IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/jhappi/v14y2013i3p929-950.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Why are Wise People Happier? An Explanatory Model of Wisdom and Emotional Well-Being in Older Adults

Author

Listed:
  • Sarah Etezadi
  • Dolores Pushkar

Abstract

This research investigated the relation between wisdom and emotional well-being in older adults, with an aim to elucidate pathways of positive development in adulthood. Three-hundred and sixty recently retired individuals completed a series of questionnaires including measures of wisdom, dispositional coping, perceived control, life engagement, and positive and negative affect. Structural equation modeling controlling for social desirability, health, and sociodemographic variables revealed that problem-focused coping, positive reappraisal coping, perceived control and life engagement mediate the positive relation between wisdom and positive affect. In addition, perceived control and life engagement, but not dispositional coping, were found to mediate the negative relation between wisdom and negative affect. The results demonstrate that higher levels of perceived control and life engagement in conjunction with an increased use of problem-focused and positive reappraisal coping account for the enhanced emotional well-being associated with wisdom. Findings are discussed in terms of the characteristics of wise individuals that promote positive aging. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2013

Suggested Citation

  • Sarah Etezadi & Dolores Pushkar, 2013. "Why are Wise People Happier? An Explanatory Model of Wisdom and Emotional Well-Being in Older Adults," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 14(3), pages 929-950, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:jhappi:v:14:y:2013:i:3:p:929-950
    DOI: 10.1007/s10902-012-9362-2
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/s10902-012-9362-2
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s10902-012-9362-2?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ad Bergsma & Monika Ardelt, 2012. "Self-Reported Wisdom and Happiness: An Empirical Investigation," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 13(3), pages 481-499, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Chau-kiu Cheung & Esther Oi-wah Chow, 2020. "Contribution of Wisdom to Well-Being in Chinese Older Adults," Applied Research in Quality of Life, Springer;International Society for Quality-of-Life Studies, vol. 15(3), pages 913-930, July.
    2. Sai-fu Fung & Esther Oi-wah Chow & Chau-kiu Cheung, 2020. "Development and Evaluation of the Psychometric Properties of a Brief Wisdom Development Scale," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(8), pages 1-14, April.
    3. Monika Ardelt, 2016. "Disentangling the Relations Between Wisdom and Different Types of Well-Being in Old Age: Findings from a Short-Term Longitudinal Study," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 17(5), pages 1963-1984, October.
    4. Neal Krause & R. Hayward, 2015. "Virtues, Practical Wisdom and Psychological Well-Being: A Christian Perspective," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 122(3), pages 735-755, July.
    5. Judith Glück & Nic M. Weststrate & Andreas Scherpf, 2022. "Looking Beyond Linear: A Closer Examination of the Relationship Between Wisdom and Wellbeing," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 23(7), pages 3285-3313, October.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Monika Ardelt, 2016. "Disentangling the Relations Between Wisdom and Different Types of Well-Being in Old Age: Findings from a Short-Term Longitudinal Study," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 17(5), pages 1963-1984, October.
    2. Hannes Zacher & Liane Pearce & David Rooney & Bernard McKenna, 2014. "Leaders’ Personal Wisdom and Leader–Member Exchange Quality: The Role of Individualized Consideration," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 121(2), pages 171-187, May.
    3. Patrick B Williams & Heather H Mangelsdorf & Carly Kontra & Howard C Nusbaum & Berthold Hoeckner, 2016. "The Relationship between Mental and Somatic Practices and Wisdom," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 11(2), pages 1-14, February.
    4. Neal Krause & R. Hayward, 2015. "Virtues, Practical Wisdom and Psychological Well-Being: A Christian Perspective," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 122(3), pages 735-755, July.
    5. Hannes Zacher & Bernard McKenna & David Rooney, 2013. "Effects of Self-Reported Wisdom on Happiness: Not Much More Than Emotional Intelligence?," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 14(6), pages 1697-1716, December.
    6. Mahdavi Akramsadat & Ardabili Farzad Sattari & Kheirandish Mohammad & Ebrahimpour Habib & Daryani Shahram Mirzaei, 2020. "Presenting a Model of Managerial practical wisdom in Hospitals," Management, Sciendo, vol. 24(2), pages 20-48, December.
    7. Miftachul Huda & Kamarul Azmi Jasmi & Ismail Mustari & Bushrah Basiron & Noraisikin Sabani, 2017. "Traditional Wisdom on Sustainable Learning," SAGE Open, , vol. 7(1), pages 21582440176, March.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:spr:jhappi:v:14:y:2013:i:3:p:929-950. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.