If we closely view the reality of our life, we find that a majority of people come up with an excellent solution to others' problems, be it in relationships, health issues, stress and personal imbalance. However, one of the basic abilities we lack is the expertise in solving our own problems.
According to a research published in the journal Psychological Science , the fundamental reason why people cannot find a clear solution to their problems is that they observe or judge the things through the lens of personal perspective, which becomes flawed and emotional. However, when it comes to solving friends' problems, they come up with numerous ways, ideas, and an objective lens to view the situation.
The new research revealed that those individuals who are tremendously motivated could expand their thinking horizon beyond their personal perspective and pursue virtue without ceasing. Such individuals are most likely to portray wise reasons to solve the problem.
"Our findings suggest that people who value virtuous motives may be able to reason wisely for them and overcome personal biases observed in previous research," said Alex Huynh from the University of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada.
"This is in part due to their ability to recognize that their perspectives may not be enough to fully understand a situation, a concept referred to as intellectual humility," said Huynh.
"These findings would firmly help the future research to investigate how a person's level of wisdom could be increased," he said.
In the study, nearly 267 participants were enrolled, and they were all university students.
The candidates in the study exclaimed the extent to which they were inspired enough to move beyond one's perspective and pursue virtue in the form of statements like, "I would like to contribute to others or the surrounding world" and " I would like to do what I believe in".
After that, the participants were given random assignments – personal conflict or friends' conflict- that are not yet resolved and asked to imagine the ideas with which to deal with the situation. The researchers then rated how different wise reasoning strategies would be in addressing the conflict in question.
Finally, as expected, the study concluded that participants who thought about a friend brought forth wiser strategies than the participants who thought about their personal issues.
