The Missing Link to Fostering Community: How to Use Circles to Enhance your Existing Programs and Services

The principles of restorative justice as a means of harm reduction and healing are fairly well-established. Many institutions have taken significant steps to incorporate restorative practices into conduct procedures. Such practices place new demands not only on institutional structures, but on students and the overall culture of connection. Without opportunities to practice these new skills of relating, our communities are ill-equipped to engage in restorative work when harm arises. This session provides an overview of some small steps taken at Loyola University Maryland to foster a community congruent with the restorative justice paradigm within existing programs and structures. For us, this process begins with student onboarding in the first year, strengthens within leadership training practices, and culminates with the senior transition into our broader world

Dominant male song performance reflects current immune state in a cooperatively breeding songbird.

Conspicuous displays are thought to have evolved as signals of individual "quality", though precisely what they encode remains a focus of debate. While high quality signals may be produced by high quality individuals due to "good genes" or favourable early-life conditions, whether current immune state also impacts signalling performance remains poorly understood, particularly in social species. Here, we experimentally demonstrate that male song performance is impaired by immune system activation in the cooperatively breeding white-browed sparrow weaver (Plocepasser mahali). We experimentally activated the immune system of free-living dominant males via subcutaneous injection of phytohemagglutinin (PHA) and contrasted its effects with those of a control (phosphate buffered saline) injection. PHA-challenged males showed significant reductions in both the duration and the rate of their song performance, relative to controls, and this could not be readily attributed to effects of the challenge on body mass, as no such effects were detected. Furthermore, male song performance prior to immune-challenge predicted the scale of the inflammatory response to the challenge. Our findings suggest that song performance characteristics are impacted by current immune state. This link between current state and signal performance might therefore contribute to enforcing the honesty of signal performance characteristics. Impacts of current state on signaling may be of particular importance in social species, where subordinates may benefit from an ability to identify and subsequently challenge same-sex dominants in a weakened state

Betrayal characteristics and self-forgiveness : the mediating and moderating roles of social-cognitive variables

The intrapersonal and interpersonal benefits of forgiveness are well understood within the psychological community. The study of self-forgiveness, however, has just recently come to light. Research has shown that the ability to forgive oneself for a wrongdoing is related to improved mental health, such as decreases in anxiety and depression (Maltby, Macaskill, & Day, 2001). However, factors that enhance the likelihood of engaging in self-forgiveness are not yet well known. This study examined the direct relationship between betrayal characteristics (i.e. transgression severity and victim-offender closeness) and self-forgiveness. It analyzed the mediating and moderating role of social-cognitive variables, such as self-empathy, rumination, and attributions. Participants (n=124) were recruited from introductory psychology courses at a mid-size Midwestern Catholic university. They were asked to write a narrative describing an interpersonal transgression that they have committed. Participants then completed scales assessing the degree of self-forgiveness, relational closeness to the person they offended (Inclusion of Other in the Self), subjective severity of the transgression, self-empathy (modified version of Batson\u27s Eight Item Empathy Scale), rumination related to the offense (Intrusiveness Scale for Rumination Inspired by Impact Event Scale), and type of attributions (modified version of the Relationship Attribution Measure). Results indicated that the degree to which participants believed their transgression to have had a sever affect on the self was directly and negatively related to the process of self-forgiveness. This association is also mediated by ruminative thoughts and moderated by negative attributions. Although the victim-offender closeness prior to the transgression was not directly related to self-forgiveness, an association became apparent when moderated by participants\u27 ruminations and attributions. Self-empathy was unrelated to the process of self-forgiveness

Nurse safety: How is safety climate related to affect and attitude?

for nurses, given the hazardous healthcare environment. This study advances the research on workplace safety by studying the process variables (i.e. job-related negative affect (JRNA) and job satisfaction) in explaining the relationship between safety climate and various safety criteria in nurses. Based on survey data from 326 nurses, our findings suggest that psychological safety climate is negatively related to JRNA, turnover intentions, safety workarounds, and workplace hazards. In addition, structural equation modelling indicated general support for a model in which psychological safety climate influences employee strain through job attitudes, including JRNA and job satisfaction. More specifically, job attitudes were found to mediate the relationship between psychological safety climate and turnover intentions, experience of hazards, and injuries. Safety workarounds did not significantly relate to injuries. The present study contributes to the ongoing improvement of interventions aimed at mitigating nurses’ injuries by integrating job attitudes into the safety climate–safety outcome framework.Journal ArticleFinal article publishe

Reducing Behavioral and Psychological Symptoms of Dementia in Acutely Ill Patients via Patient Engagement Specialists: A Pilot Feasibility Study

Behavioral and psychological symptoms of dementia (BPSD) are common in hospitalized persons living with dementia (PLWD). This pilot aimed to test the feasibility of an innovative model of care, PES-4-BPSD (a dementia unit staffed with Patient Engagement Specialists, PES). Non-randomized pilot feasibility trial was conducted, enrolling N  = 158 patients to the intervention unit ( n  = 79, a 10-bed dementia unit, staffed with nursing assistants, NAs, with mental health backgrounds, PES) and an enhanced control unit ( n  = 79, 40-bed medicine unit, staffed with NAs). All NAs/PES ( N  = 63) received dementia training, with completion rate of 82.5%. Overall, patients had ~1 NPI-Q (Neuropsychiatric Inventory Questionnaire) assessment/48 hr. 97% ( n  = 153) of PLWD exhibited at least one behavior. Average NPI-Q scores did not differ across intervention (5.36) and control (3.87) units ( p  = .23). Patients on the intervention unit had 88% ( p  = .002) shorter duration of constant observation. A dementia care unit staffed by PES is an innovative model requiring further research