Anna Dorfman

Objective: How do individuals across diverse cultures navigate interpersonal conflicts, and what drives variation in their use of wisdom‐related strategies? Method: In two studies spanning eight world regions ( N = 4445), we examined the factor structure of five wisdom‐related strategies (Intellectual Humility, Others' Perspectives, Acknowledgement of Multiple Outcomes, Search for Compromise, Outsider's View), their individual‐difference correlates, and trait–state variance. Results: In Study 1 (autobiographical recall), we identified a three‐factor structure— Perspectival Metacognition , Conflict Resolution , and Outsider's View —that showed approximate measurement invariance across cultures. In Study 2 (standardized scenarios), we replicated this structure and partitioned trait, state, and cultural variance. Cross‐cultural differences accounted for about 4% of variance in expressed wisdom, whereas within‐person variation across situations explained the largest share: People expressed less wisdom in reflections on conflicts involving trust betrayal than social rejection, an effect linked to greater emotional reactivity to betrayal. At the individual level, need for cognition and relational‐interdependent self‐construal showed small‐to‐moderate positive associations with each wisdom‐related feature, whereas a sense of uniqueness was positively related to Conflict Resolution. Conclusions: Wisdom in reflections on interpersonal conflict appears organized around three metacognitive themes that replicate broadly across cultures, with situational affordances (vs. cultural or trait dispositions) accounting for most variation in its expression.

Theories of complex thought, psychological maturation, and wisdom often rest on three core assumptions: that wisdom-related features reflect a common latent trait, manifest consistently across situations, and exhibit isomorphism between within-person processes and between-person traits. These assumptions underlie much of the field's empirical and theoretical work yet remain largely untested. We examined these assumptions in a year-long, multiwave study of North American adults (N = 499), using event-reconstruction sampling to gather autobiographical reflections on adverse experiences. Participants evaluated their use of four core metacognitive features of wisdom: intellectual humility, recognition of uncertainty and change, perspective taking, and search for a compromise. Our findings challenge prevailing static models and supported a dynamic, context-sensitive account. A network model outperformed latent factor models, suggesting that wisdom comprises interrelated but distinct features rather than a unitary construct. The perceived relevance and use of these features varied across situations and showed lower temporal stability than personality traits or well-being, undermining assumptions of cross-situational consistency. Within-person and between-person patterns also diverged, violating isomorphism. Notably, individuals who reported higher-than-usual self-distancing and distress at one time point also reported elevated levels of wisdom-related features 3 months later, a pattern not observed for other proposed moderators such as social support or subjective appraisals. Together, these findings offer a revised understanding of wisdom and complex thought-as dynamic, context-sensitive processes, rather than fixed traits. Our findings carry implications for the ontological status of wisdom-related constructs and underscore the importance of longitudinal research and more precise temporal claims in psychological science. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

When multiple ways of deciding are laid out side-by-side, which does one favour? We conducted experiments in 12 countries (n = 3517 individuals; 13 languages; two Indigenous communities), with adults choosing among four decision strategies—personal intuition, private deliberation, friends’ advice or crowd wisdom—when working through six everyday dilemmas. In every society, self-reliant decisions (intuition or deliberation) were most commonly preferred and considered the wisest. Expectations for fellow citizens, however, were mixed: advice from friends was expected about as often as self-reliant routes. The self-reliance tilt was strongest in cultures and individuals high in independent self-construal and need for cognition, and weakest where interdependence and self-transcendent reflection were salient. The same patterns emerged when examining ratings of each strategy’s utility and oral protocols with Indigenous groups. Self-reliance appears the modal preference across cultures, but its strength is predictably tempered when cultures, and individuals within them, construe the self in relational rather than autonomous terms.

We explored how individuals’ mental representations of complex and uncertain situations impact their ability to reason wisely. To this end, we introduce situated methods to capture abstract and concrete mental representations and the switching between them when reflecting on social challenges. Using these methods, we evaluated the alignment of abstractness and concreteness with four integral facets of wisdom: intellectual humility, open-mindedness, perspective-taking, and compromise-seeking. Data from North American and UK participants (N = 1,151) revealed that both abstract and concrete construals significantly contribute to wise reasoning, even when controlling for a host of relevant covariates and potential response bias. Natural language processing of unstructured texts among high (top 25%) and low (bottom 25%) wisdom participants corroborated these results: semantic networks of the high wisdom group reveal greater use of both abstract and concrete themes compared to the low wisdom group. Finally, employing a repeated strategy-choice method as an additional measure, our findings demonstrated that individuals who showed a greater balance and switching between these construal types exhibited higher wisdom. Our findings advance understanding of individual differences in mental representations and how construals shape reasoning across contexts in everyday life.

In the context of public health crises such as the COVID‐19 pandemic, it is essential that individuals cooperate by complying with preventive measures (e.g., wearing a mask). The current research examines how high trust in close others is linked to less cooperation—that is, less compliance with measures—and thus, undermines collective interests. Specifically, we test whether individuals are less willing to comply with preventive measures when interacting with close others they trust. We conducted two experiments in which participants read a vignette depicting a social interaction with either close others (e.g., family) or strangers. Participants had to report the extent to which they would (1) trust the other people in the situation and (2) comply with the mask wearing and physical distancing measures during this interaction. In both experiments, we find that when individuals are considering an interaction with close others, they report experiencing higher trust which is then linked to lower compliance with preventive measures. In Experiment 2, we further demonstrate that participants report less compliance with preventive measures around close others, even when they perceive non‐compliance with the measures as morally “wrong”. Our findings shed light on the challenges that compliance with preventive measures poses during social interactions in a context of high trust.

We present a global experience‐sampling method (ESM) study aimed at describing, predicting, and understanding individual differences in well‐being during times of crisis such as the COVID‐19 pandemic. This international ESM study is a collaborative effort of over 60 interdisciplinary researchers from around the world in the “Coping with Corona” (CoCo) project. The study comprises trait‐, state‐, and daily‐level data of 7490 participants from over 20 countries (total ESM measurements = 207,263; total daily measurements = 73,295) collected between October 2021 and August 2022. We provide a brief overview of the theoretical background and aims of the study, present the applied methods (including a description of the study design, data collection procedures, data cleaning, and final sample), and discuss exemplary research questions to which these data can be applied. We end by inviting collaborations on the CoCo dataset.