Darcia Narvaez
Biographic Data
| ID | 238926 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Darcia Narvaez |
| GIVEN NAMES | Darcia |
| FAMILY NAME | Narvaez |
| SIGNATURE | NARVAEZ D |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Notre Dame |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-8633-8998 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 37 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 67 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 33 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 4 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1999 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 5 |
Overcoming Climate Havoc with Inner Development from Deep Nestedness
With climate havoc, many are realizing that an emphasis on policy and institutional change has been inadequate to foster needed changes. Consequently, activists have determined that something more is needed, specifically psychological transformation. However, discussions of inner development typically focus on adult transformation, overlooking when inner aspects of being are seeded and how they are cultivated in early life. The focus of this arti…
Childhood Evolved Developmental Niche History and Autonomic Regulation in Women
Early life adversity has been studied widely, but still understudied is the impact of positive early life experiences. Emerging evidence suggests that humanity's millions‐year‐old evolved developmental niche (EDN) supports healthy biopsychosocial development. The EDN includes positive touch, responsive relationships, a welcoming social climate, social embeddedness, and self‐directed free play. We examined the relation between EDN components and c…
Childhood and Adulthood Predictors of Critical Consciousness
Love in Action
Biologist Humberto Maturana (Maturana and Verden-Zoller 2008) suggested that love shaped the course of human evolution: Humans became Homo sapiens amans because their biology was constructed by loving relations in early life and supported by loving relations throughout life. He noted that individuals become unwell when they exist outside of love. Humans societies that have ignored the need for love have created different types of human nature, th…
Moral and Intellectual Virtues in Practices: Through the Eyes of Scientists and Musicians
First Friendships: Foundations for Peace
First friendships shape children’s brains and thereby their self-regulatory and social capacities. Mothers and others who offer our species’ evolved developmental niche, or evolved nest, provide the appropriate support for growing a cooperative, prosocial community member. Unnested children are less likely to develop our species-typical prosociality and instead be prone to authoritarian tendencies
Moral and Intellectual Virtues in Practices: Through the Eyes of Scientists and Musicians
Moral education in a time of human ecological devastation
Stories of civilization and progress tell us that humans cannot help being destructive, selfish, and aggressive, which are side effects of progress requiring sanctions and engineering. It can be argued that this approach has brought about the ecological collapse we face today. The older, more widespread view—that human personality and behavior are shaped by social support—respects the dignity of the individual and of other than humans, disallows …
Non-Indigenous Need to Relearn Their Ancestral Orientation to Ecological Attachment
Evolving evolutionary psychology
Which evolutionary theory can best benefit psychological theory, research, and application? The most well-known school of evolutionary psychology has a narrow conceptual perspective (a.k.a., "Narrow Evolutionary Psychology" or NEP). Proponents of NEP have long argued that their brand of evolutionary psychology represents a full-fledged scientific revolution, with Buss (2020) recently likening NEP's scientific impact to that of a Copernican or Dar…
Ecocentrism: Resetting Baselines for Virtue Development
Indigenous Nature Connection: A 3-Week Intervention Increased Ecological Attachment
Humanity as a species has spent most of its existence moving with instead of against nature as found among Indigenous or First Nation communities traditionally. Yet most members of modern societies feel disconnected from nature, which is attributed to a lack of connection and respect toward the more than human. We developed assessment tools for ecological attachment from an Indigenous perspective, validating measures ( n = 695) of ecological empa…
Early Life Experience and Aggression
Is the human species hard-wired for violence? It is often assumed to be the case, accompanied by the assumption that external controls are needed to mitigate aggressive tendencies. But there are several empirically based counterarguments to this pessimist view, many of which underscore that the pessimistic view reflects shifted baselines—from child-raising practices, to what is considered normal human development and nature. We examine briefly vi…
Self, Motivation, and Virtue: Innovative Interdisciplinary Research
The importance of early life touch for psychosocial and moral development
One of the primary means of communicating with a baby is through touch. Nurturing physical touch promotes healthy physiological development in social mammals, including humans. Physiology influences wellbeing and psychosocial functioning. The purpose of this paper is to explore the connections among early life positive and negative touch and wellbeing and sociomoral development. In study 1, mothers of preschoolers (n = 156) reported their attitud…
Evolved Developmental Niche Provision Report: Moral Socialization, Social Thriving, and Social Maladaptation in Three Countries
Evolutionary systems theory identifies niches as key developmental inheritances for animals. The human evolved developmental niche (EDN) is characterized by positive touch, responsiveness, play, and social togetherness and provides the responsive, relational dynamism that optimizes development. Cross-sectional and longitudinal studies of the human EDN have demonstrated correlations between degree of EDN consistency in early childhood and positive…
Character, Virtue, and Science: Linking Psychological and Philosophical Views
In the past century, both philosophy and psychology have reawakened to virtue, but mostly independently. How can the disciplines integrate their approaches to virtue scholarship? We examine three key assertions from virtue ethics in light of empirical research in psychology: (1) that virtue is realized in habits and dispositions, (2) that virtue is realized by a mean between extremes (doctrine of the mean), and (3) that virtue relates to human fl…
Social Development
Metatheory and the Primacy of Conceptual Analysis in Developmental Science
The practice of science entails more than just repeated cycles of theory construction, hypothesis generation, and empirical investigation. Broader, metatheoretical levels of conceptualization necessarily condition all aspects of the research process, establishing the very meaning and sensibility of science’s empirical and theoretical activities. When debate arises at these metatheoretical levels, it is the subject of conceptual analysis, not empi…
Hunter-Gatherer Societies as Sources of Data in Evolutionary Psychology
Developing the Virtues: Integrating Perspectives
The evolved developmental niche in childhood: Relation to adult psychopathology and morality
Following prior work linking childhood experience to adult outcomes, we used an evolutionary framework to examine effects of childhood experience on adult psychopathology and morality. Every animal provides an early life developmental system, developmental manifold or “niche” for its young, a set of inherited extra-genetic characteristics that match up with the maturational schedule of the offspring to optimize development. Humans inherit a niche…
The Co-Construction of Virtue
Handbook of Moral and Character Education
Constructivist approaches to early childhood education focus on developmentally appropriate practices for children from birth to eight years of age (Bredekamp & Copple, 1997). The goal of constructivist education is to promote children’s development in all areas of the curriculum (science, mathematics, language and literacy, social studies, and the arts) and in all developmental domains (intellectual, physical, social, emotional, and moral) (DeVr…
The evolved development niche: Longitudinal effects of caregiving practices on early childhood psychosocial development
Individual moral judgment and cultural ideologies
Moral judgment cannot be reduced to cultural ideology, or vice versa.But when each construct is measured separately, then combined, the product predicts powerfully to moral thinking.In Study 1, 2 churches (N = 96) were selected for their differences on religious ideology, political identity, and moral judgment.By combining these 3 variables, a multiple correlation of .79predicted to members' moral thinking (opinions on human rights issues).Study …
Moral reasoning, intercultural development, and multicultural experiences: Relations and cognitive underpinnings
Beyond the Promise: A Perspective on Research in Moral Education
Changing concerns and ideological shifts in American society produce different emphases in moral education. We argue that different approaches address different dimensions of development. If viewed as complementary rather than contradictory, we may be able to move beyond ideological and philosophical disputes to solid theory-building based on empirical findings. In proposing an action program for moral education that incorporates research, we dra…
Moral chronicity and social information processing: Tests of a social cognitive approach to the moral personality
The relation of multicultural experiences to moral judgment and mindsets
Multicultural experience is considered to be beneficial, but it remains a difficult construct to measure. We tested the validity of a new assessment tool, the Multicultural Experiences Questionnaire (MEQ), using an undergraduate sample (N 164), and examined the relation of multicultural experience to moral judgment, closedmindedness, growth, and fixed mindsets. We expected that greater multicultural experience would be related to lower levels of …
The evolved development niche: Longitudinal effects of caregiving practices on early childhood psychosocial development
Evolved Developmental Niche Provision Report: Moral Socialization, Social Thriving, and Social Maladaptation in Three Countries
Evolutionary systems theory identifies niches as key developmental inheritances for animals. The human evolved developmental niche (EDN) is characterized by positive touch, responsiveness, play, and social togetherness and provides the responsive, relational dynamism that optimizes development. Cross-sectional and longitudinal studies of the human EDN have demonstrated correlations between degree of EDN consistency in early childhood and positive…
Evolving evolutionary psychology
Which evolutionary theory can best benefit psychological theory, research, and application? The most well-known school of evolutionary psychology has a narrow conceptual perspective (a.k.a., "Narrow Evolutionary Psychology" or NEP). Proponents of NEP have long argued that their brand of evolutionary psychology represents a full-fledged scientific revolution, with Buss (2020) recently likening NEP's scientific impact to that of a Copernican or Dar…
First Friendships: Foundations for Peace
First friendships shape children’s brains and thereby their self-regulatory and social capacities. Mothers and others who offer our species’ evolved developmental niche, or evolved nest, provide the appropriate support for growing a cooperative, prosocial community member. Unnested children are less likely to develop our species-typical prosociality and instead be prone to authoritarian tendencies
The importance of early life touch for psychosocial and moral development
One of the primary means of communicating with a baby is through touch. Nurturing physical touch promotes healthy physiological development in social mammals, including humans. Physiology influences wellbeing and psychosocial functioning. The purpose of this paper is to explore the connections among early life positive and negative touch and wellbeing and sociomoral development. In study 1, mothers of preschoolers (n = 156) reported their attitud…
Postconventional Moral Thinking: A Neo-Kohlbergian Approach
Although Lawrence Kohlberg provided major ideas for psychological research in morality for decades, today some critics regard his work as outmoded, beyond repair, and too faulty for anybody to take seriously. These critics suggest that research would advance more profitably by taking a different approach. Postconventional Moral Thinking acknowledges particular philosophical and psychological problems with Kohlberg's theory and methodology, and pr…
Dit2: Devising and testing a revised instrument of moral judgment.
The Denning Issues Test, Version 2 (DIT2), updates dilemmas and items, shortens the original Defining Issues Test (DIT1) of moral judgment, and purges fewer participants for doubtful response reliability. DIT1 has been used for over 25 years. DIT2 makes 3 changes: in dilemmas and items, in the algorithm of indexing, and in the method of detecting unreliable participants. With all 3 changes, DIT2 is an improvement over DIT1. The validity criteria …
Individual moral judgment and cultural ideologies
Moral judgment cannot be reduced to cultural ideology, or vice versa.But when each construct is measured separately, then combined, the product predicts powerfully to moral thinking.In Study 1, 2 churches (N = 96) were selected for their differences on religious ideology, political identity, and moral judgment.By combining these 3 variables, a multiple correlation of .79predicted to members' moral thinking (opinions on human rights issues).Study …
Beyond the Promise: A Perspective on Research in Moral Education
Changing concerns and ideological shifts in American society produce different emphases in moral education. We argue that different approaches address different dimensions of development. If viewed as complementary rather than contradictory, we may be able to move beyond ideological and philosophical disputes to solid theory-building based on empirical findings. In proposing an action program for moral education that incorporates research, we dra…
Moral reasoning, intercultural development, and multicultural experiences: Relations and cognitive underpinnings
Moral Development, Self, and Identity
Contents: Preface. L.J. Walker, Gus in the Gap: Bridging the Judgment-Action Gap in Moral Functioning. R. Bergman, Identity as Motivation: Toward a Theory of the Moral Self. F.C. Power, The Moral Self in Community. R. Atkins, D. Hart, T.M. Donnelly, Moral Identity Development and School Attachment. D. Moshman, False Moral Identity: Self-Serving Denial in the Maintenance of Moral Self-Conceptions. L. Nucci, Reflections on the Moral Self Construct.…
Moral chronicity and social information processing: Tests of a social cognitive approach to the moral personality
Personality, Identity, and Character: Explorations in Moral Psychology
Moral notions are foundational questions that have commanded deep reflection since antiquity, reflection that psychological science cannot evade, because the moral formation of children is a central concern of parents, schools, and communities charged with educating the next generation. In this respect there are few domains of study more crucial than moral psychology and few topics of greater importance than the development of moral self-identity…
The emotional foundations of high moral intelligence
Moral intelligence is grounded in emotion and reason. Neuroscientific and clinical research illustrate how early life co-regulation with caregivers influences emotion, cognition, and moral character. Triune ethics theory (Narvaez, 2008) integrates neuroscientific, evolutionary, and developmental findings to explain differences in moral functioning, identifying security, engagement, and imagination ethics that can be dispositionally fostered by ex…
The relation of multicultural experiences to moral judgment and mindsets
Multicultural experience is considered to be beneficial, but it remains a difficult construct to measure. We tested the validity of a new assessment tool, the Multicultural Experiences Questionnaire (MEQ), using an undergraduate sample (N 164), and examined the relation of multicultural experience to moral judgment, closedmindedness, growth, and fixed mindsets. We expected that greater multicultural experience would be related to lower levels of …
Positive Youth Development
The Ethics of Neurobiological Narratives
Narratives are embedded in human biology. Each individual's emotional system is shaped by early experience and can be viewed as a biosocial personal grammar for the social life. A child builds a biosocial grammar initially from caregiver treatment. Caregivers and cultures help structure event memory and co-construct the narratives that children use for self and moral identities. The bioemotional landscape formed by experience influences the narra…
The evolved development niche: Longitudinal effects of caregiving practices on early childhood psychosocial development
The Co-Construction of Virtue
Handbook of Moral and Character Education
Constructivist approaches to early childhood education focus on developmentally appropriate practices for children from birth to eight years of age (Bredekamp & Copple, 1997). The goal of constructivist education is to promote children’s development in all areas of the curriculum (science, mathematics, language and literacy, social studies, and the arts) and in all developmental domains (intellectual, physical, social, emotional, and moral) (DeVr…
Developing the Virtues: Integrating Perspectives
The evolved developmental niche in childhood: Relation to adult psychopathology and morality
Following prior work linking childhood experience to adult outcomes, we used an evolutionary framework to examine effects of childhood experience on adult psychopathology and morality. Every animal provides an early life developmental system, developmental manifold or “niche” for its young, a set of inherited extra-genetic characteristics that match up with the maturational schedule of the offspring to optimize development. Humans inherit a niche…
Hunter-Gatherer Societies as Sources of Data in Evolutionary Psychology
Character, Virtue, and Science: Linking Psychological and Philosophical Views
In the past century, both philosophy and psychology have reawakened to virtue, but mostly independently. How can the disciplines integrate their approaches to virtue scholarship? We examine three key assertions from virtue ethics in light of empirical research in psychology: (1) that virtue is realized in habits and dispositions, (2) that virtue is realized by a mean between extremes (doctrine of the mean), and (3) that virtue relates to human fl…
Social Development
Metatheory and the Primacy of Conceptual Analysis in Developmental Science
The practice of science entails more than just repeated cycles of theory construction, hypothesis generation, and empirical investigation. Broader, metatheoretical levels of conceptualization necessarily condition all aspects of the research process, establishing the very meaning and sensibility of science’s empirical and theoretical activities. When debate arises at these metatheoretical levels, it is the subject of conceptual analysis, not empi…
Early Life Experience and Aggression
Is the human species hard-wired for violence? It is often assumed to be the case, accompanied by the assumption that external controls are needed to mitigate aggressive tendencies. But there are several empirically based counterarguments to this pessimist view, many of which underscore that the pessimistic view reflects shifted baselines—from child-raising practices, to what is considered normal human development and nature. We examine briefly vi…
Self, Motivation, and Virtue: Innovative Interdisciplinary Research
The importance of early life touch for psychosocial and moral development
One of the primary means of communicating with a baby is through touch. Nurturing physical touch promotes healthy physiological development in social mammals, including humans. Physiology influences wellbeing and psychosocial functioning. The purpose of this paper is to explore the connections among early life positive and negative touch and wellbeing and sociomoral development. In study 1, mothers of preschoolers (n = 156) reported their attitud…
Evolved Developmental Niche Provision Report: Moral Socialization, Social Thriving, and Social Maladaptation in Three Countries
Evolutionary systems theory identifies niches as key developmental inheritances for animals. The human evolved developmental niche (EDN) is characterized by positive touch, responsiveness, play, and social togetherness and provides the responsive, relational dynamism that optimizes development. Cross-sectional and longitudinal studies of the human EDN have demonstrated correlations between degree of EDN consistency in early childhood and positive…
Psychology (31 works) · Social Psychology (21 works) · Sociology (20 works) · Epistemology (15 works) · Philosophy (13 works) · Developmental psychology (11 works) · Social Psychology (11 works) · Political science (8 works) · Child and Adolescent Psychosocial and Emotional Development (7 works) · Law (6 works)