People demonstrate varying levels of wisdom and how wise we are seems to depend a lot on the situation we're in.

A study from the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada shows people demonstrate different levels of wisdom from one situation to the next. This plus factors such as whether we're alone or with friends seems to determine how wise we are in a given situation.

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The study equates being wise with wise reasoning and defines this as a combination of abilities such as intellectual humility, consideration of others' perspective and looking for compromise. On the other hand, wisdom is the quality of having experience, knowledge and good judgment. It's also defined as the quality of being wise.

Conventional wisdom has it wisdom is a reward of old age and sages in popular culture are often portrayed as elderly persons. Being wise isn't the prerogative of the elderly, however.

"This research does not dismiss that there is a personality component to wisdom, but that's not the whole picture," said Professor Igor Grossmann, from the Department of Psychology at Waterloo and lead author of the paper.

"Situations in daily life affect our personality and ability to reason wisely."

Wisdom might not be as rare as we think, a conclusion drawn after observations that wise reasoning varies dramatically across situations in daily life. For different individuals, however, only certain situations may promote this quality.

"There are many examples where people known for their critical acumen or expertise in ethics seem to fall prey to lack of such acumen or morals. The present findings suggest that those examples are not an anomaly," said Grossmann.

"We cannot always be at the top of our game in terms of wisdom-related tendencies, and it can be dangerous to generalize based on whether people show wisdom in their personal life or when teaching others in the classroom."

Researchers and practitioners are learning more about situations promoting wisdom in daily life and recreating those situations by examining conditions and situations under which people may or may not show wisdom in their lives.

Grossmann and his team have plans to conduct the first-ever longitudinal study aiming at teaching people to reason wisely in their own lives. The work appears in Social Psychological and Personality Science.

Tagswisdom, WISE, University of Waterloo, Professor Igor Grossmann