and kindness in the face of challenges, it is one of the most important qualities one can possess to age successfully.

Vivian Clayton, a geriatric neuropsychologist in California, developed a definition of wisdom in the 70s, that has served as a foundation for research on the subject ever since. After scouring ancient texts and talking to people in the legal sector, she found that wisdom consists of three key components: cognition, reflection and compassion.

Unfortunately, research shows that cognitive functioning slows with age. But speed isn’t everything. Older people have more information in their brains than younger ones, so retrieving it takes longer. And the quality of the information in the older brain is more nuanced, showing “greater sensitivity to fine-grained differences”.

According to Dr Clayton, one must take time to gain insights from one’s cognitive knowledge to be wise. Then one can use those insights to understand and help others.

Working from Dr Clayton’s framework, Monika Ardelt, an associate sociology professor at the University of Florida, felt a need to expand on studies of old age because of research showing that satisfaction late in life consists of things like maintaining physical and mental health, volunteering and having positive relationships with others. But this isn’t always possible if the body breaks down, if social roles are diminished and if people suffer major losses.

Wisdom, she has found, is the ace in the hole that can help even severely impaired people find meaning, contentment and acceptance in later life.

She developed a scale consisting of questions aimed at measuring wisdom. Respondents later answered questions about hypothetical crises, and those who showed evidence of high wisdom were also more likely to have better coping skills.

An impediment to wisdom is thinking, “I can’t stand who I am now because I’m not who I used to be,” said Isabella S Bick, a psychotherapist. She has ageing clients who are upset by a perceived worsening of their looks, their physical abilities, their memory. An acceptance of ageing is necessary for growth, she said.

The Berlin Wisdom Project, a research effort begun in the 80s that sought to define wisdom, called it “an expert knowledge system concerning the fundamental pragmatics of life.” Co-founder Ursula M Staudinger, distinguished between general wisdom, which involves understanding life from an observer’s point of view, and personal wisdom, which involves deep insight into one’s own life.

True personal wisdom involves five elements, said Professor Staudinger. They are self-insight; the ability to demonstrate personal growth; self-awareness in terms of your historical era and your family history; understanding that priorities and values, including your own, are not absolute; and an awareness of life’s ambiguities.

Wisdom in this sense is extremely rare, Professor Staudinger said, and research has shown that it actually declines in the final decades. As a coping strategy, it is better to be positive about life when you are older, she said. True wisdom involves recognising the negative both within and outside ourselves and trying to learn from it.

Modern definitions of wisdom tend to stress kindness—characterised by a “reduction in self-centeredness,” Professor Ardelt said. Wise people try to understand situations from multiple perspectives, not just their own, and they show tolerance as a result.

“There’s evidence that people who rank high in neuroticism are unlikely to be wise,” said Laura L Carstensen, a psychology professor. “They see things in a self-centered and negative way and so they fail to benefit emotionally from experience.” Professor Carstensen studies emotional regulation, and says that is a key component of wisdom. If you are wise, she said, “You’re not only regulating your emotional state, you’re also attending to another person’s emotional state.”

Author Daniel Goleman said, “One aspect of wisdom is having a very wide horizon which doesn’t center on ourselves,” or even on our group or organisation. He said an important sign of wisdom was ‘generativity,’ a term used by the psychologist Erik Erikson, which means giving back without needing anything in return. The form of giving back could be creative, social, personal or financial, and “the wisest people do that in a way that doesn’t see their lifetime as limiting when this might happen.”

Whatever the nature of one’s limitations, simplifying one’s life is also a sign of wisdom, Dr Clayton said. Some people have trouble with the idea of settling for less—”they’ve gotten so used to the game of acquiring more,” she said.

Settling for less and simplifying is not the same as giving up. In fact, when older people lack challenges, self-absorption and stagnation may take over, the Eriksons said. The key is to set goals that match one’s current capacities. Continuing education can be an important way to cultivate wisdom in the later years, researchers say, for one thing

because it combats isolation. But training in practical skills may be less useful for older people than courses in the humanities that help people make sense of their lives, Professor Ardelt says.

Dr Clayton says there’s a point in life when a fundamental shift occurs, and people start thinking about how much time they have left rather than how long they have lived. Reflecting on the meaning and structure of their lives, she said, can help people thrive after the balance shifts and there is much less time left than has gone before.

—©2014 The New York Times