Julie Thompson Alex Francisco Ashley Rhodes

6 Universally Accepted Virtues

Courage Humanity Justice Temperance Transcendence Wisdom/Knowledge

 Sternbergs Six Attributes of a wise person

Reasoning Ability, Sagacity, Learning from new ideas and the environment, Judgment, Expeditious use of information, Perspicacity

Balance Theory (Sternberg)

Balance of interests and courses of action

Baltes Life Dilemma Measures of Wisdom

 How Similar are Wise Men and Women?A Comparison Across Two Age Cohorts (2009)
Monika Ardelt: University of Florida

Gender similarities and differences in wisdom in two cohorts, undergraduates(464 students) and older adults (over 50; 178 adults)

 Used Clayton and Birren (1980) operational definition of wisdom:

A combination of cognitive, reflective, and affective personality characteristics

Measured 3 dimensions of wisdom based on definition

Cognitive Reflective Affective

 Hypothesis 1: Wisdom when assessed as a combination of the three dimensions is unrelated to gender Hyp. 2: Men expected to score higher in cognitive dimension than women Hyp. 3: Women expected to score higher in affective component than men Hyp. 4: Gender not predicted to be related to reflective aspect of wisdom

 Measured the two cohort groups with the Three Dimensional Wisdom Scale (3D-WS) 5 point scales used to measure each of the 3 dimensions; 1 (strongly agree) to 5 (strongly disagree) or 1(definitely true of myself) to 5 (not true of myself)

 As predicted, no difference in overall (neither between cohorts nor within) wisdom scores between genders In older adults, men scored higher on cognitive dimension of wisdom than women; not true for undergraduate cohort

 As predicted, no significant difference in reflective wisdom scores between men and women, at any age level As predicted, in both cohorts, women scored higher in affective wisdom

 How love and lust change peoples perception of relationship partners

Jens Forster, Amina Ozelsel, Kai Epstude

Authors wanted to apply past research findings to their study and evaluate the relation between love, lust, temporal processing and the halo effect

Hypothesis: love will be related to global processing while lust will be related to local processing

 Love: wishes to self expand and caring for or identifying with a person, including feelings of infatuation ad emotional bonding Lust: wish, need, or drive to seek out sexual objects or to engage in sexual activities, including feelings of sexual desire

Halo effect: cognitive bias in which a trait of a person is influenced by judgment of another trait
Ex: you may think a person is intelligent because they are attractive

 162 people recruited and compensated All had to be in a stable relationship (defined at more than one year) College educated, similar social backgrounds, older and younger generations

 Two experimental groups and one control

love and lust

Each primed to think about a situation involving love, lust, or neither (control) Imagination task
measured global vs. local processing

Questionnaires
partner perceptions (my partner is ______) Imagination and mood (check for confounding/related variables)

 Global vs. Local processing

Love group performed better on creative task and used global processing Lust group performed better on analytical tasks and used local processing Control group performed in between the two conditions

 Perception of relationships
Questionnaire showed two general trends: Those primed with love had higher scores related to the positivity of their partner and their relationships (increased halo effect)
Those primed with lust had lower scores related to the positivity of their partner and their relationships (reduced halo effect)

 Fincham, Frank D.; Lambert, Nathaniel M.; Beach, Steven R. H

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Vol 99(4), Oct, 2010. pp. 649-659

To examine the role of prayer on romantic relationships, especially in relation to extradyadic behavior. Research based on prior theories on:
Prayer (goal theory) Perceived sanctification of relationships Satisfaction outcomes

3 Studies

 Goal: To examine whether prayer for the partner is associated with lower levels of extradyadic romantic behavior (infidelity) over time
Study prospective behavior (to avoid motivated bias)

Hypothesis: Prayer will be negatively associated with extradyadic romantic behavior. n=375 undergraduate students 3 Measures: completed twice (6 weeks in between)
Prayer for partner Infidelity Relationship satisfaction

 Supported hypothesis that prayer would be related to lower levels of infidelity over time
Even when relationship satisfaction is controlled for

Prayer for partner stronger predictor of future infidelity than initial relationship satisfaction Results simply a correlation; cannot determine causality Unclear whether prayer of any kind could be responsible or whether just positive thoughts about partner could explain correlation

 Goal: examine the impact of prayer on relationship infidelity with an experimental design (4 week longitudinal study)
Also tested mechanism of perceived sanctification of relationship

Hypotheses:
1. Participants randomly assigned to pray each day for the partner over a 4-week period would show lower levels of extradyadic romantic behavior at the end of that period than would participants assigned to pray in general, to focus on positive partner qualities, or to a neutral activity. 2. Perceiving the relationship as sacred would mediate the relation between prayer and extradyadic behavior.

n=83 undergraduate students Measures:

Infidelity (thoughts and acts) Infidelity acts Relationship sanctification effect Relationship sanctification as mediator

 4 conditions: 1. Prayer for partner condition (experimental condition)

Set aside time each day to pray for partner; record time spent

2. Neutral condition (activity control)

Think about what youve done that day; record time spent

3. Undirected prayer condition

Set aside time each day to pray; record time spent

4. Partner positive condition

Set aside time each day to think positive thoughts about partner; record time spent

 Praying for the partner on a daily basis resulted in lower extradyadic thoughts and behavior, even in comparison with undirected prayer. There was a significant difference in reported infidelity between participants assigned to the prayer for partner condition and participants assigned to the undirected prayer condition. Provides evidence that praying for the partner had an effect beyond simply reducing extradyadicthoughts. Provides evidence that the perception of having a sanctified relationship mediates the relation between praying for partner and infidelity. But:
rely on the participants' self-report of their extradyadic thoughts and behaviors (does not control for explanations of dissonance or demand characteristics)

 Goal: move beyond self-report to see if effects of praying for partner could be observed by objective observers
Observe commitment due to its relation to infidelity

Hypothesis: Participants who had prayed for their partner for 4 weeks would be rated as more committed to their romantic partners than would control participants. n=23 undergraduate students Procedure:
Completed 4-item pretest (from Study 1) Assigned to either prayer for partner or positive thoughts condition Had conversation with partnerscored by objective observers

Results: Hypothesis gained support as results revealed higher observer reports of commitment among those in the prayer for partner condition than among those in the positive-thought condition, controlling for initial self-reported relationship satisfaction.