The wisdom of good thought and deed

Abstract

This chapter addresses the Persian approach to wisdom by reviewing empirical studies conducted about wisdom in Iran, home to a civilization known to be the oldest in the world. Over the past few decades, the concept of wisdom has gained significant attention from both academia and the business world (c.f. Ardelt, 1997, 2000, 2003; Baltes & Staudinger, 2000; Intezari & Pauleen, 2018; Sternberg, 1998, 2001). There have been extensive studies on the concept of wisdom and its implications in real world settings, and a growing number of scales to measure wisdom (c.f. Ardelt, 2003; Greene & Brown, 2009; Jason, Reichler, King, Madsen, Camacho, & Marchese, 2001; Levenson, Jennings, Aldwin, & Shiraishi, 2005; Webster, 2003, 2007). Despite this attention and study, there is no consensus on the definition of wisdom. In the Persian tradition, the concept of wisdom can be found in various texts in different disciplines, including philosophy, ancient and modern Persian literature, politics, poetry, art, and religion. However, the contemporary scientific study of wisdom is still in its infancy. Modern studies of wisdom in the Persian tradition include both comparative and interpretive ones. For example, some studies have searched for indicators and examples of wise people in ancient poems and religious texts (c.f. Delpazir, Behnamfar & Rashid Mohassel, 2018; Hajian Nejad, 2005; Mohammadzadeh & Ghanavati, 2017; Nadaf & Pak Nejad, 2011; Vejdani, 2012). Others are more interested in the perceptions of today’s laypersons’s conception wisdom. The number of scientific empirical studies of wisdom is growing among Iranian scholars, mostly from a psychological perspective. Most of the studies have been conducted between 2010 and 2017. In this chapter, we report on the findings of an extensive review of these empirical psychological studies conducted in Iran about wisdom. The studies have been published in the most highly ranked and prestigious Iranian scientific psychological journals. The Berlin Wisdom Paradigm (Baltes & Smith, 1990; Baltes & Staudinger, 2000), Sternberg’s (1990) balance theory, and Ardelt’s three dimensional wisdom theory (2000, 2004) are prominent among contemporary studies of wisdom in Iran. Examples of other wisdom definitions used by the Iranian scholars in examining wisdom include those from Brown and Greene (2006), and Webster (2003, 2007). We found that there were two major research streams among the empirical and psychological wisdom studies in Iran. The first stream includes the studies that are focused on identifying the indicators and aspects of wisdom. The second stream represents studies that examine the correlation between wisdom and other constructs. In this chapter, we first examine the concept of wisdom as it has appeared in Iranian ancient and religious texts. We then review the findings of the studies on wisdom conducted in contemporary Iran. We categorise the studies into three major groups: studies on the lay conceptions of wisdom, gerontologists’ studies, and correlational studies. We conclude the chapter by assessing the studies’ theoretical and methodological stances.