More on the MORE Life Experience Model: What We Have Learned (So Far)

Abstract

We have all had difficult times and challenges in our lives, and most of us feel that we learned something from those experiences. At the same time, few people actually become wise in the course of their lives - while most of us become (or remain) well-adapted and happy, generally satisfied, or even bitter or depressed. Why is it that some people, but not others, grow wise over time by learning from life's challenges (Linley & Joseph, 2004)? In the MORE Life Experience Model (Glück & Bluck, 2013), we argued that life challenges are catalysts for the development of wisdom, and that psychological resources crucially influence how people appraise life challenges, how they deal with them, and how they integrate them into their life story as time goes on. Based on the literature on wisdom and growth from challenging experiences, we proposed five resources as important for the development of wisdom: Mastery, Openness, Reflectivity, and Emotion Regulation including Empathy - in short, MORE. Since proposing the model, we have conducted a first empirical test of its predictions. This paper describes our expected and unexpected findings, which provide insights that we integrate to further refine and elaborate the MORE Life Experience Model. First, we describe the theoretical and empirical background of the original model.