Why Don't I Help You? The Relationship between Role Stressors and Helping Behavior from a Cognitive Dissonance Perspective

A study on different types of moral courage and coping styles of clinical nurses: based on potential profile analysis

BACKGROUND

In professional ethics-related events, there are various unpleasant and complex ethical issues that require strong moral courage. Our aim is to identify and describe the potential categories of moral courage among nurses and to clarify the coping styles of nurses under different categories.

METHOD

A cross-sectional study was conducted using three data collection tools: a self-designed general information questionnaire, a Chinese version of the Moral Courage Scale, and a Trait Coping Style Questionnaire. Three hundred fourteen nurses from a tertiary hospital in Heilongjiang Province, China, were analysed using potential profile analysis, descriptive analysis, and Mann-Whitney U test data.

RESULT

The latent profile analysis (LPA) results indicate that the two-profile model is the most suitable and supports the existence of two different moral courage profiles: the low moral courage group (60.51%) and the high moral courage group (39.49%), with a high relative entropy value (0.922). The results point to a good profile solution, and there are significant differences between the two profiles. The Mann-Whitney U-test results showed that the positive coping scores of the high moral courage group were significantly higher than those of the low moral courage group, and the negative coping scores of the high moral courage group were significantly lower than those of the low moral courage group.

CONCLUSION

Our results reveal the heterogeneity of moral courage in the nurse sample and indicate that nurses in the high moral courage group tend to choose positive coping styles, while nurses in the low moral courage group are more likely to develop negative coping emotions. This provides important significance and reference value for nursing managers, who can propose customised management plans based on the types of moral courage of the nursing community and the coping styles under different categories.

Development and Psychometric Testing of a Taiwanese Team Interactions and Team Creativity Instrument (TITC-T) for Nursing Students

Background: How well team members work together can be affected by team interactions and creativity. There is no single instrument for measuring both variables in healthcare education settings in Taiwan. The purpose of this study is to develop an instrument to measure team interactions and team creativity for Taiwanese nursing students. Methods: A 34-item team interactions and team creativity self-report instrument was developed for nursing students in Taiwan (TITC-T). Items consisted of statements about how a participant perceived their team members’ constructive controversy, helping behaviors, communication, and creativity. Nursing students (n = 275) were recruited from two campuses of a science and technology university to examine the psychometric properties of the TITC-T. The reliability and psychometric properties were evaluated. Results: The Cronbach’s alpha was 0.98. The confirmatory factor analysis resulted in a one-dimensional factor structure that fit well with the model (Comparative Fit Index = 0.995, Tucker Lewis Index = 0.908, Root Mean Square Error of Approximation = 0.098). Conclusions: The TITC-T is a valid and reliable tool for evaluating team interactions and team creativity for students enrolled in nursing programs in Taiwan.

Measuring Orthographic Knowledge of L2 Chinese Learners in Vietnam Using a Handwriting Task - A Preliminary Report

In the current study, the orthographic knowledge required for writing Chinese characters was assessed among participants with L1 Vietnamese background who learn Chinese as a foreign language. A total of 42 undergraduates were recruited. They were invited to participate in a delayed Chinese character copying task consisting of 32 characters. Their Chinese character reading abilities were also obtained using a character naming task. All the tests were conducted online during the pandemic in 2021. Results indicated that the participants' accuracy in the copying task was affected by the familiarity of the characters and the number of strokes of the characters. These effects minimized as reading performance increased. In the inter-stroke interval (ISI) analysis, results indicated a significant boundary effect where ISIs between orthographic units were longer than ISIs within orthographic units, showing the participants' tendency to chunk Chinese characters into functional units when they write. Only high achievers in the reading task demonstrated the use of both large and small grain-size units in writing (i.e., radical-boundary ISI > logographeme-boundary ISI > non-boundary ISI), while the low achievers only used small grain-size units in their writing. We suggest that the delayed copying task incorporated with handwriting measures is an effective method to assess orthographic knowledge of L2 Chinese learners.

Effect of interdisciplinary teaching on collaborative interactions among nursing student teams in Taiwan: A quasi-experimental study

BACKGROUND

Empirical research has demonstrated the academic, collaborative, and organizational benefits of Interdisciplinary Teaching. However, few studies have examined the effectiveness of Interdisciplinary Teaching in higher education, particular in healthcare education in Taiwan. In addition, there is no consensus on how the effectiveness of this form of teaching should be evaluated.

OBJECTIVE

To evaluate the effect of Interdisciplinary Teaching on collaborative interactions for teams of nursing students.

DESIGN

A quasi-experimental study design employed pretest-posttest scores on measures of team collaboration to compare an Interdisciplinary Teaching intervention with a control group.

SETTING

Capstone courses at two universities of science and technology in Taiwan, which focused on creating patentable healthcare-related products.

PARTICIPANTS

Nursing students (N = 145) enrolled in capstone courses between September 2019 and January 2020 participated in this study. The intervention group (n = 61) received creativity training from interdisciplinary faculty from departments of nursing and design. The control group (n = 84) received traditional teaching from nursing faculty.

METHODS

Data were collected using self-report instruments for team interaction behaviors, swift trust, and conflict at the beginning and end of the 18-week course. Differences between groups were examined with analysis of covariance.

RESULTS

Compared with controls, nursing students in teams that received the teaching intervention had significantly better mean post-test scores for team interaction behaviors and the subscale for communication (both p < .05); team swift trust and affective-based trust (p < .001); and lower scores for the team conflict subscale of relationships (p = .01).

CONCLUSIONS

These findings suggest creativity training using Interdisciplinary Teaching benefited collaborative interactions for interactive behaviors and swift trust, and decreased relationship conflict for teams of nursing students. Interdisciplinary Teaching should be integrated into nursing students' curriculum, which could enhance collaborative interactions and improve the ability of student teams to create novel, patentable healthcare products.

The effects of induced emotions on environmental preferences and behavior: An experimental study

Communication policies employed by policymakers and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) often appeal to the emotions to persuade people to adopt virtuous behavior. The aim of this paper is to study the impact of induced emotions on pro-environmental behavior (PEB). We design a three-stage laboratory experiment. In the first stage, we determine the level of the subjects’ environmental awareness. In the second stage, subjects read scripts that place them in realistic hypothetical scenarios designed to induce specific emotions. We implement a 2 x 2 in-between design by varying both the valence and social dimension of the four emotional states induced: happiness, sadness, pride and shame. In the third stage, subjects play a modified dictator game in which the recipient is an environmental non-governmental organization (ENGO). We show that the emotional states of subjects can influence PEB. In particular, negative emotions significantly reduce the average individual amount of donations made to ENGOs. We also find that the precise impact of the emotional states is more complex and appears to be dependent on individuals’ characteristics and awareness for environmental issues. For instance, in positive emotional states, men donate significantly less than women. In addition, a high level of environmental awareness increases donations in subjects experiencing shame and decreases their likelihood to donate when feeling pride. Also, we observe behavioral consistency for negative emotions and rather compensatory behavior for positive emotions.

Empathy-based tolerance towards poor norm violators in third-party punishment

Third-party punishment (TPP) plays an important role in fairness norm enforcement. This study investigated how the economic status of proposers could modulate third parties' behavioural and neural responses to unfairness. Participants played a TPP game as third parties deciding whether to punish proposers after observing the offers from proposers while behavioural and electroencephalogram (EEG) data were recorded. The proposers were of either high economic status or low economic status, and the recipients were middle class. The behavioural results indicated that participants reported decreased punishment for poor-proposed unfair offers compared to rich-proposed unfair offers, and this effect was stronger for highly unfair offers. Neurally, greater P200, a component involved in empathy processing, was observed in response to highly unfair offers (i.e. 90:10 and 80:20) proposed by the poor, suggesting that when the targets of severe punishments were poor proposers, participants showed greater empathy for poor norm violators in highly unfair trials. Taken together, these findings help to elucidate that the third-parties tend to tolerate the norm-violating behaviours conducted by the poor and provided further neuroscience evidence for the influence of economic status of proposers on TPP.

The relationship between swift trust and interaction behaviors on interdisciplinary and non-interdisciplinary teams in nursing education

The extent to which team interdisciplinarity affects trust and communicative interaction behaviors in healthcare settings has received limited attention. Undergraduate nursing students must understand and work with interdisciplinary team-based dynamics. This study examined the relationship between swift trust and interaction behaviors among nursing student teams and explored whether team interdisciplinarity moderated that relationship. In this cross-sectional, comparative, quantitative, descriptive study, students from a Nursing program (n = 63) at one university and a Design program (n = 65) at another university in Taiwan comprised the interdisciplinary group. Remaining nursing students (n = 147) comprised the non-interdisciplinary group. Self-report questionnaires included 10 items to assess perceived team swift trust (cognition-based and affect-based) and 24 items to assess students' interaction behaviors (constructive controversy, helping behaviors, and spontaneous communication). Canonical correlation analysis showed the teams' cognition-based-but not affect-based-trust correlated positively with each interaction behavior. Moderation models indicated that the interdisciplinary team negatively moderated the relationship between teams' cognition-based trust and constructive controversy. In conclusion, team members' higher perceived cognition-based trust is associated with higher perceived interaction behaviors, but team interdisciplinarity may negatively impact that relationship. Nursing educators may use these insights to improve outcomes for both educational and professional healthcare teams.

Conflict and interactions on interdisciplinary nursing student teams: The moderating effects of spontaneous communication

BACKGROUND

Recently, empirical researchers have observed direct associations between conflict and interaction behaviors within organizational teams. However, research concerning indirect links between conflict and interaction behaviors on interdisciplinary teams in nursing school is scant, particularly in Taiwan.

OBJECTIVES

The aim of this study was to explore the relationships among various types of conflict and interaction behaviors on interdisciplinary nursing education teams.

DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS

This study utilized a cross-sectional, quantitative, descriptive design. The authors collected survey data from 99 nursing students who participated in 18-week capstone courses of small interdisciplinary groups collaborating to design healthcare products in Taiwan during 2018 and 2019.

METHODS

Questionnaires assessed the nursing students' perceptions about their teams' conflicts (of task, process, and relationship), and interaction behaviors (constructive controversy, helping behaviors, and spontaneous communication). The authors used descriptive statistics to compare demographics, conflict scores, and interaction behavior scores for collocated and distributed interdisciplinary teams. A Pearson's analysis identified correlations among the variables and their components, and the SPSS PROCESS macro showed moderating effects of spontaneous communication on the relationship between distributed team and conflict subscales.

RESULTS

After confirming the distributed team experienced significantly more conflict than the collocated team, we found significant negative correlations between constructive controversy and both process conflict and relationship conflict on the distributed team. Another interaction behavior, spontaneous communication, had a moderating effect on the relationships between the distributed team and both task conflict and relationship conflict.

CONCLUSION

In interdisciplinary educational settings for nursing students, spontaneous communication may moderate the types of conflict that distributed teams are more likely than collocated teams to experience. Constructive controversy may be especially effective at mitigating conflict on distributed teams. Nursing educators may refer to these insights to improve outcomes for educational interdisciplinary healthcare teams.

Orthographic and Phonological Processing in Chinese Character Copying - A Preliminary Report

In the current study, the effects of orthographic and phonological processing in Chinese character copying were investigated using a data set extracted from a database containing handwriting data of 856 stimuli; the responses of which were collected from 100 participants. To investigate the effect of character frequency, radical frequency, and phonetic regularity, 151 phonetic compounds were selected from the database because (1) their corresponding phonetic radicals were all free-standing characters, (2) their corresponding phonetic radicals were located at either the right or the bottom positions in the characters, and (3) no more than 10% of the participants made errors when copying these target characters. The results of the linear mixed effect models revealed that after controlling for inter-stroke distance (ISD) and stroke number, the inter-stroke intervals (ISIs) at the radical and logographeme boundaries were significantly longer, indicating significant orthographic processing in the immediate copying task that radicals and logographemes were used as writing units. In addition, shorter ISIs at the logographeme boundary associated with higher radical frequency, and shorter ISIs at the radical boundary associated with higher character frequency and regular characters, were observed. These observations indicated significant orthographic and phonological effects in the immediate copying task. Finally, the significant phonetic regularity effect observed also supported the notion that phonology contributes to Chinese character writing and that the effects of central processing, including character frequency and phonetic regularity, cascade over peripheral processing during Chinese character copying.