Abstract

GONZALEZ LEANDRO, Pedro; ASEF RUJANA, Alicia María  and  PELECHANO BARBERA, Vicente. Wisdom from psychology: a layman conception in a sample of Latin American adolescents. Escritos de Psicología [online]. 2017, vol.10, n.1, pp.51-57. ISSN 1989-3809.  https://dx.doi.org/10.5231/psy.writ.2017.1403.

This study investigated the lay conception adolescents have of the meaning of various terms related to wisdom, as well as the characteristics they consider relevant to their ideal self. We analysed the mean perceptions of 314 adolescents on the degree of similarity between different terms related to wisdom usingmultidimensional scaling with varimax rotation of the solution obtained and hierarchical cluster analysis. The results indicate that adolescents perceived the characteristics "intelligent" and "observer" as being very close in meaning to "wise", and that "sense of humour", "understanding", and "friendly" were further from "wise". The characteristics considered most relevant to their ideal self were a "sense of humor", "intelligent", and "understanding". Data are provided on the influence of sociocultural context on these perceptions. Attention is drawn to some limitations of the study and possible future lines of research.

Keywords : Lay wisdom; Adolescents; Ideal self; Multidimensional scaling; Cluster analysis.

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