Aging, Social Interdependence and Wisdom in the U.S. and Japan

描述（由申请人提供）：我们测试三个主要假设：(1)老年人比年轻人更相互依赖；(2)因此，他们在认知上变得更整体；(3)在某种程度上，由于更整体的思考，他们在某些方面变得更聪明。我们的样本年龄在20-79岁之间。我们将研究美国和日本参与者的独立/相互依赖社会取向测试，包括每个参与者的社会网络特征、感知到的社会支持以及各种间接指标，如对声调的敏感性。为了测试年龄组内更大的相互依赖是否与更全面的思维有关，我们将评估整体认知的几个方面，包括对情境的关注、因果归因、逻辑推理与辩证法推理、对不确定性的认识和情境依赖学习。整体性更强的人与分析性更强的人相比，更广泛地关注情境，更清楚地认识情境在产生行为中的作用，对因果关系有更复杂的看法，在争议和矛盾命题的评估中寻找中间道路，更能认识到不确定性和变化，并表现出更大的情境依赖学习效果。我们预计，年龄越大，美国人的整体认知能力就越强，随着年龄的增长，他们之间的相互依赖程度也会越来越高。我们预计，随着年龄的增长，日本人的认知能力可能会随着年龄的增长而增加，因此年龄对认知能力的影响会小一些。我们将从美国和日本的一个中产阶级地区和一个工人阶级地区随机抽取样本。我们将衡量健康状况、社会经济地位、结晶智力和流动智力。这些措施将用于衡量美国和日本样本的可比性，并确定它们与相互依存关系以及整体与分析认知的关系。因此，本应用程序检验了长期以来的民间信仰，即随着年龄的增长，我们变得更聪明，并评估了西方人所说的“智慧”类似于对信息的整体处理的假设。信息的整体处理是通过与他人的相互依赖来培养的，这是老年人的特征。这项研究将揭示社会关系如何随着年龄的增长而变化，社会关系的性质如何影响思维，以及某些类型的认知如何促进明智的思维。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): We test three main hypotheses: (1) older people are more interdependent than younger people and (2) as a consequence, they become more holistic in cognition, and (3) in part as a result of more holistic thinking, they become wiser in some respects. We will sample people aged 20-79. We will study American and Japanese participants on tests measuring independent/interdependent social orientation including characteristics of each participant's social network, perceived social support, and various indirect indicators such as sensitivity to vocal tone. To test whether greater interdependence within age groups is associated with more holistic thinking, we will assess several facets of holistic cognition including attention to context, causal attribution, logical vs. dialectic reasoning, recognition of uncertainty, and context-dependent learning. More holistic people, as compared to more analytic people: attend to context more broadly, more clearly recognize the role of situations in producing behavior and have more complex views of causality, look for the middle way in disputes and evaluation of contradictory propositions, are more cognizant of uncertainty and change, and show larger context- dependent learning effects. We anticipate that greater age will prove to be associated with more holistic cognition for Americans, who become increasingly more interdependent as they age. We anticipate that the aging effect on cognition will be less for Japanese, who probably increase less in interdependence as they age. We will draw random samples from one middle-class area and one working-class area of both the United States and Japan. We will measure health, socioeconomic status, crystallized intelligence and fluid intelligence. These measures will be used to gauge comparability of samples in the U.S. and Japan and to determine their relation to interdependence and holistic vs. analytic cognition. Thus this application examines the long-held folk belief that with age, we become wiser, and evaluates the hypothesis that much of what westerners call "wisdom" is similar to holistic processing of information. Holistic processing of information is fostered by interdependence with other people, which is more characteristic of the elderly. The research will shed light on how social relationships change with age, how the nature of social relationships influences thinking, and how certain kinds of cognition encourage wise thinking. Public Health Relevance: The research will shed light on how social relationships change with age, how the nature of social relationships influences thinking, and how certain kinds of cognition encourage wise thinking.