project Nick's First Year Project Lynchard, N. starting nlynchard@comcast.net abstract Moral Virtue and Practical Wisdom: Comprehension in Children, Youth and Adults. Narvaez, D., Gleason, T., Mitchell, C. submitted The purpose of these studies was to test whether moral virtue and practical wisdom are the same or different and whether they vary across the lifespan. Although contemporary moral psychology has not attended to this relationship in great detail nor provided a context for deriving clear hypotheses about the relation between these things or their developmental priority, there is a rich tradition in philosophical ethics dating back to antiquity. We examined the relation between moral wisdom (virtue) and practical wisdom (prudence) by testing three hypotheses, the identity hypothesis, the prudential self-interest hypothesis, and the developmental hypothesis. We tested these hypotheses by contrasting the theme comprehension of moral virtue stories with that of prudential stories among third grade, fifth grade and college students (n = 168) in study 1, and among college, adult and elderly participants (n = 96) in study 2. In both studies, all groups were significantly better at moral theme comprehension in comparison to prudential theme comprehension. This finding suggests that moral wisdom develops prior to practical wisdom for all ages. We also found asymmetrical development in that adults performed better than college students on both prudential and moral theme comprehension, demonstrating the advantage of added experience. We also found a relation between moral judgment and moral but not prudential theme comprehension. abstract Nurturing peaceful character. Journal of Research in Education, 13, 41-50. Narvaez, D., Herbst, R., Hagele, S., Gomberg, A. published(2003) In this article, we briefly describe a model for character education that offers a foundation for structuring peace education. The Ethical Expertise model (Anderson, Narvaez, Bock, Endicott, Lies, 2003; Narvaez, 2003; Narvaez, Endicott, Bock, in press) is the framework underlying character development education (CDE), the integration of the ancient Greek understanding of moral character with cognitive developmental psychology and pedagogy (Narvaez, in press; 2003). Similar to Plato's notion of the moral person as one with highly developed skills (techne), the EthEx model provides a set of skills that comprise ethical know-how and lead to human flourishing (Aristotle's eudamonia). The ExEth model of skills, developed under the auspices of the Minnesota Community Voices and Character Education project identifies four components or psychological processes that are required for ethical action to ensue: ethical sensitivity, ethical judgment, ethical motivation, and ethical action. Each process includes a set of teachable skills, including skills for getting along with others, making moral decisions, living the good life and self-actualization. abstract Moral Psychology And Information Ethics: Psychological Distance And The Components Of Moral Action In A Digital World. In L. A. Freeman and A. G. Peace (Eds.), Information Ethics: Privacy and Intellectual Property. Idea Group, Inc. Crowell, C., Narvaez, D., Gomberg, A. in press This chapter discusses the ways in which moral psychology can inform information ethics. A "Four Component Model" of moral behavior is described involving the synergistic influences of key factors including sensitivity, judgment, motivation, and action. Two technology-mediated domains, electronic communications and digital property, are then explored to illustrate how technology can impact each of the four components believed to underlie moral behavior. It is argued that technology can create a kind of "psychological distance" between those who use technology for communication or those who acquire and use digital property (e.g., software or music) and those who may be affected by such uses (e.g., email recipients or digital property owners). This "distance" potentially impacts all four components of moral behavior in such a way that the usual social or moral constraints operative under normal (non-technology-mediated) circumstances (e.g., face-to-face communication) may be reduced, thereby facilitating the occurrence of unethical activities like piracy, hacking, or flaming. Recognition of the potential deleterious impact of technology on each of the four components leads to a better understanding of how specific educational interventions can be devised to strengthen moral sensitivity, judgment, motivation and action within the context of our increasingly digital world. abstract Community Voices and Character Education: A New Model for Character Development. Journal of Moral Education. Narvaez, D., Endicott, L., Bock, T., Lies, J., Anderson, C submitted Constructed in collaboration with educators, the Community Voices and Character Education model integrates an old view of character (ancient Greek ethical 'know-how') with contemporary views of human flourishing. The CVCE model treats character development as the cultivation of a set of skills in four processes: ethical sensitivity, ethical judgment, ethical motivation and ethical action (Rest, 1983). In delineating the elemental skills of good character, CVCE addresses character education, integrating the findings from developmental psychology, prevention science, and positive psychology. In proposing the best approach to instruction, we address character education by integrating contemporary findings from research in learning and cognition, particularly novice-to-expert instruction. Teachers provide apprentice-style instruction of skills while students are empowered to answer the question, "Who should I become?" The model is flexible for local adaptation and provides activities for teachers to incorporate ethical skill development into academic instruction. We describe the implementation and evaluation of the model.