by Maisie Allison
New research compares Japanese and American capacities for "wise reasoning" over time:
Americans do get wiser with age. Their intergroup wisdom score averaged 45 at the age of 25 and 55 at 75. Their interpersonal score similarly climbed from 46 to 50. Japanese scores, by contrast, hardly varied with age. Both 25-year-olds and 75-year-olds had an average intergroup wisdom of 51. For interpersonal wisdom, it was 53 and 52. Taken at face value, these results suggest Japanese learn wisdom faster than Americans. One up, then, to the wizened Zen-masters. But they also suggest a paradox.
Generally, America is seen as an individualistic society, whereas Japan is quite collectivist. Yet Japanese have higher scores than Americans for the sort of interpersonal wisdom you might think would be useful in an individualistic society. Americans, by contrast—at least in the maturity of old age—have more intergroup wisdom than the purportedly collectivist Japanese. Perhaps, then, you need individual skills when society is collective, and social ones when it is individualistic.
An earlier look at the aging brain here.
The Dish 