You are old but you may not be wise, claims new scientific research

The renowned Irish poet Oscar Wilde famously said "With age comes wisdom", however, recent findings imply that this might not be the case, at least not in practice. Dr Judith Glück, a psychologist at the University of Klagenfurt in Austria, reviewed earlier research that connected wisdom with age.

She concludes that "statistical relationships between wisdom and chronological age are not strong", despite common assumptions and portrayals in popular culture. Whether it's Dumbledore from Harry Potter, Obi Wan Kenobi from Star Wars, or Gandalf from The Lord of the Rings, wise characters in films are frequently hundreds of years old.

Dr Glück notes that growing older alone will not necessarily make you wiser, even though wisdom can and frequently does come with age. Her review indicates that although the wise elderly man or woman is portrayed as intelligent in popular culture, the question of what precisely leads to wisdom is significantly more complex.

"Neither growing old nor accumulating life experiences is sufficient for growing wise," Dr Glück says in her paper, published in "Current Opinion in Psychology". "While many people associate wisdom with advanced age, becoming wise clearly requires more than "just” growing old." The growth of wisdom is the product of "life experiences" rather than age, although these are not limited to the elderly..