RUHR - ECONOMIC PAPERS - Wisdom and Prosocial Behavior #1054

The 10 statements capturing the different thoughts and considerations refer, two each, 4 to the five different facets of wisdom consisting of the acknowledgment of intellectual humility, the consideration of change and of multiple ways a situation may unfold, recognition of different perspectives, the willingness to compromise and search for resolutions, and self-transcendence. [...] Examining the two measures of wisdom and the different indicators of prosocial behavior, we observed a consistent and statistically significant positive relation of substantial magnitude between wisdom and each of the prosocial behavior indicators (Figure 2). [...] This relationship ranged from a 5% of a standard deviation increase in the probability of having voted in the last national election associated with a one standard deviation increase in the AW to a 20% of one standard deviation increase in the index of compliance with rules and behaviors to prevent the spread of COVID-19. [...] Varying the vantage point does not affect wisdom-prosociality association To further explore the robustness of the association between wisdom and prosocial behavior across different states, we experimentally varied the vantage point in the decision situation from self-focused to others-focused in the donation situation. [...] Country-specific investigation of wisdom and prosocial behavior Finally, we probed the associations between wisdom (AW and EW) and measures of prosocial behavior within each of the nine sampled countries (see Figure A7 and Figure A8 in the Supplementary Materials).