Developing the Chicago Center for Practical Wisdom

Wisdom can be thought of as prudential judgment in human decision making that increases human flourishing. While there have been advances in wisdom research in the last decade, the importance of wisdom to society and the benefits of such research are not broadly understood. Wisdom research helps us understand the ways in which wisdom can benefit people and inform decision makers, and it helps us understand how to help people make wiser decisions. As more wisdom research is done, its potential to positively impact society increases. To fully realize the impact wisdom research can have on society, there is a need for an infrastructure to support the development of new research and oversee the dissemination of findings. To this end, and building upon the success of the Chicago Wisdom Research Project, we propose to establish the Chicago Center for Practical Wisdom, and launch a series of new wisdom research projects ranging from translational research to basic scientific studies investigating psychological and biological mechanisms of wisdom. Our work as a Center will be guided by 3 Big Questions: (1) How can scientific research increase the impact of understanding wisdom on society? (2) How do individual differences in hypothesized foundations of wisdom (e.g., humility, reflection, perseverance) serve as antecedents to wisdom development? (3) How do experience and practice interact with hypothesized foundations to develop wisdom? The Center will host scholars, develop pilot studies, and collaborate with universities in the U.S. and internationally. Through the Center, we seek to expand scientific thinking about wisdom, convene scientific meetings and special sessions at scholarly conferences, support the development of new measures of wisdom, and train a new generation of scientists and scholars to study wisdom. The Center will foster new wisdom research, and disseminate findings through manuscript publications, conferences, training programs, and media outreach.