How to grow wisdom to better resolve conflict

Scientific litsketch on boosting mental health

How we overcome conflict is so important for our happiness. Resolving conflict well requires wisdom, or having humility to accept that you could be wrong, considering other people’s perspectives and willing to make a compromise to resolve the conflict.

Research shows that writing a diary each day using a third person rather than a first person perspective can increase your wisdom (Grossmann et al. 2021). For example, when writing a diary, using your name to refer to yourself like Jake thinks or Jake feels rather than writing I think or I feel broadens your perspective, helping you develop more wise reasoning when thinking about a recent conflict.

In other words, the exercise of writing from a third person perspective helps you develop greater wisdom and better navigate through social conflicts in life.

Use the third person thinking to put away all bitterness and anger that you have to help you be more kind to one another, and forgive one another.

Grossmann, Igor, Anna Dorfman, Harrison Oakes, Henri C. Santos, Kathleen D. Vohs, and Abigail A. Scholer. "Training for Wisdom: The Distanced-Self-Reflection Diary Method." Psychological Science 32, no. 3 (2021): 381-394.