Across different cultures and countries, people perceive the wisest people to be logical and reflective, first and foremost, as well as able to consider other people’s feelings and perceptions. The University of Waterloo in Canada studied participants across socioeconomic groups in 26 countries including Canada, China, Ecuador, India, Japan, Morocco, Peru, Slovakia, South Africa, South Korea, and the United States.
While there were 19 different types of qualities the participants considered in evaluating who seemed most wise, the two variables that were perceived as the most correlated with wisdom were: reflective orientation ( i.e. thinking logically, emotional control, thinking in many ways, etc.) and socio-emotional awareness (i.e. sense of humor, awareness of bodily expressions, and intellectual humility, etc.).
Who in your life do you perceive to be wise and are they both self-reflective and have strong emotional intelligence?
-Chip