How is wisdom related to aging? While many people associate wisdom with advanced age, becoming wise clearly requires more than “just” growing old – accumulated life experience is an important foundation for wisdom, but not all highly wise individuals are old and many old individuals are not particularly wise. This article first reviews how wisdom is defined in psychological research, with an emphasis on models of how wisdom develops. Then, recent research is reviewed that looks into (a) the relationship between wisdom and chronological age and (b) wisdom as a resource for coping with age-related challenges. Finally, some general conclusions are drawn and important research gaps are highlighted.

智慧与衰老有何关系？虽然许多人将智慧与高龄联系在一起，但变得聪明显然需要的不仅仅是“仅仅”变老——积累的生活经验是智慧的重要基础，但并非所有高度智慧的人都是老的，而且许多老年人并不是特别聪明。本文首先回顾了心理学研究中智慧的定义，重点是智慧如何发展的模型。然后，回顾了最近的研究，探讨了（a）智慧与实际年龄之间的关系，以及（b）智慧作为应对与年龄相关的挑战的资源。最后，得出一些一般性结论并强调重要的研究差距。