Page 49 - JCBP-1-2

Journal of Clinical and

Basic Psychosomatics

ORIGINAL RESEARCH ARTICLE
Wisdom capacities in people with and without

chronic mental health problems: A representative
survey on a general German adult population

Beate Muschalla*

Department of Psychotherapy and Diagnostics, Technische Universität Braunschweig, Braunschweig,
Germany

Abstract

Wisdom capacities are important for coping with difficult and ambiguous life
situations. People with chronic mental health problems often have problems in
coping with life problems. Until now, there are no comparative and representative
data on the distribution of wisdom capacities people with and without chronic
mental health problems. Identifying strengths and limitations in wisdom capacities
in both groups will give a basis for specific focus in wisdom training in clinical settings
and public health. This cross-sectional observation study examined a German
population with a representative sample of 2505 persons aged 16 – 95 years in 2019.
Sociodemographic data as well as chronic mental illnesses data were collected, and
wisdom capacities were assessed by the 12-WD Wisdom Scale. The surveys were carried
out using interviews and self-report questionnaires at the respondents’ homes by
*Corresponding author: an experienced social research company. The wisdom capacities value and problem
Beate Muschalla relativization, as well as emotion acceptance were scored the highest by people with
(b.muschalla@tu-braunschweig.de)
and without chronic mental health problems. Uncertainty tolerance, sustainability
Citation: Muschalla B, 2023, and perspective change received the lowest scores. People with chronic mental health
Wisdom capacities in people
with and without chronic mental problems had slightly lower overall wisdom affinity (M = 7.00, SD = 1.41 on a scale
health problems: A representative of 0 – 10) as compared to mentally healthy people (M = 7.7, SD = 1.38). Specifically,
survey on a general German persons with chronic mental health problems reported the lowest ratings on wisdom
adult population. J Clin Basic capacities requiring active cognitive reflections (sustainability, perspective change,
Psychosom, 1(2): 0945.
https://doi.org/10.36922/jcbp.0945 and uncertainty tolerance). In conclusion, since there are rather small quantitative
differences between persons with and without chronic mental health problems, the
Received: May 12, 2023
wisdom concept seems appropriate to be applied to all individuals, regardless of the
Accepted: August 21, 2023 severity and nature of mental health problems. Wisdom enhancement, for instance,
Published Online: September 21, by means of wisdom training, may be focused on wisdom capacities which were
2023 rated comparably low, including perspective change, uncertainty tolerance and
Copyright: © 2023 Author(s). sustainability.
This is an Open-Access article
distributed under the terms of the
Creative Commons Attribution Keywords: Wisdom; Mental health; Coping; Representative
License, permitting distribution,
and reproduction in any medium,
provided the original work is
properly cited.
Publisher’s Note: AccScience 1. Introduction
Publishing remains neutral with Global challenges such as wars, climate change, and migration, on a greater scale, have
regard to jurisdictional claims in
published maps and institutional huge implications on a person’s life. In addition to these global challenges, people are
affiliations. encountering problems, either small or big, in their lives, such as making decisions to

Volume 1 Issue 2 (2023) 1 https://doi.org/10.36922/jcbp.0945