Thesis (Ed.D.)--Boston University / PLEASE NOTE: Boston University Libraries did not receive an Authorization To Manage form for this thesis or dissertation. It is therefore not openly accessible, though it may be available by request. If you are the author or principal advisor of this work and would like to request open access for it, please contact us at open-help@bu.edu. Thank you. / This study explores the ways a small group of girls, ages 11-13, spoke about courage over a two-year period. Using Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics as a guide, the purpose of the present study is to discover how courage is present in the lives of a select group of girls, what their thoughts and perceptions are on courage, and how these thoughts and perceptions explain the operation of emotion and rationality in producing courage. This last question is based off Marcia Homiak's (1993) suggestion that Aristotle offers a way to explain how emotion and rationality operate together to develop positive, caring, independent and strong individuals. Differing from the predominant framework of Carol Gilligan's theory of an "ethic of care" in girls' developmental research, the present study uses and suggests that the practice of returning to the classical work of Aristotle offers a different approach to studying girls' development. The girls were interviewed in an effort to discover personal conceptions of courage, their thoughts on the relevance of intention, experience, emotion, sanguinity, and ignorance to courage, as Aristotle describes these terms, and how courage is present in their lives. The girls also performed an essay-writing task to clarify their thoughts. Several dominant themes resulted from this study. These included the participants stating that (1) a courageous act must stem from good intentions; (2) courage comes as a matter of experience or practice; (3) with enough practice courage can become a habit and thus part of your character; (4) while emotion is a precursor to courage, a courageous act cannot be done rashly and requires a degree of rationality to act in order to be considered true courage; and (5) their own recollections of acting courageously are in early development and thus far have been minimal. An additional finding was the degree to which participants found overly aggressive girls spur opportunities for courage. Implications for a model of active learning, character education, and further research on girls' development are suggested. / 2031-01-02

Moral courage captures one's ability to do 'what is right' for 'the greater good' in situations where doing so involves personal danger, risks, or difficulties (Detert & Bruno, 2017; Rate, 2010). Recognizing the organizational and social benefits of moral courage, management researchers and practitioners alike encourage business students and employees to engage in morally courageous behaviours (Comer & Sekerka, 2018; Sekerka & Godwin, 2010). However, we lack the understanding of how others perceive and react to organizational members' acts of moral courage (Detert & Bruno, 2017). This dissertation examines how individuals react to displays of workplace moral courage. I argue that although by and large people do respond favourably towards employees who engage in workplace moral courage, the extent to which such responses are (un)favourable is dependent on characteristics of both the actor (i.e., gender) and the observer (i.e., social dominance orientation). I conduct three pilot studies and three hypotheses testing studies as part of my dissertation. The hypotheses testing studies include two experimental designs and one field-survey design and examine both peer- and supervisor responses to employees' acts of moral courage. While the effects of actor's gender and observers' social dominance orientation on observers' reactions towards workplace moral courage did not fully replicate across all three studies, the pattern of the findings was generally consistent.

Moral courage will no longer be an option for Nursing Home Administrators (NHA) to lead ethically with the projections for the future needs of healthcare services and the governmental involvement in containing the costs of care in the United States. The estimated increase in the 65 year and older population over the next 40 years and the accompanying impacts necessitate that healthcare will need to make significant changes from the care and services that currently exist. This growth in population of older adults will also be coupled with increased disability and declining resources. Due to these trends, persons in leadership positions in nursing homes are going to be increasingly faced with balancing competing needs and the equitable distribution of resources. For a leader to be able to function effectively within this healthcare environment requires moral courage in making the difficult decisions that are being presented. Healthcare has always been posed with ethical dilemmas at times but the rapid changes and increases in need will not allow for occasional situations to arise that necessitate difficult decisions. These will become the norm for the daily operations for care delivery and the leadership of nursing homes must possess the ability to act courageously as an advocate for the patients and residents within the limited resources. <br>Like most other healthcare professions, NHAs are not proficiently trained to think in ethical terms, particularly on a day-to-day basis. In addition, there are inadequate ethical guidelines in the professional associations and licensing standards for administrators. Many NHAs do not possess the skills, knowledge, or character to enact moral courage. Without moral courage the residents and patients will not have the ethical representation by the leadership which poses a concern for upholding the best interests of the residents and patients who deserve to be treated with dignity and respect as valued and unique individuals. To think ethically requires education and skill development if not already intrinsic to the person. Ethical actions must follow through the decision making process and moral courage is the conduit for ethical leadership for the Nursing Home Administrator. <br>To understand these ethical concepts within the healthcare realm of nursing homes and the leadership perspective is to first review the background for this need for moral courage. The heart of holding a leadership position in any healthcare organization is to manage all operational aspects that provide and support the care of the patients and residents. The historical review of healthcare in the U.S. will look at the progression to the current implementation of healthcare reform which is necessitating decisions surrounding competing needs. This evolving healthcare situation is ripening challenges for moral courage in the forms of limited education in ethics, conflicts of interest, and resource allocation. The typical scenario for ethical dilemmas has been deciding between patient and financial benefits however decisions will increasingly involve choices among competing patient needs when each patient could benefit. Past examples are summarized which outline poor ethical choices among healthcare leaders which will further support an increasing need for moral courage in decision making. <br>In healthcare moral courage is rooted in providing care to patients in a caring manner. The relationship between moral courage and patient care will be assessed by defining morality and courage. Courage will be further explored from a philosophical perspective within its defining qualities of gaining insight, being motivated to act with courage, and to experience a need to help another which connects it very appropriately to care. The provision of care is the core function of nursing homes which can get lost or forgotten within the organizational complexities. The NHAs who possess the attribute of courage can utilize it through acts of caring. This caring nature can be exhibited by going beyond the self for the leadership and recognizing the sanctity and dignity of all human life which can be displayed in morally courageous decisions. For NHAs to act ethically, they must recognize patients as persons first who are in need of care. To come from the point of the patient is the foundation for decisions, ethically, in which the leader must maintain a human connection. The ethics of care brings together several points that are paramount to ethical decision making for the leadership. This theory includes basic principles for moral development and the relationships between the patients and the caregivers. Although the ethics of care is relationship-based, ethical leadership is still bound to upholding the rights of the patients which are supported by traditional ethical theories based in justice. The combination of the relationships with the patients, and being an advocate for their rights, aligns moral courage with caring actions. <br>Moral courage is the core of ethical leadership in nursing homes and starts with a review of determinates that contribute to the NHA leading morally. While there are contributors to strong ethical leadership such as values, competencies, emotional awareness, and accountability, there are also challenges that can lead to moral compromise. There are a variety of leadership styles which will be discussed along with secondary distinctions formulated on traits, which will offer differing approaches in enacting moral courage. Some styles lend themselves more readily to promoting an ethically grounded nursing home. Several models for ethical decision making will be explained which can be applied to morally courageous resolutions. <br>The actions and decisions of the leadership of all organizations define the ethical climate and their morally courageous decisions set the expectations for the rest of the organization to follow. The combination of written guidelines and the actions of the leadership flow into a level of trust. The nature of the ethical climate will be apparent through both internal and external means and in the value placed on the decisions surrounding quality of care and safety within nursing homes. Compliance and ethics programs serve as another level of support for providing positive ethical environments. These programs can offer nursing homes a constant mode of checks and balances to insure that an atmosphere is maintained which promotes moral courage throughout the organization. <br>A barrier for leaders to be effective in making decisions requiring moral courage is the need to comprehend and develop a level of competency to do so. Several strategies will be covered that include ethics education, leadership mentoring, and case study reviews that can be utilized for training and development purposes. Also models for assessing and carrying out decisions based in moral courage will be explained as other resources for leadership development. The author also offers a model of moral courage for consideration. <br>For the future of nursing homes moral courage will become a requirement in executive leadership for ethical decision making in the best interests of patient care. Given the demographic changes that are evolving along with the anticipated growth and resource allocation, the challenges surrounding ethical dilemmas will become increasingly problematic. Leaders will need to be tethered to a virtuous foundation of courage and care that never loses sight of the patient as person with the sanctity and dignity in all human life. As decisions are navigated through moral courage, which is translated through behaviors and actions of the NHA, they will necessitate that the leadership have the ability to operate beyond self-interests. Where the competencies do not exist there will be a need for leadership development and an even greater need for strength of character among the highest levels of healthcare organizations to establish positive ethical climates. The NHA leaders beginning now and into the future will need to balance the care requirements against resource limitations and financial viability in a more demanding way than ever before in this ever-changing healthcare delivery system. / McAnulty College and Graduate School of Liberal Arts; / Health Care Ethics / PhD; / Dissertation;

My study investigated the effects of abusive supervision on work and family outcomes including supervisor-directed and organization-directed deviance and spousal undermining. Using a moderated-mediation model, the relationship of abusive supervision on outcome variables was proposed to be mediated by moral courage and moderated by leader-member exchange (a-path) and work and family role quality (b-path). Two separate studies were conducted using a sample (N=200) recruited through Amazon’s Mechanical Turk and through relatives of students at a large US public southeastern university (N=150 dyads). Results confirm the effects of abusive supervision on work and family outcomes while analyses of contextual and conditional factors are mixed. Confirmatory factor analyses, factor loadings, and model fit statistics are provided and implications for research and practice are discussed.

Moralisk stress är ett fenomen som kan uppstå när det sker ett moraliskt dilemma på grund avatt organisatoriska ramförutsättningar kolliderar med yrkesutövarens personliga värderingar.Tidigare forskning visar att fenomenet påverkar socialarbetare negativt genom varierandesymtom. Däremot råder det en kunskapslucka gällande återfinnandet av fenomenet hosutövare av socialt arbete inom den ideella sektorn. Syftet med studien är att undersöka omoch i så fall i vilka avseenden utförare av socialt arbete inom den ideella sektorn erfararmoralisk stress, genom att jämföra fenomenets närvaro i både Sverige och Tanzania.Fenomenet har undersökts med hjälp av semistrukturerade intervjuer med tre olikafrivilligorganisationer i respektive land och har sedan analyserats med hjälp av tematiskanalys. Resultaten visar både likheter och skillnader vid förekomsten av moralisk stress. Bådaländer står inför organisatoriska hinder och riskfaktorer som orsakar moralisk stress sombegränsad beslutsrätt och personalbrist. Det framkommer också skillnader som kan förklarasutifrån den samhälleliga kontexten och dess förutsättningar som klientmotstånd och motståndfrån tillhörande community. En central skyddsfaktor för båda länderna är kollegialt stöd inomarbetsplatsen som både kan motverka och åtgärda upplevelsen av fenomenet. / Moral distress is a phenomenon that can occur when a moral dilemma presents itself becauseof a collision between institutional limitations and personal values. Research shows that thephenomenon has a negative effect on social workers through various symptoms. However,there is a gap within the knowledge of the occurrence of the phenomenon among practitionersof social work within the nonprofit sector. The aim of this study is to examine if and in whatway moral distress occurs among practitioners of social work in the nonprofit sector and tomake a comparison between two different cultures through examining the phenomenon inboth Sweden and Tanzania. To examine the phenomenon, semi structured interviews havebeen conducted with three different organizations in each country which have later on beenanalyzed thematically. The results show both differences and similarities regarding theoccurrence of moral distress. Both countries face institutional limitations and risk factorssuch as, limited right of decision and shortage of staff, that can cause moral distress. Beyondthis there are also differences that can be explained by the cultural context and its conditionssuch as resistance from the client and its community. A distinguished similarity in bothcountries is the available peer support within the organization that seems to both prevent andremedy the experience of the moral distress.

Jag vill med denna uppsats belysa frågan om man i Sverige bör införa en allmän skyldighet att hjälpa nödställda. Syftet är att undersöka vilken betydelse en sådan så kallad civilkuragelag skulle kunna få för samhällsmoralen. Genom att använda mig av relevant samhällsvetenskaplig teori om bland annat medmänsklighet, moral, tillit, normer och socialt kapital vill jag sätta frågan i ett sociologiskt perspektiv. Jag har genomfört intervjuer med jurister och juridikstudenter för att få deras perspektiv på frågan. Frågan har jag sedan analyserat utifrån deras svar och utifrån de teorier och den tidigare forskning jag använt mig av. Resultaten av intervjuerna visar att informanterna i allmänhet är skeptiskt inställda till införandet av en civilkuragelag i Sverige. Nackdelarna, bland annat risken att färre skulle våga träda fram som vittnen till brott om en civilkuragelag införs, tycks överväga fördelarna i frågan. Man kan konstatera att lagen möjligen skulle kunna stötta människors moraliska tänkande. Informanterna såg dock andra faktorer, bland annat goda förebilder och en trygg omgivning, som mer betydelsefulla för samhällsmoralen.

<p>This thesis studies public service social workers' opinions regarding their ability to act with moral courage as loyalty conflicts occur. The purpose of the thesis is to describe the social workers' experiences of their possibilities to stand up for what they believe in. We made qualitative interviews with five social workers in Stockholm. In an effort to pinpoint their experiences we asked them questions about what they want but cannot do and what is stop-ping them, what they do not want to do and why, aswell as what the possible solutions would be as loyalty conflicts occur. We were able to identify five different opinions on the organisa-tional cultures and how the employees' experience the extent of their actions. The social workers agree that at the moment they are able to alert a manager should a loyalty conflict occur and neither would want to further complicate the situation by working slower.The ob-stacles for acting in a loyalty conflict is connected to the hierarchies and abuse of power and personal impediments like their own expectations and dejected opinions such as "nothing is going to change anyway". When the social worker chooses not to act it is often because of moral values.</p>

This thesis studies public service social workers' opinions regarding their ability to act with moral courage as loyalty conflicts occur. The purpose of the thesis is to describe the social workers' experiences of their possibilities to stand up for what they believe in. We made qualitative interviews with five social workers in Stockholm. In an effort to pinpoint their experiences we asked them questions about what they want but cannot do and what is stop-ping them, what they do not want to do and why, aswell as what the possible solutions would be as loyalty conflicts occur. We were able to identify five different opinions on the organisa-tional cultures and how the employees' experience the extent of their actions. The social workers agree that at the moment they are able to alert a manager should a loyalty conflict occur and neither would want to further complicate the situation by working slower.The ob-stacles for acting in a loyalty conflict is connected to the hierarchies and abuse of power and personal impediments like their own expectations and dejected opinions such as "nothing is going to change anyway". When the social worker chooses not to act it is often because of moral values.

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A recent meta-analysis of Anderson and colleagues (2010) shows that violent behavior in computer games promotes violent behavior in real-life and inhibits prosocial behavior. A couple of studies conducted by Greitemeyer and Osswald (2010) lead to the conclusion that helping behavior in computer games furthers helping behavior in real-life. There exist no studies examining the combined effect of violence and helping in computer games, although this combination is typical for violent video games (Anderson et al., 2010). In violent RPGs, a lot of tasks consist of helping someone by using violence. The present study addresses this issue and bridges the current empirical gap by investigating if violent emergency assistance furthers helping behavior and/or violent behavior in real-life. To accomplish that, the role-playing game “Oblivion” was modified to create four different experimental conditions: (1) violent emergency assistance, (2) killing, (3) helping, and (4) treasure hunting. Comparing these conditions, violent emergency assistance seemingly reduces helping behavior in real-life and at the same time furthers violent behavior. The results are in unison with the moral management model (Hartmann & Vorderer, 2010; Hartmann, in press), which is based on Banduras Theory of Moral Disengagement (Bandura, 2002).