There’s an apparent paradox in modern life: Society as a whole is getting smarter, yet we aren’t any closer to figuring out how to all get along. “How is it possible that we have just as many, if not more, conflicts as before?” asks social psychologist Igor Grossmann at the University of Waterloo in Canada.
The answer is that raw intelligence doesn’t reduce conflict, he asserts. Wisdom does. Such wisdom—in effect, the ability to take the perspectives of others into account and aim for compromise—comes much more naturally to those who grow up poor or working class, according to a new study by Grossman and colleagues.
As with the first part of the experiment, those in lower social classes consistently had higher wise-reasoning scores than those in higher social classes, the researchers reported today in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B. IQ scores, however, weren’t associated one way or another with wise reasoning.
The findings make sense, Jayawickreme says, as people who grow up in a working-class environment have to rely on shared, communal resources more than people in the middle class, and therefore hone social techniques that smooth out conflicts with their peers. Those in the middle class, in contrast, tend to focus on education, which improves their IQ scores, but they don’t put nearly as much effort into conflict resolution skills, Grossmann says.
If you want to foster wise reasoning in yourself, Grossmann advises, try to use third-person language when thinking about conflicts. Mentally address both yourself and your conflict partner by name, for example, as it forces you to see the situation as others would see it. And seek out situations where your own experiences and expectations aren’t in the spotlight, such as by attending a multicultural movie festival or by volunteering at a homeless shelter.