Description:

The Northwestern University Psychology Colloquium Series Presents:

Darcia Narvaez

University of Notre Dame

"Baselines for Species-Typical Human Nature"

Abstract: Scientists are often concerned about measuring baselines in their research. But sometimes basic assumptions are based on baselines that have shifted without awareness. Human sciences have not attended to several baselines that bear on the people they study. One of the baselines I will discuss is the Evolved Developmental Niche (EDN), an extra-genetic inheritance. Every animal has a nest for its offspring that matches up with the maturational schedule of the young, providing a species-typical developmental system. The EDN for humans is particularly intensive and involves soothing perinatal experiences, responsiveness to needs, extensive breastfeeding and positive touch, free play, multiple responsive adult caregivers, positive climate and social support. Interdisciplinary research, including from my lab, demonstrates the importance of each EDN component for psychosocial and neurobiological development. When a species’ nest is degraded, it results in a species-atypical individual. Currently, most children in advanced societies are raised species atypically. If scientists do not pay attention to the species-typicality of their subjects, how can generalizations to human nature or capacities be made? As humans have fostered and face ecological disaster on every front, perhaps because of species-atypicality, it might be time to rediscover how human potential is optimized by following humanity’s extra-genetic evolutionary inheritances.

Thursday, April 14, 2016

4:00 pm, Swift Hall 107

Reception to follow