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Abbreviated San Diego Wisdom Scale (SD-WISE-7) and Jeste-Thomas Wisdom Index (JTWI)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 December 2021

Michael L. Thomas
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO, USA
Barton W. Palmer
Affiliation:
Department of Psychiatry, University of California San Diego, La Jolla, CA, USA VA San Diego Healthcare System, San Diego, CA, USA Sam and Rose Stein Institute for Research on Aging, University of California San Diego, La Jolla, CA, USA
Ellen E. Lee
Affiliation:
Department of Psychiatry, University of California San Diego, La Jolla, CA, USA VA San Diego Healthcare System, San Diego, CA, USA Sam and Rose Stein Institute for Research on Aging, University of California San Diego, La Jolla, CA, USA
Jinyuan Liu
Affiliation:
Sam and Rose Stein Institute for Research on Aging, University of California San Diego, La Jolla, CA, USA Department of Family Medicine and Public Health, University of California San Diego, La Jolla, CA, USA
Rebecca Daly
Affiliation:
Department of Psychiatry, University of California San Diego, La Jolla, CA, USA Sam and Rose Stein Institute for Research on Aging, University of California San Diego, La Jolla, CA, USA
Xin M. Tu
Affiliation:
Sam and Rose Stein Institute for Research on Aging, University of California San Diego, La Jolla, CA, USA Department of Family Medicine and Public Health, University of California San Diego, La Jolla, CA, USA
Dilip V. Jeste*
Affiliation:
Department of Psychiatry, University of California San Diego, La Jolla, CA, USA Sam and Rose Stein Institute for Research on Aging, University of California San Diego, La Jolla, CA, USA Department of Neurosciences, University of California San Diego, La Jolla, CA, USA
*
Correspondence should be addressed to: Dilip V. Jeste, Sam and Rose Stein Institute for Research on Aging, University of California San Diego, 9500 Gilman Drive, La Jolla, CA 92093-0664, USA. Email: djeste@ucsd.edu

Abstract

Objectives:

Wisdom is a personality trait comprising seven components: self-reflection, pro-social behaviors, emotional regulation, acceptance of diverse perspectives, decisiveness, social advising, and spirituality. Wisdom, a potentially modifiable trait, is strongly associated with well-being. We have published a validated 28-item San Diego Wisdom Scale, the SD-WISE-28. Brief scales are necessary for use in large population-based studies and in clinical practice. The present study aimed to create an abbreviated 7-item version of the SD-WISE.

Method:

Participants included 2093 people, aged 20-82 years, recruited and surveyed through the online crowdsourcing platform Amazon Mechanical Turk. The participants’ mean age was 46 years, with 55% women. Participants completed the SD-WISE-28 as well as validation scales for various positive and negative constructs. Psychometric analyses (factor analysis and item response theory) were used to select one item from each of the seven SD-WISE-28 subscales.

Results:

We selected a combination of items that produced acceptable unidimensional model fit and good reliability (ω = 0.74). Item statistics suggested that all seven items were strong indicators of wisdom, although the association was weakest for spirituality. Analyses indicated that the 28-item and 7-item SD-WISE are both very highly correlated (r = 0.92) and produce a nearly identical pattern of correlations with demographic and validity variables.

Conclusion:

The SD-WISE-7, and its derived Jeste-Thomas Wisdom Index (JTWI) score, balances reliability and brevity for research applications.

Information

Type
Original Research Article
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BY
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Copyright
© International Psychogeriatric Association 2021
Figure 0

Table 1. Item discrimination parameter estimates for the SD-WISE subscales

Figure 1

Table 2. Unidimensional model fit indices for the top five combinations of items

Figure 2

Table 3. Item discrimination parameter estimates for the seven-item SD-WISE

Figure 3

Table 4. Concurrent validity, demographic, convergent validity correlations