit concerned that it will be difficult to say that this particular art project merits more than this particular engineering project,” he said. “That’s why we want the council to help.”

Studies of wisdom have been undertaken before. Nusbaum gave the examples of Max Planck Institute researcher Monika Ardelt’s wisdom research and Tufts University Dean Robert Sternberg’s studies of intelligence.

However, the efforts of individual researchers have not yet coalesced to make wisdom a clearly recognized field of study.

“Some people have tried to study it,” said Cacioppo, “but it’s not a coherent body.”

The project makes efforts to synthesize different perspectives on wisdom. Cacioppo and Nusbaum hope to establish the Wisdom Research Network, which will connect and engage interested scholars from all fields and universities in a continual dialogue on wisdom.

Additionally, Nusbaum plans to edit a book regarding the project at its conclusion.

“The goal is to try to take the principle research, the work that’s done on the grants, and assemble that into a book,” said Nusbaum. “My hope is that the book won’t be 20 chapters that simply reflect the 20 projects, but in some way more of an integration of what comes from that work.”

Though the project is still in its early stages, the numbers of inquiries give council members reason to hope for results.

“We may never come up with a complete solution,” said Cacioppo. “But can interdisciplinary scholarship be brought to bear on this question and put us in a better position than we are right now? My hunch is yes.”

Templeton Grant to Fund Investigations into Wisdom

brendah — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 20:14:00 GMT

Templeton grant to fund investigations into wisdom. The University of Chicago Chronicle. By Willliam Harms, News Office. April 12, 2007, Vol. 26, No. 14

The University will serve as the center for a new national effort to develop scholarly investigations into the nature, cultivation, benefits and applications of wisdom.

The John Templeton Foundation is providing a $3 million, three-year grant to the University to establish the Research Initiative on the Nature and Benefits of Wisdom, which will be managed by the Center for Cognitive and Social Neuroscience.

John Cacioppo, the Tiffany & Margaret Blake Distinguished Service Professor in Psychology and the College, and Howard Nusbaum, Chairman and Professor of Psychology and Professor in the College, will serve as the principal investigators for the initiative. Jean Bethke Elshtain, the Laura Spelman Rockefeller Professor in the Divinity School, will serve as a lead collaborator on the project.

“At one time, wisdom was regarded as a subject for the most rigorous and sophisticated methods of inquiry. However, wisdom is currently overlooked and neglected as a topic for serious scholarly investigations,” said Cacioppo.

A well-respected science of wisdom could provide great potential for informing important political, business and personal decisions, he said.

“New discoveries gained through a new study of wisdom hold the possibility of transforming life across a range of endeavors,” Nusbaum added.

Sometime later this year, Cacioppo, Nusbaum and Elshtain will issue a request for proposals to encourage young scholars and scientists from around the country to apply for grants to study wisdom. A priority will be given to those proposals submitted by researchers who are within 10 years of having received a Ph.D.

A “wisdom” Web site also will be developed to announce the competition, provide background information on the initiative and to publicize the research projects that will be undertaken.

Initiative leaders also will recruit prominent scholars to be part of a project council that will guide the initiative and help select promising projects to be funded.

Once proposals have been submitted, a symposium on wisdom will be held in Chicago, giving grant applicants an opportunity to present their ideas. Members of the project council will then review the proposals and their accompanying peer reviews, before selecting 20 projects to receive the Templeton-funded awards of approximately $100,000 each.

The winning investigators will become part of a Wisdom Research Network that will meet periodically to share research and results. One product of this work is expected to be a book published by a scholarly press. Nusbaum will serve as editor of the volume.

The John Templeton Foundation has supported research and scholarly programs on a global scale for nearly 20 years.