The target article describes social cognitive mechanisms that enable people to make reasonable decisions in situations of interdependent choice where parties have divergent interests. We highlight the need for an integrative program of research on the social-cognitive mechanisms that people use to approximate the reasonableness standard of sound judgment via self-distancing and "inner dialogue" in a variety of decision-making contexts.

Although artificial intelligence (AI) has become increasingly smart, its wisdom has not kept pace. In this opinion article, we examine what is known about human wisdom and sketch a vision of its AI counterpart. We introduce human wisdom as strategies for solving intractable problems-those outside the scope of analytic techniques-including both 'object-level' strategies, such as heuristics (for managing problems), and 'metacognitive' strategies, such as intellectual humility, perspective-taking, or context adaptability (for managing object-level task fit). We argue that AI systems particularly struggle with this type of metacognition. Wise metacognition would lead to AI that is more robust to novel environments, explainable to users, cooperative with others, and safer by risking fewer misaligned goals with human users. We discuss how wise AI might be benchmarked, trained, and implemented.

Generative AI research increasingly confronts a shared problem: systems must sustain yet govern their own generative activity when uncertainty is high, evidence is missing, or context is insufficient. This position paper argues that metacognition should become the scientific framework for bounded and effective self governance in generative AI, where output generation is properly evaluated together with the capacities through which generative systems navigate and regulate their own activity. We advance this position by showing that bounded and effective AI self-governance requires metacognitive alignment across computational, algorithmic, and ecological levels. At the computational level, metacognition specifies the meta-level functions a system is meant to serve, such as monitoring, evaluation, control, and adaptation. At the algorithmic level, these functions are realized through procedures such as elicitation, iteration, and modularization. At the ecological level, metacognitive signals become meaningful, actionable, and accountable within the interface, workflow, and accountability arrangements. Metacognition thus makes it possible to conceive generative AI as both capable and well-governed, rather than treating capability and governance as competing aims.

Humans engage in costly prosocial behavior with unrelated others at scales that short-term self-interest cannot explain. We propose that this capacity relies on perspectival metacognition (PMC)—a reflective reasoning style characterized by intellectual humility, open-mindedness, and self-transcendence beyond immediate concerns. In a preregistered cross-national study (N=13,500; nine countries), participants reflected on recent autobiographical conflicts and an incentivized carbon-offset donation experiment. Psychometric modelling of reflective tendencies revealed a latent PMC factor, which was robustly associated with larger incentivized donations and a general prosocial tendency across six real-world domains (e.g., voting, volunteering, pandemic norm adherence). These associations were consistent across experimental conditions and cultures, equivalent in magnitude to the combined effect of socioeconomic markers, and robust to adjustment for trust and personality traits. Exploratory analyses further suggested a “capacity and scope” account: the link between PMC and prosociality was strongest among individuals with higher resources (income, education) and a more expansive self-concept (inclusion of strangers in the self). These findings identify perspectival metacognition as psychological software that calibrates deliberation toward the collective good, particularly when ecological conditions and social orientation afford it.

Evolutionary theory and historical evidence suggest humans possess distinct psychological tendencies for defensive and offensive violence, which have insufficiently been considered in research. In a large-scale pre-registered study across 58 countries (N = 18,128), we demonstrate that violent extremist intentions manifest along two distinct psychological phenomena: defensive extremism, motivated by protecting one’s group from (perceived) threats, and offensive extremism, driven by establishing group dominance. We show that these dimensions can (a) be reliably differentiated across diverse cultural contexts, (b) are distinctively associated with psychological dispositions, and (c) systematically differentiate countries varying in macro-level sociopolitical functioning and violence. Across nations, a two-factorial structure was observed that was invariant at the scalar level. Defensive extremist intentions were consistently higher than offensive extremism in 56 out of 58 countries, suggesting greater moral acceptance of protective violence. While psychopathy was positively related to both types of violent extremist intentions, those high in Machiavellianism and narcissism demonstrated particularly higher levels of defensive extremist intentions. By contrast, those scoring high on religious fundamentalism and social dominance orientation demonstrated particularly higher levels of offensive extremist intentions. Unexpectedly, liberal political group identification was associated with higher offensive but lower defensive extremist intentions. Crucially, offensive (but not defensive) intentions were associated with macro-level societal function, including political terror and internal conflict. These findings establish that defensive and offensive violent extremist intentions represent two conceptually different forms of extremism across a large and diverse range of countries, with consequences for research and practice.

Experts and pundits routinely forecast societal trends, yet these predictions often fall short, leading to poor policy decisions. What distinguishes accurate forecasters? In a three-year longitudinal tournament (N = 520), we tested whether intellectual humility (IH)—recognizing the limits of one’s knowledge—predicts accuracy in forecasting global welfare trends (e.g., armed conflict, CO2 concentrations). While fluid intelligence and political ideology offered limited predictive power, IH consistently predicted accuracy, particularly in volatile domains. High-IH individuals engaged in a self-correcting cycle: they updated predictions more frequently and calibrated uncertainty intervals more effectively. Crucially, and challenging “wisdom of crowds” models, exposure to diverse peer predictions did not improve accuracy; diversity without metacognitive scaffolding provided no benefit. Automated topic modeling confirmed that accurate forecasters focused on base rates and uncertainty, whereas inaccurate ones defaulted to generalized pessimism. Thus, in complex domains, metacognitive discipline predicts foresight more than intellect or information access alone.

Although psychological theory views behavior as an interaction between person and situation, the measurement of metacognition often relies on situation-free, abstract self-views. To align measurement with interactionist frameworks, we proposed a situated approach, using Intellectual Humility (IH)—recognizing one’s limits and fallibility—as a proof of concept. We validated this approach across diverse populations: English- and Spanish-speaking North Americans (N = 633) and adults from 136 rural Honduran villages (N = 2,567). Rather than rating abstract tendencies, participants reconstructed three recent disagreements (freely chosen, wrong, and right) and reported specific behaviors via branching binary probes. This method demonstrated cross-cultural coherence of the IH construct while capturing substantial situational variability. Notably, 74–81% of variance occurred within persons: IH expression fluctuated significantly based on epistemic context (being wrong vs. right) and social dynamics (partner status). These situational effects also fully explained gender differences in the Honduran sample. The situated approach showed efficiency outside Western, educated contexts and helps overcome the humility paradox—wherein the least intellectually humble overclaim their humility. We discuss four principles for aligning measurement with theory—contextual specificity, sampling from actual experiences via event reconstruction, accessibility across diverse populations via branching probes, and modeling within-person variability—offering a framework for assessing metacognitive and self-regulatory constructs beyond the constraints of static dispositional measures.

How do individuals across diverse societies navigate interpersonal conflicts? We investigated wisdom-related strategies—such as intellectual humility, perspective-taking, and compromise—across eleven countries. In Study 1 (N=2,493), autobiographical recall of real-world conflicts yielded a robust three-factor structure: Perspectival Metacognition, Conflict Resolution, and Self-Transcendence. Study 2 (N=1,952) replicated this structure using standardized scenarios of social rejection and trust betrayal, establishing approximate measurement invariance across cultures. Though wisdom features were largely consistent across regions, Continental East Asian samples scored highest on Perspectival Metacognition, whereas regions endorsing independent agency were more likely to actively seek Conflict Resolution. At the same time, we observed robust individual and situational differences. In both studies, higher need for cognition and relational self-construal were aligned with wiser strategy use. Situationally, conflicts involving social rejection (vs. trust betrayal) elicited lower negative affect in the open-ended reflections and higher scores of wisdom-related strategies. Indeed, we observed high cross-situational variability: within-person variance exceeded between-person differences in all Study 2 samples (accounting for 70% of variance), challenging trait-centric conceptualizations of wisdom. These findings suggest that wisdom in conflict is less a stable trait and more a situationally grounded affordance, universally organized around three core metacognitive processes.

Human societies are not static; they exhibit constant change in customs, norms, and deep-seated psychological tendencies. Whereas social psychology often makes claims about such changes, these are chiefly based on static, cross-sectional inferences. This chapter reviews our program of research on understanding cultural change, arguing that robust theories demand empirical testing with time-series data. We challenge the static nature of the field, demonstrating how societal shifts in individualism, gender equality, and fertility rates can be understood as adaptive responses to changing physical and social ecological conditions. We then situate this ecological framework in relation to other major theories of cultural change. Building on this framework, we explore the impact of the emerging “digital ecology” on cultural transmission and the importance of culture-ecology feedback loops. Finally, we discuss the new frontiers of a predictive science of cultural dynamics, including efforts to forecast the future, “retrodict” the past, and develop new tools, such as AI-based Historical Large Language Models, for the study of cultural dynamics.

How can one bring wisdom into STEM education? One popular position holds that wise judgment follows from teaching morals and ethics in STEM. However, wisdom scholars debate the causal role of morality and whether presence of apriori moral dispositions is a necessary condition for cultivating and expressing wisdom. Some philosophers, education practitioners and behavioral scientists champion this view, whereas social psychologists and cognitive scientists argue that moral features like prosocial behavior are reinforcing factors or outcomes of wise judgment rather than pre-requisites. This debate matters particularly for science and technology, where wisdom-demanding decisions typically involve incommensurable values and radical uncertainty. Here, we evaluate these competing positions through four lines of evidence. First, empirical research shows that heightened moralization aligns with foolish rejection of scientific claims, political polarization, and value extremism. Second, scholarship on repeated economic games (Folk Theorem) suggests that wisdom-related metacognition—perspective-integration, context-sensitivity, and balancing long- and short-term goals—can give rise to prosocial behavior without an apriori moral blueprint. Third, in real life, moral values often compete, making metacognition indispensable to balance competing interests for the common good. Fourth, numerous scientific tasks require wise handling of ill-defined challenges, without a clear role of morals for such tasks. We address potential objections about immoral and Machiavellian applications of blueprint-free wisdom accounts. Finally, we explore implications for giftedness: what exceptional wisdom looks like in STEM context, and how to train it in the classroom via self-reflection exercises and exercises that highlight one’s knowledge gaps.

Psychological wisdom research has shifted from characterizing rare exemplars and desired outcomes to specifying processes that support sound judgment under uncertainty. Yet it has advanced along two siloed research tracks: one on folk theories-cultural tools such as exemplars, narratives, heuristics (including proverbs and maxims), and standards of judgment-and the other on the mechanisms involved in wise judgment. This review bridges these research tracks using a situated metacognitive lens: Folk theories provide candidate attributes or strategies for action, whereas perspectival metacognition-the capacity to recognize epistemic limits, coordinate viewpoints, and track uncertainty and change-regulates their context-sensitive selection and use. We synthesize evidence connecting wisdom-related processes to emotional balance, relational well-being, cooperation, and reduced polarization, while noting boundary conditions. We show how this synthesis sharpens measurement trade-offs, highlighting the limits of global self-report and the advances in situated assessment. Finally, we summarize work on wisdom development and cultivation and consider the socioecological implications of wisdom research in an AI-shaped world.

In 2016 we reported that infectious-disease prevalence and gender inequality shifted together across six decades in the US, and argued from parasite-stress theory that declining pathogen load contributed to declining gender inequality. In their Matters Arising, Koplenig and Wolfer (K&W) reanalyzed data from our 2016 report, finding that both series show strong trends that our models left unaccounted for, and that the positive association does not survive several standard time-series corrections. K&W identified an important statistical problem, and we are grateful for their work. But addressing that problem does not by itself determine the appropriate test of the substantive hypothesis. Most of K&W’s specifications ask whether annual changes in pathogen prevalence covary with changes in gender inequality. However, at least some of the mechanisms that parasite-stress theory invokes, such as norm transmission or cohort replacement, operate over longer time horizons. As reported below, specifications built on annual changes detect delayed effects a tenth to a fifth as often as they detect contemporaneous effects of identical size. Focusing on the theory-method alignment, here we organize our response around five questions about studying societal change, using our own data and errors as examples.

Judgment is often described in terms of an intuitive (System 1) versus deliberative (System 2) dichotomy, yet sound deliberation itself can take more than one form. Building on philosophical traditions and distinctions in treatment of sound judgment in economics and law, we propose that lay conceptions revolve around two distinct types of deliberate judgment: rational, emphasizing rule-based and utility-focused reasoning for well-defined problems, and reasonable, prioritizing context-sensitive and socially conscious reasoning for ill-defined problems. Across four studies in English-speaking Western samples (Studies 1–4; N = 2,130) and a Mandarin-speaking Chinese sample (Study 4; N = 697), participants described their notions of “sound” and “good” judgment, evaluated social scenarios, chose between candidates with distinct judgmental profiles, and categorized non-social objects. Results consistently showed that people view both rationality and reasonableness as common forms of deliberate sound judgment, while treating them as distinct. Participants preferred rational deliberation for algorithmic social roles linked to well-defined tasks and reasonable deliberation for interpretive roles linked to ill-defined tasks. Moreover, framing decisions as rational vs. reasonable influenced whether participants relied on rule-based vs. overall-similarity strategies in classification tasks. These findings suggest that lay understanding of sound judgment does not rely on a single standard of judgmental competence. Instead, people recognize that both rationality and reasonableness are critical for competent deliberation on different types of problems in life.

In an uncertain world, traditional decision-making models and wisdom cultivation methods fall short. Emulating exemplars or relying on mental shortcuts and habits may help in some situations but often fail with ill-defined problems and transformative decisions. We propose that cultivating metacognition—the ability to reflect on and regulate one's thoughts, goals, and emotions—is key to navigating these challenges. Metacognitive strategies like intellectual humility, perspective-taking, and open-mindedness help individuals discern complex situations, consider multiple viewpoints, and adapt their decision-making. Though not a cure-all, metacognition represents a promising frontier in cultivating wisdom. Insights from philosophy, psychology, and contemplative traditions suggest a range of interventions to foster metacognitive skills and enhance wise decision-making amid radical uncertainty. We call for a paradigm shift in how we approach judgment and decision-making, inviting researchers and practitioners to explore the untapped potential of metacognition in navigating life’s most complex challenges.

Traditional measurement approaches assume that metacognitive features like perspective-taking, open-mindedness, or intellectual humility manifest as stable dispositions. Focusing on intellectual humility (IH)—recognizing the limits of one’s knowledge and fallibility—we proposed an alternative situated approach, testing it across diverse populations: English- and Spanish-speaking North Americans (N=633) and adults from 136 rural Honduran villages (N=2,567). Participants recalled three recent disagreements from their lives–one freely chosen, one where they were wrong, one where they were right—and reported specific epistemic behaviors (e.g., careful listening, considering others’ views) through binary-chained probes to avoid numeric rating scales. This method revealed coherence of the IH construct across cultures, while varying substantially across situations. Most variance (74-81%) occurred within (vs. between) people across situations: heightened when recalling being wrong versus right and, in Honduras, when disagreeing with higher-status partners. Situational effects also fully explained gender differences in the Honduran sample. The situated approach showed efficiency outside Western and educated contexts and helps overcome the humility paradox—when least intellectually humble overclaim their humility while more humble individuals underestimate it. We discuss how the methodological principles we apply here—focus on behavioral expression of target characteristics in specific situations (vs. self-reports of one’s abstract tendencies), sampling from actual experiences (vs. hypothetical scenarios), decomposing numerical scales into binary-chain prompts to increase accessibility across diverse populations, and explicitly modelling intra-individual variability—offers a framework for assessing other metacognitive and self-regulatory constructs across diverse populations, beyond abstract dispositional self-views dominating psychological literature.

Across two studies, we examined whether time of day affects how humans cognitively represent personal goals. Using a within-subject design in Study 1, we found that participants reported thinking more about concrete plans for how to pursue personal goals in the morning than in the evening of the same day. In contrast, thoughts about abstract aspects of the goal, such as underlying reasons for why they have that goal, did not differ by time of day. In Study 2, we examined cognition about goals in a between-subject experiment, randomly assigning participants to report on three personal goals in the morning or the evening. Participants who completed the survey in the morning reported a greater focus on concrete goal aspects such as implementation plans than participants who completed the survey in the evening, especially among Morning Chronotypes. Focus on abstract aspects of the goal was unaffected by time of day or one’s Chronotype. In both studies, more focus on concrete plans was linked to more goal progress reported at the end of the day (Study 1) or the next day (Study 2). These studies underline the importance of considering contextual factors such as time of day when examining goal cognition.

Judgment is often described in terms of an intuitive (System 1) versus deliberative (System 2) dichotomy, yet sound deliberation itself can take more than one form. Building on philosophical traditions and distinctions in treatment of sound judgment in economics and law, we propose that lay conceptions revolve around two distinct types of deliberate judgment: rational, emphasizing rule-based and utility-focused reasoning for well-defined problems, and reasonable, prioritizing context-sensitive and socially conscious reasoning for ill-defined problems. Across four studies in English-speaking Western samples (Studies 1–4; N = 2,130) and a Mandarin-speaking Chinese sample (Study 4; N = 697), participants described their notions of “sound” and “good” judgment, evaluated social scenarios, chose between candidates with distinct judgmental profiles, and categorized non-social objects. Results consistently showed that people view both rationality and reasonableness as common forms of deliberate sound judgment, while treating them as distinct. Participants preferred rational deliberation for algorithmic social roles linked to well-defined tasks and reasonable deliberation for interpretive roles linked to ill-defined tasks. Moreover, framing decisions as rational vs. reasonable influenced whether participants relied on rule-based vs. overall-similarity strategies in classification tasks. These findings suggest that lay understanding of sound judgment does not rely on a single standard of judgmental competence. Instead, people recognize that both rationality and reasonableness are critical for competent deliberation on different types of problems in life.

Decades of research support the generalization that human males tend to be more aggressive than females. However, most of that research has examined aggression between unrelated individuals. Data drawn from 24 societies around the globe (n = 4,013) indicate that this generalization does not hold in the context of sibling relationships. In retrospective self-reports, females report being at least as aggressive as males toward their siblings, often more so. This holds for direct as well as indirect aggression, and for aggression between adult siblings as well as aggression that occurred during childhood. Consistent with prior research on sex differences, males reported engaging in more direct aggression toward nonkin than did females in the majority of societies. The results suggest that the dynamics of aggression within the family are different from those outside of it, and ultimately that understanding the role of sex in aggressive tendencies depends on context and target.

When multiple ways of deciding are laid out side-by-side, which does one favor? We conducted experiments in 12 countries (N=3,517; 13 languages; two Indigenous communities), with adults choosing among four decision strategies—personal intuition, private deliberation, friends’ advice, or crowd wisdom—when working through six everyday dilemmas. In every society, self-reliant decisions (intuition or deliberation) were most commonly preferred and considered the wisest. Expectations for fellow citizens, however, were mixed: advice from friends was expected about as often as self-reliant routes. The self-reliance tilt was strongest in cultures and individuals high in independent self-construal and need for cognition, and weakest where interdependence and self-transcendent reflection were salient. The same patterns emerged when examining ratings of each strategy’s utility, and oral protocols with Indigenous groups. Self-reliance appears the modal preference across cultures, but its strength is predictably tempered when cultures—and individuals within them—construe the self in relational rather than autonomous terms.