Experiências de vida e sabedoria na pessoa idosa

Abstract

Considered the pinnacle of human development, wisdom relates to different positive qualities such as an integrated personality, skills of superior judgment in situations of conflict and resilience to face life's vicissitudes. There seems to be a positive relationship between wisdom and emotional well-being in older people, which may help identify pathways to a positive development in this later stage of life. The present study has as its central objective to know how life experiences can foster wisdom in the elderly population. Specific objectives are intended to meet life experiences, how the elderly deal with this experiences and knowledge gathered and integrated into their life. The study was conducted by collecting autobiographical reports of a sample consisting of a group of ten older people, aged between 69 and 95 years (M = 80.6). The results showed that the remarkable life experiences can be promoters of wisdom. The elderly in this study demonstrated to have integrated their experience and co-developed wisdom resources such as openness to experience, reflective attitude, emotion regulation and empathy, affective aspects such as social awareness, sense of mastery and coping strategies to deal with adversity. Also shown, at this late stage of life, is transcendence of self through spirituality, which plays both an important adaptive role and is a source of resilience value to overcome adversity. It was also possible to observe that the majority of participants had a successful aging by actively engaging with life and sharing life experiences with significant others, feeling fulfillment in their life journey.

Date of Award	22 Jul 2014
Original language	Portuguese
Awarding Institution	Universidade Católica Portuguesa
Supervisor	António Manuel Fonseca (Supervisor)