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本篇阅读材料选自《经济学人》(原文标题：Age and wisdom: Older and wiser? 2012.4.7) Americans get wiser with age. Japanese are wise from the start. ONE stereotype of wisdom is a wizened Zen-master smiling benevolently at the antics of his pupils, while referring to them as little grasshoppers or some such affectation, safe in the knowledge that one day they, too, will have been set on the path that leads to wizened masterhood. But is it true that age brings wisdom? A study two years ago in North America, by Igor Grossmann of the University of Waterloo, in Canada, suggested that it is. In as much as it is possible to quantify wisdom, Dr Grossmann found that elderly Americans had more of it than youngsters. He has, however, now extended his investigation to Asiathe land of the wizened Zen-masterand, in particular, to Japan. There, he found, in contrast to the West, that the grasshoppers are their masters equals almost from the beginning. stereotype n. 刻板印象;老套 benevolent adj. 仁慈的;亲切的;仁爱的 quantify v. 量化;为定量 Dr Grossmanns study, just published in Psychological Science, recruited 186 Japanese from various walks of life and compared them with 225 Americans. Participants were asked to read a series of pretend newspaper articles. Half described conflict between groups, such as a debate between residents of an impoverished Pacific island over whether to allow foreign oil companies to operate there following the discovery of petroleum. The other half took the form of advice columns that dealt with conflicts between individuals: siblings, friends and spouses. After reading each article, participants were asked What do you think will happen after that? and Why do you think it will happen this way? Their responses were recorded and transcribed. | 
