Judicial Wisdom: An Introductory Empirical Account

For millennia, the notion of “wisdom” has been the purview of philosophers or religious scholars. Philosophers literally loved and sought wisdom; biblical scholars lionized King Solomon, wisest man of all.1 More recently, however, psychologists have begun to investigate the concept of wisdom empirically. Beginning in the mid-1970s and proceeding apace,2 social scientists have studied wisdom from a variety of perspectives, falling under two headings of implicit and explicit theories.3 IMPLICIT THEORIES OF WISDOM At least three different approaches have been taken to the development of implicit theories of wisdom. One thread of research, probably the most common, uses a three-step factor analysis approach: one sample of participants is asked to generate a list of traits or characteristics of wisdom generally or of a wise person.

Another sample rates that list of traits on, for example, how typical each is of wisdom or of a wise person, and the resulting ratings are then factor analyzed to identify and articulate the underlying dimensions.4