By RANDOLPH E. SCHMID, AP Science Writer
WASHINGTON – It turns out grandma was right: Listen to your elders. New research indicates they are indeed wise — in knowing how to deal with conflicts and accepting life's uncertainties and change.
It isn't a question of how many facts someone knows, or being able to operate a TV remote, but rather how to handle disagreements — social wisdom.
And researchers led by Richard E. Nisbett of the University of Michigan found that older people were more likely than younger or middle-aged ones to recognize that values differ, to acknowledge uncertainties, to accept that things change over time and to acknowledge others' points of view.
"Age effects on wisdom hold at every level of social class, education, and IQ," they report in Tuesday's edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
In modern America, older people generally don't have greater knowledge about computers and other technology, Nisbett acknowledged, "but our results do indicate that the elderly have some advantages for analysis of social problems."
"I hope our results will encourage people to assume that older people 
In one part of the study the researchers recruited 247 people in Michigan, divided into groups aged 25-to-40, 41-to-59 and 60 plus.
Bob’s on this article—very informative on an important issue I believe:
Too many of us jump to silly assumptions—“husbands can’t,” “that’s “old school,” “woman pilots—are you kidding me?” This article isn’t declaring that anyone older is automatically socially wiser, but older people aren’t automatically socially ignorant either.
I know of a four year old who says that all high school drivers are crazy and, of course, that is an unproven opinion on his part. I can, and will allow him my agreement that some younger folks seem to drive in irresponsible and unsafe ways as I define it (speeding, showing off, drinking or drugging etc. ) Of course, for some of them, my knowledge is irrelevant (read “old school”) because of my current age, age some consider older (for sure it is older than I use to be everyday :O)
But I will say this for the little lad, he can tell you in detail observations that he has made while most prejudiced adults that I encounter (or vice versa), have no idea that their thoughts are prejudices, or unfounded, or where they got the ideas that probably are better defined as mental clutter.
