2.3.1 Polyhedron Model of Wisdom

Wisdom is usually omitted from accounts of giftedness, or at least, of childhood giftedness. However, several researchers concluded that age is not an independent variable per se; it is a proxy for other things (Aldwin, 2008). Recently researchers have suggested that critical building blocks of wisdom develop in late adolescence and early adulthood (e.g., Pasupathi, Staudinger, Baltes, & James, 2001; Richardson & Pasupathi, 2005) or even earlier than adolescence (Cskszentmihalyi & Nakamura, 2005). Hence, it is important for educators to consider ways of developing wisdom among children as the approach and enter adolescence. Although research has been conducted on wisdom during the last 30 years, what is meant by wisdom and how it can be cultivated, is still not entirely clear (Weststrate, Ferrari1, & Ardelt, 2016). Hence, we systematically reviewed 50 articles in the fields of psychology; management and leadership; and education to examine points of consensus in conceptions of wisdom across a broader area. The selection criteria for inclusion in the study were: 1. peer reviewed; 2. published between 2006 and 2018; 3. most commonly cited article from each year; and 4. articles cited more than 50 times in one year. To have a consistent approach to combining information across studies (Evans & Benefield, 2001), research was conducted in two phases. First, a primary codebook was developed to record the occurrences of the word wisdom and any explicit or implicit definitions of wisdom in each article. To prepare a codebook, two raters coded articles identified by Sternberg as the most influential articles and book chapters in this field (Sternberg, Jarvin, & Grigirenko, 2011). The codebook consisted of six categories and three to six codes within each category (25 variables). To assure that data-generating process is reproducible elsewhere by other investigators using the same coding instructions and the same texts, we used Krippendorff’s alpha (2007) to investigate reliability between coders (7 articles). With acceptable reliabilities, coding the other 43 articles began. During the coding procedures, we came up with more subcategories that were not part of the codebook. Finally, we classified subcategories in eight themes/components that characterize wisdom. Based on this review, the Polyhedron Model of Wisdom (PMW) was developed. This model identifies components that characterize wisdom: knowledge; reflectivity and self-regulation; pro-social behaviors and moral maturity; openness and tolerance; critical thinking; intelligence; creativity; and dynamic balance and synthesis.

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