Leveraging machine learning to study how temperament scores predict pre-term birth status.

Background: Preterm birth (birth at <37 completed weeks gestation) is a significant public heatlh concern worldwide. Important health, and developmental consequences of preterm birth include altered temperament development, with greater dysregulation and distress proneness. Aims: The present study leveraged advanced quantitative techniques, namely machine learning approaches, to discern the contribution of narrowly defined and broadband temperament dimensions to birth status classification (full-term vs. preterm). Along with contributing to the literature addressing temperament of infants born preterm, the present study serves as a methodological demonstration of these innovative statistical techniques. Study design: This study represents a metanalysis conducted with multiple samples (N = 19) including preterm (n = 201) children and (n = 402) born at term, with data combined across investigations to perform classification analyses. Subjects: Participants included infants born preterm and term-born comparison children, either matched on chronological age or age adjusted for prematurity. Outcome measures: Infant Behavior Questionnaire-Revised Very Short Form (IBQ-R VSF) was completed by mothers, with factor and item-level data considered herein. Results and conclusions: Accuracy estimates were generally similar regardless of the comparison groups. Results indicated a slightly higher accuracy and efficiency for IBQR-VSF item-based models vs. factor-level models. Divergent patterns of feature importance (i.e., the extent to which a factor/item contributed to classification) were observed for the two comparison groups (chronological age vs. adjusted age) using factor-level scores; however, itemized models indicated that the two most critical items were associated with effortful control and negative emotionality regardless of comparison group.

Humanity's evolved nest and its relation to cardiac vagal regulation in the first years of life.

BACKGROUND: The Evolved Developmental Niche (EDN) is a millions-year-old developmental system that matches the maturational schedule of the offspring, optimizing health. Every animal has a developmental niche. AIMS: Humanity has fallen away from providing its EDN. Does it matter? STUDY DESIGN: Several components of humanity's EDN were reviewed (breastfeeding, positive touch, allomothers, responsive care, free play) in relation to cardiac vagal nerve regulation, a signal of healthy development. Focal subjects were young children. OUTCOME MEASURES: A review of research on the selected EDN components in relation to vagal nerve function was performed. Data were available for all but the allomother component, which is typically not measured by western researchers, although allomothers provide EDN components alongside parents. RESULTS: Apart from the lack of research on allomother effects, all these EDN components have been shown to influence cardiac vagal regulation in young children. CONCLUSIONS: Converging evidence suggests that providing the EDN in early life may not only support aspects of a child's primal health system, but bolster capacities for social health and wellness, the cornerstone of a positive life trajectory.

The evolved nest, oxytocin functioning, and prosocial development.

Prosociality, orientation to attuned, empathic relationships, is built from the ground up, through supportive care in early life that fosters healthy neurobiological structures that shape behavior. Numerous social and environmental factors within early life have been identified as critical variables influencing child physiological and psychological outcomes indicating a growing need to synthesize which factors are the most influential. To address this gap, we examined the influence of early life experiences according to the evolved developmental niche or evolved nest and its influence on child neurobiological and sociomoral outcomes, specifically, the oxytocinergic system and prosociality, respectively. To-date, this is the first review to utilize the evolved nest framework as an investigatory lens to probe connections between early life experience and child neurobiological and sociomoral outcomes. The evolved nest is comprised of characteristics over 30 million years old and is organized to meet a child's basic needs as they mature. Converging evidence indicates that humanity's evolved nest meets the needs of a rapidly developing brain, optimizing normal development. The evolved nest for young children includes soothing perinatal experiences, breastfeeding, positive touch, responsive care, multiple allomothers, self-directed play, social embeddedness, and nature immersion. We examined what is known about the effects of each evolved nest component on oxytocinergic functioning, a critical neurobiological building block for pro-sociomorality. We also examined the effects of the evolved nest on prosociality generally. We reviewed empirical studies from human and animal research, meta-analyses and theoretical articles. The review suggests that evolved nest components influence oxytocinergic functioning in parents and children and help form the foundations for prosociality. Future research and policy should consider the importance of the first years of life in programming the neuroendocrine system that undergirds wellbeing and prosociality. Complex, interaction effects among evolved nest components as well as among physiological and sociomoral processes need to be studied. The most sensible framework for examining what builds and enhances prosociality may be the millions-year-old evolved nest.

How deep do we have to go to rehabilitate evolutionary psychology? Reply to Bjorklund et al. (2022).

Disciplines like evolutionary developmental psychology admirably focus on trying to rehabilitate narrow evolutionary psychology (NEP) from within, by adding a developmental focus to NEP's tenets of adaptationism and computationalism. We argue, however, that these tenets are fundamentally incompatible with taking psychology and its development seriously, and that the kinds of modifications introduced by evolutionary developmental psychologists do not go deep enough to qualitatively change the nondevelopmental outlook of NEP. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Effects of adverse childhood experience on physiological regulation are moderated by evolved developmental niche history.

Childhood experiences of early life stress and adversity can lead to long-term detrimental outcomes across the lifespan. Recent evidence suggests avoiding stressors is not enough for species-typical development. Nurturing and responsive care are needed to both buffer adverse experiences as well as promote healthy development, but little is known regarding the interaction between species-typical environmental support in childhood, Evolved Developmental Niche history (EDN-history), and adversity on physiological regulation in adult women. To investigate the interaction between species-typical nurturing and adversity (ACEs, adverse childhood experiences), women (N = 113) were asked to report on EDN-history and ACEs. Physiological regulation was measured using respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) across three conditions that included stress and relaxation. Applying latent basis coefficient modeling, EDN-history moderated vagal withdrawal from baseline to stress and supported vagal activation from stress to recovery, suggesting a link between EDN-history and vagal adaptability. EDN-history acted as a buffer against ACEs on physiological regulation supporting women's vagal adaptability across differing conditions. Physiological adaptability is a key component of physical and psychological wellbeing and resilience. Experiences of the EDN in childhood may not only buffer adversity but also support the physiological building blocks of health and resilience.

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 Darwinian paradigm shift. However, NEP stands on two traditions that are now the subjects of serious debate and revision: the neo-Darwinian adaptationist framework within evolutionary biology, and the computationalist "mind-as-computer" framework within cognitive science. Although NEP calls itself revolutionary, the significant revolutions taking place today in both evolutionary biology and cognitive science reveal NEP to be rooted in the orthodoxies of the past. We propose a more inclusive, developmental evolutionary psychology theory (DEPTH) better suited for our field in multiple ways, from acknowledging epigenesis to incorporating developmental science. To discern appropriate baselines for human nature and for human becoming, one must integrate developmental neuroscience, anthropology, and cognitive archeology. To be of value in addressing and remedying the challenges facing humanity, psychological theories must recognize the central importance of our plasticity, evolved developmental niche, and deep history. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Sociomoral Temperament: A Mediator Between Wellbeing and Social Outcomes in Young Children.

Social outcomes, such as empathy, conscience, and behavioral self-regulation, might require a baseline of psychological wellbeing. According to Triune Ethics Metatheory (TEM), early experience influences the neuropsychology underlying a child's orientation toward the social and moral world. Theoretically, a child's wellbeing, fostered through early caregiving, promotes sociomoral temperaments that correspond to the child's experience, such as social approach or withdrawal in face-to-face situations. These temperaments may represent an individual's default sociomoral perspective on the world. We hypothesized that sociomoral temperament emerges as a function of wellbeing and would be related to social outcomes measured by moral socialization and self-regulation. Further, we hypothesized that sociomoral temperament would mediate the relationship between wellbeing and social outcomes. To investigate, we collected items reflective of sociomoral temperament, asking mothers from two countries (USA: n = 525; China: n = 379) to report on their 3- to 5-year-old children. They also reported on their child's wellbeing (anxiety, depression, happiness) and social outcomes, including moral socialization (concern after wrong doing, internalized conduct and empathy) and behavioral self-regulation (inhibitory control and misbehavior). As expected, correlations identified connections between wellbeing, sociomoral temperament, and social outcomes. Mediation analyses demonstrated that sociomoral temperament mediated relations between wellbeing and social outcomes in both samples, though in slightly different patterns. Fostering early wellbeing may influence social outcomes through a child's developing sociomoral temperament.

Opportunities for free play and young children's autonomic regulation.

Aspects of the social environment have been linked to the physiological mechanisms underlying behavioral self-regulation. Play, a behavior connected to regulatory behaviors such as delay of gratification and regulation of emotions, might be an aspect of social environments that is supportive of healthy physiological adaptation. We examined whether opportunities for social free play with peers, as reported by mothers, would predict children's autonomic regulation (via respiratory sinus arrhythmia; RSA) in a sample of 78 five-year-old children. As a proxy for play experience generally, frequency of social free play in the past week predicted higher levels of RSA functioning across both baseline and stress conditions, but did not account for physiological rate of change between conditions. Thus, frequent social free play opportunities might be a general positive influence on children's autonomic regulation by supporting increased parasympathetic activation but not a significant influence on children's response to stress in the moment. Attention to the role of play in autonomic regulation is critical, as children's free play opportunities might be declining.

Trolley dilemma in the sky: Context matters when civilians and cadets make remotely piloted aircraft decisions.

Crews operating remotely piloted aircrafts (RPAs) in military operations may be among the few that truly experience tragic dilemmas similar to the famous Trolley Problem. In order to analyze decision-making and emotional conflict of RPA operators within Trolley-Problem-like dilemma situations, we created an RPA simulation that varied mission contexts (firefighter, military and surveillance as a control condition) and the social "value" of a potential victim. We found that participants (Air Force cadets and civilian students) were less likely to make the common utilitarian choice (sacrificing one to save five), when the value of the one increased, especially in the military context. However, in the firefighter context, this decision pattern was much less pronounced. The results demonstrate behavioral and justification differences when people are more invested in a particular context despite ostensibly similar dilemmas.

Baselines for human morality should include species typicality, inheritances, culture, practice, and ecological attachment.

Empirical studies involve WEIRD (Western, European, industrialized, rich, democratic) but also un-nested (raised outside humanity's evolved nest) and underdeveloped participants. Assessing human moral potential needs to integrate a transdisciplinary approach to understanding species typicality and baselines, relevant evolutionary inheritances beyond genes, assessment of cultures and practices that foster (or not) virtue, and ecological morality. Human moral reason (nous) emerges from all of these.

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 attitudes toward positive/negative touch and on their children's wellbeing and sociomoral outcomes, illustrating moderate to strong positive correlations between positive touch attitudes and children's sociomoral capacities and orientations and negative correlations with psychopathology. In study 2, we used an existing longitudinal dataset, with at-risk mothers (n = 682) and their children to test touch effects on moral capacities and social behaviors in early life. Results demonstrated moderate to strong relationships between positive/negative touch and concurrent child behavioral regulation and positive correlations between low corporal punishment and child sociomoral outcomes. In a third study with adults (n = 607), we found significant mediation processes connecting retrospective reports of childhood touch to adult moral orientation through attachment security, mental health, and moral capacities. In general across studies, more affectionate touch and less punishing touch were positively associated with wellbeing and development of moral capacities and engaged moral orientation.

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 attitudes toward positive/negative touch and on their children's wellbeing and sociomoral outcomes, illustrating moderate to strong positive correlations between positive touch attitudes and children's sociomoral capacities and orientations and negative correlations with psychopathology. In study 2, we used an existing longitudinal dataset, with at-risk mothers (n = 682) and their children to test touch effects on moral capacities and social behaviors in early life. Results demonstrated moderate to strong relationships between positive/negative touch and concurrent child behavioral regulation and positive correlations between low corporal punishment and child sociomoral outcomes. In a third study with adults (n = 607), we found significant mediation processes connecting retrospective reports of childhood touch to adult moral orientation through attachment security, mental health, and moral capacities. In general across studies, more affectionate touch and less punishing touch were positively associated with wellbeing and development of moral capacities and engaged moral orientation. (AU)

Are older adults more attuned to morally charged information?

Whereas older adults typically show declines in various cognitive processes, they also typically demonstrate greater interest in social relationships. Part of this increased focus on interpersonal relations may extend to morality, which by its very nature is concerned with social contracts, obligations, and the give-and-take among people. The authors tested whether in comparison to younger adults, older adults show increased activation and memory for morally charged information relative to nonmoral information. Three experiments examined older and younger adult comprehension and memory of moral content in stories. Participants read stories and were tested for surface form, textbase, and situation model recognition memory. In contrast to past studies that have not focused on moral content, in this study older adults had textbase memory for moral information equal to that of young adults, suggesting an enhanced attention to morally charged details. To examine online moral inference making, Experiment 2 used lexical decision probes. There was greater facilitation of moral inferences for older adults relative to younger adults, suggesting greater focus of processing on moral content. Experiment 3 explored methodological issues to resolve some discrepancies between the experiments, and replicated the basic findings. In general, older adults had enhanced memory for morally charged story events and, relative to younger adults, were more likely to draw moral inferences during comprehension.

Moral virtue and practical wisdom: theme comprehension in children, youth, and adults.

The authors tested 3 hypotheses about the relation of moral comprehension to prudential comprehension by contrasting comprehension of themes in moral stories with comprehension of themes in prudential stories among third-grade, fifth-grade, and college students (n = 168) in Study 1, and among college students, young and middle-aged adults, and older adults (n = 96) in Study 2. In both studies, all groups were statistically significantly better at moral theme comprehension than prudential theme comprehension, suggesting that moral comprehension may develop prior to prudential comprehension. In Study 2, all groups performed equally on moral theme generation whereas both adult groups were significantly better than college students on prudential theme generation. Overall, the findings of these studies provide modest evidence that moral and prudential comprehension each develop separately, and that the latter may develop more slowly.

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 experience during sensitive periods, but also situationally triggered. Mature moral functioning relies on the integration of emotion, intuition, and reasoning, which come together in adaptive ethical expertise. Moral expertise can be cultivated in organizations using the integrative ethical education model.

Moral Complexity: The Fatal Attraction of Truthiness and the Importance of Mature Moral Functioning.

Recently, intuitionist theories have been effective in capturing the academic discourse about morality. Intuitionist theories, like rationalist theories, offer important but only partial understanding of moral functioning. Both can be fallacious and succumb to truthiness: the attachment to one's opinions because they "feel right," potentially leading to harmful action or inaction. Both intuition and reasoning are involved in deliberation and expertise. Both are malleable from environmental and educational influence, making questions of normativity-which intuitions and reasoning skills to foster-of utmost importance. Good intuition and reasoning inform mature moral functioning, which needs to include capacities that promote sustainable human well-being. Individual capacities for habituated empathic concern and moral metacognition-moral locus of control, moral self-regulation, and moral self-reflection-comprise mature moral functioning, which also requires collective capacities for moral dialogue and moral institutions. These capacities underlie moral innovation and are necessary for solving the complex challenges humanity faces.

The relation of moral judgment development and educational experience to recall of moral narratives and expository texts.

Moral text processing was used as an ecologically valid method for assessing implicit and explicit moral understanding and development. The authors tested undergraduates, seminarians, and graduate students in political science and philosophy for recall of moral narratives and moral expository texts. Multivariate analyses of covariance using educational experience as an independent variable, age and moral judgment score as covariates, and recall of embedded moral arguments as a dependent variable revealed a relation between education and level of moral arguments recalled. Lower stage moral reasoning was best recalled by undergraduates, whereas higher stage reasoning was best recalled by graduate students, with seminarians intermediate for both types of text. Moral judgment score was related to recall of the highest level moral arguments even when age and educational experience were controlled. Moral judgment development appeared to be particularly helpful in recall of expository compared with narrative texts.