Psychology & Decision-Making

Solomon’s Paradox: Why We Give Better Advice Than We Take

Solomon’s Paradox describes a common gap in judgment: people may reason more wisely about someone else’s problems than about their own. Emotional distance can make it easier to see a personal dilemma clearly when imagining it as another person’s.

King Solomon considering a difficult judgment — King Solomon is traditionally remembered for his wisdom and judgment.

Why Is It Called Solomon’s Paradox?

The name refers to King Solomon, the biblical ruler famed for wisdom. One well-known story, often called the Judgment of Solomon, describes two women who both claimed to be the mother of the same infant. Solomon proposed dividing the child, prompting the true mother to give up her claim rather than let the baby be harmed.

The contrast between wise judgment in a public dispute and the tradition’s accounts of Solomon’s personal and political choices inspired the name of the psychological paradox. Biblical narratives portray his wealth, relationships, and decisions in complex and sometimes conflicting ways; the term is an analogy, not a clinical diagnosis or a definitive historical assessment of his life.

The Psychological Mechanism

Research led by psychologist Igor Grossmann at the University of Waterloo and Ethan Kross at the University of Michigan examined how people reason about their own versus other people’s problems. Their work suggests that psychological distance can help people apply wisdom-related reasoning to personal situations.

First-person perspective (self): When a dilemma affects us personally, strong emotions and self-protective reactions can narrow our attention. Fear, pride, immediate interests, and cognitive biases may make it harder to consider uncertainty or alternative outcomes.
Third-person perspective (others): When advising someone else, we often have more emotional distance. This can make it easier to acknowledge what we do not know, consider different possibilities, and give more balanced advice.

The effect is not a rule that everyone is always wiser about other people. Rather, it describes a tendency that can appear in how people reason through emotionally charged dilemmas.