Skip to main content

Seeking Wisdom: A Physician’s Journey in the Wake of “Charlottesville”

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
Applying Wisdom to Contemporary World Problems
  • 974 Accesses

Abstract

What do situations like the events of August 11th and 12th in Charlottesville have to teach us about wisdom, and what does wisdom have to teach us about Charlottesville? This chapter will focus on the experience of adversity and its relationship to wisdom. It will review what is known about how people move through adversity in a positive, wisdom generating way and apply this to the current, complex circumstances represented by Charlottesville.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

eBook
USD 19.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 29.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

References

  • AAMC Medical School Graduation Questionnaire. (2011).

    Google Scholar 

  • Acosta, D., & Ackerman-Barger, K. (2017). Breaking the silence: Time to talk about race and racism. Academic Medicine, 92, 312–317.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Acosta, D., & Karp, D. (2018, March). Restorative justice as the Rx for mistreatment in academic medicine: Applications to consider for learners, staff and faculty. Academic Medicine, 93(3): 354–356.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ardelt, M. (2004). Wisdom as expert knowledge system: A critical review of a contemporary operationalization of an ancient concept. Human Development, 47, 257–285.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ardelt, M. (2005). How wise people cope with crises and obstacles in life. ReVision, 28, 7–19.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Armour, M., & Umbreit, M. (2005). The paradox of forgiveness in restorative justice. In E. Worthington (Ed.), A handbook of forgiveness (pp. 491–505). New York, NY: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Baltes, P. B., & Staudinger, U. M. (2000). A metaheuristic (pragmatic) to orchestrate mind and virtue toward excellence. American Psychologist, 55, 122–136.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Becker, D., May, N. B., & Plews-Ogan, M. (2012). Forgive me: Medical error and the poetics of forgiveness. Perspectives in Biology and Medicine, 55(3), 339–349.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bluck, S., & Glück, J. (2004). Making things better and learning a lesson: Experiencing wisdom across the lifespan. Journal of Personality, 72, 543–572.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bluck, S., & Glück, J. (2005). From the inside out: People’s implicit theories of wisdom. In R. J. Sternberg & J. Jordan (Eds.), A handbook of wisdom: Psychological perspectives (pp. 84–109). New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Calhoun, L., & Tedeschi, R. (2006). Handbook of posttraumatic growth: Research and practice . New York: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gill, M., & Andreychik, M. (2007). Explanation and intergroup emotion: Social explanations as a foundation of prejudice-related compunction. Group Process & Intergroup Relations, 10(1), 87–106.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Glück, J., & Bluck, S. (2014). The MORE life experience model: A theory of the development of personal wisdom. In F. M. Ferrari & N. M. Weststrate (Eds.), The scientific study of personal wisdom: From contemplative traditions to neuroscience. Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Springer.

    Google Scholar 

  • Glück, J., Bluck, S., & Weststrate, N. (2018). More on the MORE life experience model: What we have learned (so far). The Journal of Value Inquiry, 1–22 (epub ahead of print). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10790-018-9661-x.

  • Glück, J., Bluck, S., Baron, J., & McAdams, D. T. (2005). The wisdom of experience: Autobiographical narratives across adulthood. International Journal of Behavioral Development, 29(3), 197–208.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Goluboff, R. (2018). Where do we go from here? In L. P. Nelson & C. N. Harold (Eds.), Charlottesville 2017: The legacy of race and inequity. Charlottesville and London: University of Virginia Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • The Guardian. (2014). https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/27/happiness-place-called-charlottesville-virginia.

  • Haidt, J. (2006). The happiness hypothesis. New York, NY: Basic Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Helion, C., & Oschner, K. (2018). The role of emotion regulation in moral judgment. Neuroethics, 11(3), 297–308. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12152-016-9261-z.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Horowitz, L., Wilson, K., Turan, B., Zolotsev, P., Constantino, M., & Henderson, L. (2006). How interpersonal motives clarify the meaning of interpersonal behavior: A revised circumplex model. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 10(1), 67–86.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hunton, & Williams. (2017, December 1). Final report: Independent review of the 2017 protest events in Charlottesville, Virginia. https://www.huntonak.com/en/news/final-report-independent-review-of-the-2017-protest-events-in-charlottesville-virginia.html. Accessed October 6, 2018.

  • Jayawickreme, E., Brocato, N. W., & Blackie, L. E. R. (2017). Wisdom gained? Assessing relationships between adversity, personality and well-being among a late adolescent sample. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 46, 1179–1199.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Jenkins, W. (2018). Ethics under pressure. In L. P. Nelson & C. N. Harold (Eds.), Charlottesville 2017: The legacy of race and inequity. Charlottesville and London: University of Virginia Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • König, S., & Glück, J. (2014). Gratitude is with me all the time: How gratitude relates to wisdom. The Journal of Gerontology, Series B: Psychological Sciences and Social Sciences, 69, 655–666.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Linley, P. A. (2003). Positive adaptation to trauma: Wisdom as both process and outcome. Journal of Traumatic Stress, 16, 601–610.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Meacham, J. (1990). The loss of wisdom. In R. J. Sternberg (Ed.), Wisdom: Its nature, origins and development. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Neimeyer, R. (2006). Re-storying the loss: Fostering growth in the posttraumatic narrative. In L. G. Tedeschi & R. G. Calhoun (Eds.), Handbook of posttraumatic growth: Research and practice. New York: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

    Google Scholar 

  • Nelson, L. P., & Harold, C. H., (Eds.). (2018). Charlottesville 2017: The legacy of race and inequity. Charlottesville and London: University of Virginia Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ochsner, K. N., & Gross, J. J. (2008). Cognitive emotion regulation: Insights from social cognitive and affective neuroscience. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 17(2), 153–158.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Otto, B., Misra, S., Prasad, A., & McRae, K. (2014). Functional overlap of top-down emotion regulation and generation: An fMRI study identifying common neural substrates between cognitive reappraisal and cognitively generated emotions. Cognitive, Affective & Behavioral Neuroscience, 14, 923–938.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Owens, J., Mehard, M., Plews-Ogan, M., Calhoun, L., & Ardelt, M. (2016). Stories of growth and wisdom: A mixed methods study of people living well with pain. Global Advances in Health and Medicine, 5(1), 16–28.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pasqual-Leone, J. (2000). Mental attention, consciousness and the progressive emergence of wisdom. Journal of Adult Development, 7(4), 241–254.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Paul-Emile, K., Smith, A., Lo, B., & Fernandez, A. (2016). Dealing with racist patients. New England Journal of Medicine, 374(8), 708–711.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Plews-Ogan, M., May, N., Owens, J., Ardelt, M., Shapiro, J., & Bell, S. (2016). Wisdom in medicine: What helps physicians after a medical error. Academic Medicine, 91(2), 233–241.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Plews-Ogan, M., Owens, J., & Ardelt, M. (2018). Growth through adversity: Exploring relations between virtues, post-traumatic growth and wisdom. Journal of Value Inquiry, 1–21. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10790-018-9659-4.

  • Plews-Ogan, M., Owens, J., & May, N. (2013). Wisdom through adversity: Growing and learning in the wake of an error. Patient Education and Counseling, 91(2), 236–242.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Plews-Ogan, M., & Sharpe, K. (2017). Phronesis in medical practice: The will and the skill needed to do the right thing. Unpublished conference paper for the 5th Annual Jubilee Centre for Character and Virtues Conference at Oriel College, Oxford University. https://www.jubileecentre.ac.uk/userfiles/jubileecentre/pdf/conference-papers/CharacterWisdomandVirtue/Plews-Ogan_M.pdf.

  • Reynolds, P. P. (2018). Eugenics at the University of Virginia and its legacy in health disparities. In L. P. Nelson & C. N. Harold (Eds.), Charlottesville 2017: The legacy of race and inequity. Charlottesville and London: University of Virginia Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rusconi, P., Sacchi, S., Capellini, R., Brambilla, M., & Cherubini, P. (2017). You are fair, but I expect you to also behave unfairly: Positive asymmetry in trait-behavior relations for moderate morality information. PLoS One, 12(7), e0180686. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0180686.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sanchez, D., Himmelstein, M. S., Young, D. M., Albuja, A. F., & Garcia, J. A. (2016). Confronting as autonomy promoting: Speaking up against discrimination and psychological well-being in racial minorities. Journal of Health Psychology, 21, 1997–2007.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Singh, K., Sivasubramaniam, P., Shuman, S., & Mir, H. R. (2015, December). The dilemma of the racist patient. American Journal of Orthopedics, 44(12), E478.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sternberg, R. J. (Ed.). (1990). Wisdom: Its nature, origins and development. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sternberg, R. J. (1998). A balance theory of wisdom. Review of General Psychology, 2, 347–365.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sternberg, R. J. (2005). Foolishness. In R. J. Sternberg & J. Jordan (Eds.), A handbook of wisdom: Psychological perspectives. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sullivan, T. (2017, August 4). Mass communication “an important message from Teresa A. Sullivan regarding August 12th”.

    Google Scholar 

  • Taylor, M., Bates, G., & Webster, J. D. (2011). Comparing the psychometric properties of two measures of wisdom: Predicting forgiveness and psychological well-being with the Self-Assessed Wisdom Scale (SAWS) and the Three-Dimensional Wisdom Scale (3D-WS). Experimental Aging Research, 37, 129–141. https://doi.org/10.1080/0361073X.2011.554508.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tedeschi, R. G., & Calhoun, L. (2004). Posttraumatic growth: Conceptual foundations of empirical evidence. Psychological Inquiry, 15(1), 1–18.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tsai, J., Sippel, L. M., Mota, N., Southwick, S. M., & Pietrzak, R. H. (2016). Longitudinal course of posttraumatic growth among U.S. military veterans: Results from the National Health and Resilience in Veterans Study. Depression and Anxiety, 33, 9–18. https://doi.org/10.1002/da.22371.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wahl, R. (2018). Dialogue in bad times. In L. Nelson & C. Harold (Eds.), Charlottesville 2017. University of Virginia Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wenzel, M., & Okimoto, T. (2014). On the relationship between justice and forgiveness: Are all forms of justice made equal? British Journal of Social Psychology, 53, 448–463.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Weststrate, N., & Glück, J. (2017). Hard-earned wisdom: Exploratory processing of difficult life experience is positively associate with wisdom. Developmental Psychology, 53(4), 800–814.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Whitgob, E., Blankenburg, R., & Bogetz, A. (2016). The discriminatory patient and family: Strategies to address discrimination towards trainees. Academic Medicine, 91(11), S64–S69.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Young, K., Anderson, M., & Steward, S. (2015). Hierarchical micro-aggressions in higher education. Journal of Diversity in Higher Education, 9, 61–71.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Zhou, X., & Wu, X. (2015). Longitudinal relationships between gratitude, deliberate rumination, and posttraumatic growth in adolescents following the Wenchuan earthquake in China. Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, 56, 567–572. https://doi.org/10.1111/sjop.12237.

    Article  Google Scholar 

Accounts of the Events of August 11–12, 2017

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Margaret Plews-Ogan .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2019 The Author(s)

About this chapter

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this chapter

Plews-Ogan, M. (2019). Seeking Wisdom: A Physician’s Journey in the Wake of “Charlottesville”. In: Sternberg, R., Nusbaum, H., Glück, J. (eds) Applying Wisdom to Contemporary World Problems. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-20287-3_15

Download citation

Publish with us

Policies and ethics