It is commonly thought that age brings wisdom.
And this is largely true, it seems – unless you are Japanese. In which case, by the time you are 25, you are likely to be just as wise as your elders, an astonishing new study reveals.
Americans, however, are more conventional and develop deep understanding over time, according to research by the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada.
In one of the tests, designed to measure five crucial aspects of reasoning, US citizens’ scores improved by 22 percent over 50 years.
But, in the examination scored out of 100, both 25-year-old and 75-year-old Japanese participants had an average quotient of 51 for intergroup wisdom – the idea of understanding society.
With Americans, on the other hand, results from the same tests varied between averages of 45 and 55 between the two age groups.
Also, interpersonal wisdom – the understanding of relationships between individuals – the scores of the 225 US participants climbed from 46 to 50.
In the case of the 186 Japanese people recruited by lead researcher Igor Grossmann, their scores actually dropped slightly from 53 to 52.
The tests also recorded other unexpected results.
Given the US reputation of an individualistic society, you might expect its participants’ interpersonal wisdom to be higher than their supposedly more collectivist Japanese counterparts.
Yet the study showed that by 75, the Japanese scored higher in the interpersonal wisdom and Americans, in fact, achieved higher results in the intergroup variety.
Dr Grossman suggested that perhaps, then, you need individual skills when society is collective, and social ones when it is individualistic.
His study, published in Psychological Science and reported in The Economist, recruited Japanese and Americans with a range of different occupations.
大众普遍认为年龄增长会带来更多智慧。
这似乎很大程度上是正确的，除非你是日本人。一项新研究揭示了一个惊人的结果，日本人在达到25岁时，很可能拥有与年长的人一样多的智慧。
不过，加拿大安大略省滑铁卢大学开展的这一调查显示，美国人在这方面更合乎常规，随着年岁的增长而加深认知。
在其中一项对推理能力的测试中，年长五十岁的美国参与者得分要高出22%。该测试的目的是对参与者推理能力的五个重要方面进行考量。
但是，在对25岁及75岁的日本人进行测试时，他们的团体智商——社会认知能力的平均分都是51（满分为100分）。
而当美国人接受同样的测试时，两个年龄群的平均分则分别为45和55。
此外，在人际交往的智慧（即对个体间关系的认知）方面，225名美国参与者的分数随年龄增长由46分增至50分。
首席研究员伊戈尔?格罗斯曼收集了186名日本人在这方面的数据，他们的分数实际上还略微跌落，从53降至52。
这一系列测试还记录了其他意想不到的结果。
鉴于美国人一直被视为个人主义社会，你可能会猜想美国人的人际交往智慧会比更集体化的日本对手要高。
但是，研究显示，75岁以下的日本人在人际交往智慧上要超越美国人，而事实上，美国人的团体智慧得分要高于日本人。
格罗斯曼博士建议，或许在集体主义社会里你需要个人能力，而在个人主义社会中你需要社交能力。
他的研究刊登在《心理科学》杂志上并被《经济学人》报道。此次研究广泛招募了来自不同行业的美国人和日本人。
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