Stronger Resting-State Neural Oscillations Associated with Wiser Advising From the 2nd- but not the 3rd- Person Perspective

This is the first electroencephalogram study of advising, exploring the personal perspective effect on wise advising. Participants advised hypothetical protagonists in life dilemmas from both the 2nd- and 3rd- person perspective. Their advice for each dilemma was rated by two independent raters on wisdom criteria, i.e., intellectual humility, intellectual flexibility, and perspective taking. The results revealed that participants felt a significantly shorter psychological distance from protagonists when advising from the 2nd- (vs. the 3rd-) person perspective, p < 0.001. However, there was no significant effect of perspective condition on wisdom score. Nevertheless, stronger resting-state theta, alpha, and beta powers in the frontal lobe were associated with wiser advising from the 2nd-, but not the 3rd- person perspective. Moreover, Z tests revealed that the correlations between the resting-state neural oscillations and wisdom scores were significantly stronger during advising from the 2nd- than the 3rd- person perspective. These results together suggested that advising from the 2nd- person perspective was more self-related, and mental activities during rest contributed to advising from the 2nd- but not the 3rd- person perspective.