AUTHOR=Glück Judith , König Susanne , Naschenweng Katja , Redzanowski Uwe , Dorner-Hörig Lara , Strasser Irene , Wiedermann Wolfgang 

TITLE=How to measure wisdom: content, reliability, and validity of five measures

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Psychology

VOLUME=4

YEAR=2013

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00405

DOI=10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00405

ISSN=1664-1078

ABSTRACT=<p>Wisdom is a field of growing interest both inside and outside academic psychology, and researchers are increasingly interested in using measures of wisdom in their work. However, wisdom is a highly complex construct, and its various operationalizations are based on quite different definitions. Which measure a researcher chooses for a particular research project may have a strong influence on the results. This study compares four well-established measures of wisdom—the Self-Assessed Wisdom Scale (Webster, <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="B48">2003</xref>, <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="B49">2007</xref>), the Three-Dimensional Wisdom Scale (Ardelt, <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="B3">2003</xref>), the Adult Self-Transcendence Inventory (Levenson et al., <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="B33">2005</xref>), and the Berlin Wisdom Paradigm (Baltes and Smith, <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="B7">1990</xref>; Baltes and Staudinger, <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="B8">2000</xref>)—with respect to content, reliability, factorial structure, and construct validity (relationships to wisdom nomination, interview-based wisdom ratings, and correlates of wisdom). The sample consisted of 47 wisdom nominees and 123 control participants. While none of the measures performed “better” than the others by absolute standards, recommendations are given for researchers to select the most suitable measure for their substantive interests. In addition, a “Brief Wisdom Screening Scale” is introduced that contains those 20 items from the three self-report scales that were most highly correlated with the common factor across the scales.</p>