Altruistic Behavior and Habit Formation

This paper examines whether altruistic behavior is habit forming. We take advantage of a data set that includes a rich set of information concerning individuals’ donations of cash and time as adults as well as information about whether they were involved with charitable activities when they were young. The basic premise is that if altruistic behavior when young is a good predictor of such behavior in adulthood, then this is consistent with the notion that altruistic behavior is habit forming. Using U.S. data, we examine both donations of money and time, and find that engaging in charitable behavior when young is a strong predictor of adult altruistic behavior, ceteris paribus. A major issue in the interpretation of this result is that the correlation between youthful and adult altruistic behavior may be due to some third variable that affects both. While it is impossible to rule out such a possibility, we are able to control for family influences that likely could affect lifetime attitudes toward altruism. We find that, even taking this factor into account, altruistic behavior as a youth plays a significant role in explaining adult behavior. This result applies to donations of money and time to a variety of types of non-profit organizations.altruistic behavior, donations, nonprofit fundraising

School Board Leadership: Best Practices

The purpose of this article is to identify school board best practices in K-12 education. Research suggests that school boards must continue to be actively involved in the governance of local policies and practices regardless of the size of the school district. In addition to monitoring progress and taking corrective action when school goals are not met, school boards must work collaboratively to create a vision, remain committed to the goals they set, and continue to use data to make educational decisions

Testing the Reliability and Validity of Tools Based on the Mayer-Salovey-Caruso Four-Branch Ability Model of Emotional Intelligence with Psychiatric-Mental Health Nurses

ABSTRACT Testing the Reliability and Validity of Tools based on the Mayer-Salovey-Caruso Four-Branch Ability Model of Emotional Intelligence with Psychiatric-Mental Health Nurses A lack of emotional skills may affect a nurse’s personal well-being and have negative effects on patient outcomes, particularly for patients with psychiatric-mental health conditions. Raising awareness of emotional intelligence (EI) among psychiatric/mental health nurses (PMHN) is therefore important. EI is a growing field in both nursing practice and nursing education but instruments to measure EI are costly or have not been validated for use with PMHN. The purpose of this descriptive correlationsal study was to measure the EI level of PMHN and to evaluate the internal consistency reliability and validity of two EI instruments. The study compared the Mayer-Salovey-Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test (MSCEIT) and the Self-Rated Emotional Intelligence Scale (SREIS) with a sample of 131 PMHN from three psychiatric nurses’ organizations. Peplau’s theory of Interpersonal Relations and the Mayer-Salovey-Caruso Four-Branch Ability Model of EI were used to guide the research. PMHN in the study had a higher mean EI compared to that of 5000 participants in the normed MSCEIT sample. Both the MSCEIT and SREIS demonstrated moderate to high levels of internal consistency reliability. Significant weak correlations were seen between the perceiving and understanding emotion branches of the MSCEIT and SREIS, but more research is needed to understand concurrent validity between the MSCEIT and SREIS. Because EI is defined and measured as a set of abilities or skills by the Four-Branch Ability Model of EI, the focus on EI skills and strategies through self-awareness can be an effective way to approach helping PMHN improve their emotional skill

Hawai'i's Women's Prison: The Role of the Kailua Prison Writing Project and the Prison Monologues as Expressive Pu'uhonua.

Ph.D. Thesis. University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa 2017