### Self-report measures of wisdom Self-report measures measure wisdom based on how people report their wisdom to be. This has the advantage of being fast and easy to operationalize but four main issues: - Self-Serving Bias: people might want to make themselves seen more wise than they are. - One way to get around this is with a lie scale. Ask a super obvious question like do you ever lie yes or no. If someone says no, then you know their other answers can’t be trusted. - Self Reflection Paradox: wise people might rate themselves as slightly less wise than others because they are wise enough to know their gaps. They might put a four instead of a five for something. - Challenge Situations Versus Everyday Situations: self report measures might only measure how we are wise in the everyday, not the challenging situations we need wisdom the most. - False perception: We are notoriously bad at judging ourselves accurately. Self-report measures might not measure wisdom applicability, but they do measure your own implicit theories of your own wisdom. Performance measures of wisdom ask participants wisdom related questions and see how they answer. This can involve imagined scenarios or ask them to describe an intense conflict they had in the past which is now over. This has the advantage of being less biased by self serving, self-reflection paradoxes, and challenge situations versus everyday. There are still three major problems: - Time, cost, energy - Correlation: the wisdom in one area might not transfer to another. - Actionability: what one says they would do in a situation doesn’t necessarily reflect what they would actually do. New ways to assess wisdom: - Interpersonal ratings: have people related to someone in work, friendship, or family assess their wisdom. - Personalized Imaginary Scenarios: instead of asking people to answer wisdom related problems with people unrelated to them, ask them to imagine they are talking to a family member or friend or colleague they know. - Put people in acted situations where they have to assess what they would do quickly. The participant believes they are with another participant but it’s actually an actor. The study is blind so the participant doesn’t know it’s about wisdom. They believe it’s a safe setting to talk about their problems and help someone with theirs. The participants must talk about a hard ambiguous conflict from their life, what they might have done differently if they were there again. Score their answers for how much: - They put their values into account - They consider multiple perspectives - They balance intrapersonal, interpersonal, and extrapersonal interests. - They show epistemic humility # Principles Of Making Good Wisdom Tests - Make sure the problems or questions are relevant to the persons life at the moment.