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The Scientific Study of Personal Wisdom pp 165–189Cite as

Religion, Spirituality, and Personal Wisdom: A Tale of Two Types

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Abstract

Against the backdrop of the changing religious and spiritual landscape in the contemporary United States, this chapter explores the relation between religion, spirituality, and personal wisdom and evaluates the various meanings of personal wisdom and their implications for the wisdom-religion nexus. Using longitudinal data from a community sample of Americans born in the 1920s, we report empirical findings on the relations among religion, spirituality, and personal wisdom and present case studies exemplifying two different ways of being wise at a personal level. Our findings point to the complexity of wisdom and demonstrate how both traditional forms of church participation and individuated forms of spiritual seeking tap into different dimensions and manifestations of wisdom. We argue that the positive association between wisdom and both religiousness and spiritual seeking, in part, reflects the fact that personal wisdom, while distinct from either religiousness or spirituality, encompasses multifaceted traits that are inclusive of both self- and other-directed interests.

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Acknowledgement

The writing of this chapter was supported by grants from the Brachman Hoffman Fund, Wellesley College and the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, Germany awarded to Paul Wink.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, Wellesley College, Wellesley, MA, USA

    Paul Wink

  2. Department of Sociology, University of New Hampshire, Durham, NH, USA

    Michele Dillon

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  1. Paul Wink
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  2. Michele Dillon
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Correspondence to Paul Wink .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Applied Psychology and Human Development, University of Toronto OISE, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

    Michel Ferrari

  2. Dept. Human Development & Applied Psychology, University of Toronto OISE, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

    Nic M. Weststrate

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Wink, P., Dillon, M. (2013). Religion, Spirituality, and Personal Wisdom: A Tale of Two Types. In: Ferrari, M., Weststrate, N. (eds) The Scientific Study of Personal Wisdom. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-7987-7_8

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