Published
2019-11-22
Section
From the Guest Editor
License
Copyright (c) 2019 Mary Tarsha, Darcia Narvaez
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
All work in IJPS is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 4.0 License
Copyright of content published in IJPS belongs to the author(s).
How to Cite
The Evolved Nest: A Partnership System that Fosters Child and Societal Wellbeing
Mary Tarsha
University of Notre Dame
Darcia Narvaez
DOI: https://doi.org/10.24926/ijps.v6i3.2244
Keywords: Evolved nest, evolved developmental niche, wellbeing, partnership, play, breastfeeding, breastmilk, affection, social support, sociomoral, responsivity
Abstract
Although most people want children to thrive, many adults in industrialized nations have forgotten what that means and how to foster thriving. We review the nature and effects of the evolved developmental system for human offspring, a partnership system that fosters every kind of wellbeing. The environment and the type of care received, particularly in early life, shape neurobiological process that give rise to social and moral capacities. A deep view of history sheds light on converging evidence from the fields of neuroscience, developmental psychology, epigenetics, and ethnographic research that depicts how sociomoral capacities are not hardwired but are biosocially constructed. The Evolved Nest is the ecological system of care that potentiates both physical and psychological thriving, the foundations of cooperative and egalitarian societies. Deprivation of the evolved nest thwarts human development, resulting in sub-optimal, species-atypical outcomes of illbeing, high stress reactivity, dysregulation, and limited sociomoral capabilities. Utilizing a wider lens that incorporates humanity’s deep ancestral history, it becomes clear that deprivation of the evolved nest cuts against the development of human nature and humanity’s cultural heritage. Returning to providing the evolved nest to families and communities holds the potential to revise contemporary understandings of wellbeing and human nature. It can expand current metrics of wellness, beyond resilience to optimization.
Author Biographies
Mary Tarsha, University of Notre Dame
Doctoral Student, Department of Psychology and Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies, University of Notre Dame
Darcia Narvaez
Professor of Psychology, University of Notre Dame
