Hardwired

1
Hardwired

• The need for moral communities (role models and
  environments) and moral reasoning

2
The Crisis

• One of every four adolescents in the US is
  currently at risk of not achieving productive
  adulthood.
• Eccles, J Gootman, J.A. (2002) Community
  programs to promote youth development. National
  Research council and Institute of Medicine.
  Washington, D.C. National Academies Press.
• Approximately 21 of children ages 9-17 have a
  diagnosable mental or addictive disorder
  associated with minimum impairment.
• Mental Health A Report of the Surgeon General
  (Rockville, MD U.S. Department of Health and
  Human Services, Substance Abuse and Mental Health
  Services Administration, Center for Mental Health
  Services, National Institutes of Health, National
  Institute of Mental Health, 1999) 123.

3
Crisis

• Despite increased ability to treat depression,
  the current generation of young people is more
  likely to be depressed and anxious than was its
  parents generation.
• Practice Parameters for the Assessment and
  Treatment of Children and Adolescents with
  Depressive Disorders (Washington, DC American
  Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry,
  1998) 2.
• About 20 percent of students report having
  seriously considered suicide.
• Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance United States,
  2001, Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report 51,
  no. SS-4 (Washington, DC Centers for Disease
  Control and Prevention, June 2002).

4
Crisis

• About 11 percent of US teenagers drop out of high
  school.
• National Center for Education Statistics, Digest
  of Education Statistics, 2000 (Washington, DC
  Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department
  of Education, November 2001).
• More than 1 of 3 adolescents report having been
  in a physical fight at school, and about 9
  report having been threatened or injured with a
  weapon on school property.
• Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance United States,
  2001, Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report
  51,no. SS-4 (Washington, DC Centers for Disease
  Control and Prevention, June 2002).

5
Solutions from science

• Behavioral and neuroscience
• Connectivity to people and community
• ROLE MODELS
• ENVIRONMENTS

6
Powerful role models

• What really holds potential for making a moral
  impact on a mid-adolescent is a powerful
  connection with individual adults whom he/she can
  admire or idealize. It is that individual
  teacher, coach, counselor, religious youth
  worker, Big Brother, neighbor, grandparentwho
  can inspire him to make more sense of the social
  confusion of his surroundings.
• Barbara M. Stilwell, The Consolidation of
  Conscience in Adolescence, Commission on
  Children at Risk, Working Paper 13 (New York
  Institute for American Values, 2002) 9.

7
Role models

• Researchers have demonstrated the protective
  impact of extra-familial adult relationships for
  young people, including other adult relatives,
  friends parents, teachers or adults in health
  and social service settings, among others. This
  sense of connectedness to adults is salient as a
  protective factor against an array of
  health-jeopardizing behaviors of adolescents and
  has protective effects for both girls and boys
  across various ethnic, racial and social class
  groups.
• Michael Resnick, Best Bets for Improving the
  Odds for Optimum Youth Development, Commission
  on Children at Risk, Working Paper 10 (New York
  Institute for American Values, 2002) 13.

8
Characteristics of a Moral Environment/community

• Warm and nurturing community
• Children typically learn to be what they admire,
  and having warm, nurturing relationships with
  admirable adults is arguably the single finest
  way to help children learn.
• Sets clear limits and expectations.
• Close relationships matter, but so do clear rules
  and expectations. Children need adults to set
  clear standards and a positive vision of the
  goals they are to achieve and the people they are
  to become.

9
Moral Environment/Commumity

• It is multi-generational
• A sizable body of scholarship confirms what most
  people sense intuitively children benefit
  enormously from being around caring people in all
  stages of the life cycle. They benefit in special
  ways from being around old people, including, of
  course, their grandparents.
• See Arthur Kornhaber and Kenneth L. Woodward,
  Grandparents/Grandchildren The Vital Connection
  (Garden City, NY Anchor Press, 1981).

10
Moral Community/environment

• Reflects and transmits a shared understanding of
  what it means to be a good person.
• The psychologist Jerome Kagan of Harvard
  University says After hunger, a humans most
  important need is to know whats virtuous.
• Quoted in Susan Gilbert, Scientists Explore the
  Molding of Childrens Morals, New York Times,
  March 18, 2003, p. F5.

11
Solutions from science

• Behavioral and neuroscience
• Connectivity to people and community
• ROLE MODELS
• Environment
• Moral Reasoning

12
Need for moral reasoning

• The human brain appears to be organized to ask
  ultimate questions and seek ultimate answers.
  The neuroscientists Eugene dAquili and Andrew B.
  Newberg have used brain imaging to study
  individuals involved in spiritual practices such
  as contemplative prayer and meditation. During
  such states, they have found an increase in
  activity in a number of frontal brain regions,
  including the prefrontal cortex.
• Eugene dAquili and Andrew B. Newberg, The
  Mystical Mind Probing the Biology of Religious
  Experience (Minneapolis Fortress Press, 1999)
  118-199.

13
Moral reasoning human need

• This research suggests that the human need to
  know what is true about lifes purpose and
  ultimate ends is connected to brain functions
  underlying many spiritual and religious
  experiences.
• Andrew Newberg and Eugene DAquili, Why God Wont
  Go Away Brain Science and the Biology of Belief
  (New York Ballantine Books, 2001) 143.

14
Need to morally reason

• Human beings appear to have no choice but to
  construct myths to explain their world. They
  are using the word myth non- perjoratively,
  defining it as a religious explanation of the
  world.
• Eugene dAquili and Andrew B. Newberg, The
  Mystical Mind Probing the Biology of Religious
  Experience (Minneapolis Fortress Press, 1999)
  86.

15
Need to connect to ultimate meaning

• The need in young people to connect to ultimate
  meaning and to the transcendent is not merely the
  result of social conditioning, but is instead an
  intrinsic aspect of the human experience.
• See K.S. Kendler, C.O. Gardner, and C.A.
  Prescott, Religion, psychopathology, and
  substance use and abuse A multimeasure, genetic
  -epidemiologic study, American Journal of
  Psychiatry 154, vol. 3

16
Moral connection

• We are hardwired to connect to other people.
• We are hardwired to connect to moral meaning and
  to the possibility of the transcendent.
• Meeting these basic needs for connectedness is
  essential to health and to human flourishing.

17
A final thought

• The power and importance of reasoning, writing,
  thinking, reflection
• "We learned that early education, linguistic
  ability and the way we look at life seems to
  indicate what we will be like in the end of
  life,
• David Snowdon's 15-year-old "Nuns' Study" at the
  Sanders-Brown Center on Aging at the University
  of Kentucky Medical Center forms the basis for
  his book, "Aging with Grace What the Nun Study
  Teaches Us About Leading Longer, Healthier and
  More Meaningful Lives" (Bantam Books),