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By RANDOLPH E. SCHMID, AP Science Writer Randolph E. Schmid, Ap Science Writer
Mon Apr 5, 9:33 pm ET
WASHINGTON It turns out grandma was right: Listen to your elders. New
research indicates they are indeed wise in knowing how to deal with conflicts
and accepting life's uncertainties and change.
It isn't a question of how many facts someone knows, or being able to operate a
TV remote, but rather how to handle disagreements social wisdom.
And researchers led by Richard E. Nisbett of the University of Michigan found
that older people were more likely than younger or middle-aged ones to
recognize that values differ, to acknowledge uncertainties, to accept that
things change over time and to acknowledge others' points of view.
"Age effects on wisdom hold at every level of social class, education, and IQ,"
they report in Tuesday's edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of
Sciences.
In modern America, older people generally don't have greater knowledge about
computers and other technology, Nisbett acknowledged, "but our results do
indicate that the elderly have some advantages for analysis of social
problems."
"I hope our results will encourage people to assume that older people may have
something to contribute for thinking about social problems," Nisbett said.
In one part of the study the researchers recruited 247 people in Michigan,
divided into groups aged 25-to-40, 41-to-59 and 60 plus.
Participants were given fictitious reports about conflict between groups in a
foreign country and asked what they thought the outcome would be.
For example, one of the reports said that because of the economic growth of
Tajikistan, many people from Kyrgyzstan moved to that country. While Kyrgyz
people tried to preserve their customs, Tajiks wanted them to assimilate fully
and abandon their customs.
The responses were then rated by researchers who did not know which individual
or age group a response came from. Ratings were based on things like searching
for compromise, flexibility, taking others' perspective and searching for
conflict resolution.
About 200 of the participants joined in a second session, and a third section
was conducted using 141 scholars, psychotherapists, clergy and consulting
professionals.
The study concluded that economic status, education and IQ also were
significantly related to increased wisdom, but they found that "academics were
no wiser than nonacademics" with similar education levels.
While the researchers expected wisdom to increase with age they were surprised
at how strong the results were for disputes in society, Nisbett said. "There is
a very large advantage for older people over younger people for those."
Lynn A. Hasher, a psychology professor at the University of Toronto, called the
study "the single best demonstration of a long-held view that wisdom increases
with age."
"What I think is most important about the paper is that it shows a major
benefit that accrues with aging rather than the mostly loss-based findings
reported in psychology. As such, it provides a richer base of understanding of
aging processes. It also suggests the critical importance of workplaces'
maintaining the opportunity for older employees to continue to contribute,"
said Hasher, who was not part of the research team.
Lead author Nisbett, co-director of the University of Michigan's Culture and
Cognition Program, is 68 and his team of co-authors ranged in age from mid-20s
to mid-50s.
The research was supported by the Russell Sage Foundation, National Institute
on Aging and the National Science Foundation Grant.
___
AP Science Writer Randolph E. Schmid, now in his seventh decade, found this
research far more compelling than he might have at age 20.