Effective leadership in healthcare improves the patient experience. Self-awareness drives leadership development, competence, and, in turn, leader effectiveness. The problem addressed by this study was the absence of knowledge regarding how healthcare leaders develop awareness of their leadership strengths and weaknesses: their competence. The purpose of this postintentional phenomenological study was to explore how healthcare leaders develop this awareness. Twelve midlevel nonclinical healthcare leaders from 3 hospitals in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States shared their experiences during semistructured interviews. Participants and their organizations contributed supporting documentation of competence and performance expectations. Following Vagle's postintentional process, data were reviewed holistically and then in detail in multiple iterations. A reflective plan, including a postreflective statement, created prior to data collection and reviewed throughout the study, elevated and abated researcher bias and potential for influence. This plan also served to question the emerging themes and contributed to the trustworthiness of the study. In response to the research question, the necessity of honest and constructive feedback and use of self-reflection to elevate understanding of leadership competence emerged. The shared participant experiences elevated five feedback mechanisms of greatest value: quantifiable results, person-person, recognized capabilities, environmental/relational, and self. Adoption of recommendations for practice, such as an improvement of performance-evaluation processes or the development of a feedback culture, could contribute to social change through the development of effective healthcare leaders. Honest and constructive feedback, with reflection, contributes to gained awareness and identification of developmental needs.

Compassion fatigue is viewed as a disconcerting issue facing healthcare professionals in the clinical care milieu, and nurses are identified as the most susceptible population among healthcare professionals. The purpose of this project was to create positive social change by helping oncology nurses find ways to enhance self-care and self-awareness, thereby reducing the risk of compassion fatigue and burnout among healthcare professionals. This project investigated an educational module on compassion fatigue that focused on (a) identifying the occurrence rates of compassion fatigue among oncology nurses, (b) evaluating the demographic features that were associated with the most frequent rates of compassion fatigue, and (c) educating nurses about ways to decrease or alleviate this problem. The 5 participants for this project included oncology nurses working at a healthcare facility in east Texas. The project was conducted using a quantitative methodology with a descriptive design. Data were collected using a structured questionnaire consisting of 5 Likert-type items. The analysis of the information received shows the high levels of compassion fatigue among nurses include (a) staff shortages that require working for long hours under unusual strenuous conditions, such as shifts lasting more than 12 hours without allotted breaks; (b) wearing heavy protective gear that results in a number of adverse reactions; and (c) the fear of contracting the potentially fatal diseases and/or bringing such illnesses back to the families of staff members. The outcome of the project consisted of an education module for oncology nurses that provide information about issues related to compassion fatigue, and compassion satisfaction. Positive social change may occur by improving the quality of patient care and self-transcendence for healthcare professionals.

Inom ledarskapsteori skrivs det mycket om ledarens roll vad gäller organisationens framgång. Däremot finns det mindre skrivet om kopplingen mellan ledaren som person och dennes framgång i ledarskapet. Många människor hamnar i en ledarroll till följd av stor skicklighet inom det de gör men är olämpliga som ledare, många människor gör samtidigt ett fantastiskt jobb som ledare. Ledarrollen är inte en yrkesroll som går att kliva i och ur utan ett förhållningssätt som personen lever med. Ledarskapsförmågan går dock att utveckla på många sätt om ledaren har drivkraft och mod att vilja utvecklas. I grunden handlar det om individens självbild och självkänsla. Studien syftar till att belysa det personliga ledarskapets påverkan på det professionella ledarskapet och baseras på åtta samtal med människor vilka alla har lång erfarenhet av ledarskap på professionell nivå. Idag arbetar samtliga med eller föreläser om personlig utveckling och/eller ledarskap på ett eller annat vis. Resultatet behandlar frågor om; gott ledarskap, det personliga ledarskapet, kopplingen där emellan och utveckling av ledarskap. Ämnesområdena är kopplade till teorierna; Transformativt ledarskap och Autentiskt ledarskap, slutsatser är sedan dragna från det. I dagsläget ökar förståelsen för betydelsen av personligt ledarskap för ett bra ledarskap i arbetslivet, men forskningen inom ämnet är bristfällig. Ord som mod, människointresse och insikt är ständigt återkommande i empirin. Dock inte i teorin och är därmed faktorer som behöver mer efterforskning. / Leadership theory provides much of the manager's role in the organization's success. However, there is less written about the connection between the leader as a person and his success in profession. Many people get into a leadership role due to great skills in what they do but they are unsuitable as a leader, while many people do a fantastic job as leader. Leadership is not a profession that you are able to leave at desk; leadership is a lifestyle or a personality. Leadership ability can be developed in many ways if the leader has the driving force, courage and willingness to develop, in essence it is all grounded in the individual's self-image and self esteem. The study aims to highlight the personal leadership’s impact on the professional leadership and based on eight interviews with people who have extensive experience of leadership at the professional level, and also in one way or another work with or have lectures on personal development and leadership. The result is dealing with questions about; good leadership, personal leadership, the link between these and development of leadership. The subject is linked to the theories about Transformational Leadership and Authentic Leadership; conclusions are then drawn from it. In the current situation the understanding about the importance of personal leadership for the professional leadership is increasing, but research on the subject is inadequate. Words like; courage, human interest and insight are a constant factor in the empire, but not in the theory, this indicates that those factors need more research.

Comparative research on event memory has typically focused on the binding of spatial and temporal information in memory, but much less is known about how animals remember information about the source of their memories (i.e., whether the event is something they performed themselves or whether they observed it). The purpose of the present study was to examine how rhesus monkeys (n = 8) and 3- to 4- year-old children (n = 20) remember this information along with other relevant event features (object identity, spatial location, temporal properties and contextual features) in working memory. In Experiment 1, rhesus monkeys completed five different delayed matching-to-sample tasks to assess independent encoding of these five event components. In Experiment 2, the monkeys either performed or observed an event and then had to respond to a randomly selected pair of memory tests used in the previous experiment. In Experiment 3, children were presented with the same memory task, but were given a brief demonstration to learn how to perform the task. Both children and monkeys responded to these tests using photos and shapes (for the identity and spatial tests) and icons (for the temporal, agency and context tests). The monkeys demonstrated significantly above-chance performance on the identity, spatial, temporal and agency tasks. The children were above chance on the one component the monkeys had difficulty with (context), but conversely demonstrated difficulty on the temporal memory test. There was evidence of feature integration in both monkeys and children. Specifically, the children were significantly more likely to respond correctly to the second memory test if they had also been correct on the first memory test. Two of five rhesus monkeys also showed this effect, indicating that for these individuals, the features were integrated in working memory. Implications of this research are discussed in relation to self-awareness and episodic memory research in children and nonhuman species.

Schlenker and Leary (1982) and Clark and Wells (1995) each propose two highly influential models of social anxiety disorder with important implications for theory and treatment. In the current study, overlapping and competing cognitive components of these theories were tested with a focus on understanding the socially anxious (SA) individual’s mental representation of self, and its relation to the experience of anxiety in a social situation. Unacquainted pairs of non-socially anxious individuals (n = 61 pairs) and mixed pairs of highly SA and non-socially anxious (NSA) individuals (n = 101 pairs) participated in a “get acquainted” and a structured problem-solving task. All participants rated both their expectations for making specific impressions as well as the importance of making those impressions. All participants also rated how anxious they felt, how anxious they thought they appeared, and how anxious their partners appeared during the interaction. While all participants believed it was important to make a positive impression, SA individuals expected they would make an overall less positive impression than NSA participants. All individuals reported increased anxiety when ratings of impression importance were higher than expectation ratings (test of Schlenker and Leary’s [1982] model). While self-ratings of anxious appearance were similarly influenced by interoceptive information for both SA and NSA individuals (test of Clark and Wells’ [1995] model), for NSA individuals who had a high tendency to attend to publicly observable aspects of their body, the relation between arousal and self-reported appearance was particularly robust in comparison with that for SA individuals. SA individuals as a group were rated by partners as appearing more anxious than NSA participants. Overall, NSA participants’ ratings of a desire for future interaction with SA and NSA partners were comparable. Implications for theory, measurement concerns of key anxiety constructs, treatment implications and need for further investigation are discussed.

Schlenker and Leary (1982) and Clark and Wells (1995) each propose two highly influential models of social anxiety disorder with important implications for theory and treatment. In the current study, overlapping and competing cognitive components of these theories were tested with a focus on understanding the socially anxious (SA) individual’s mental representation of self, and its relation to the experience of anxiety in a social situation. Unacquainted pairs of non-socially anxious individuals (n = 61 pairs) and mixed pairs of highly SA and non-socially anxious (NSA) individuals (n = 101 pairs) participated in a “get acquainted” and a structured problem-solving task. All participants rated both their expectations for making specific impressions as well as the importance of making those impressions. All participants also rated how anxious they felt, how anxious they thought they appeared, and how anxious their partners appeared during the interaction. While all participants believed it was important to make a positive impression, SA individuals expected they would make an overall less positive impression than NSA participants. All individuals reported increased anxiety when ratings of impression importance were higher than expectation ratings (test of Schlenker and Leary’s [1982] model). While self-ratings of anxious appearance were similarly influenced by interoceptive information for both SA and NSA individuals (test of Clark and Wells’ [1995] model), for NSA individuals who had a high tendency to attend to publicly observable aspects of their body, the relation between arousal and self-reported appearance was particularly robust in comparison with that for SA individuals. SA individuals as a group were rated by partners as appearing more anxious than NSA participants. Overall, NSA participants’ ratings of a desire for future interaction with SA and NSA partners were comparable. Implications for theory, measurement concerns of key anxiety constructs, treatment implications and need for further investigation are discussed.

The purpose of this dissertation was to examine aspects of self-awareness in patients with brain injuries: In Study 1 two measures for the assessment of self-awareness were compared (i.e., questionnaire approach vs. predicted performance method). Study 2 analyses the relationship between awareness, goal setting ability (i.e., the ability to set realistic goals), and outcome in the rehabilitation setting as well as in an experimental task. / Ziel dieser Dissertation war es, Aspekte des Störungsbewusstseins von Patienten mit Hirnschädigungen zu untersuchen: In Studie 1 wurden zwei Methoden zu Erfassung/Messung des Störungsbewusstseins verglichen (Fragebogen-Methode und Leistungsvorhersage-Methode). In Studie 2 wurde der Zusammenhang zwischen Störungsbewusstsein, realistischen Zielsetzungen, und Rehabilitationserfolg sowohl im Rehabilitationskontext als auch in einer experimentellen Aufgabe untersucht.

INTRODUCTION Relevance of the scientific problem: Individual experience of teachers, perceiving one’s self as an instance of the subject’s activities in the teacher career is becoming one of the pre-conditions for professional development. However, modern educology still targets at general requirements for a teacher’s work rather than his/her professional individuality. It is impossible to realise the new paradigm of humanistic education without the quintessence of perception of an educator’s personality, aim, content and characteristics of professional development. All this cannot proceed without an expression of professional individuality, which realises the humanistic potential of educating. Nevertheless, solving of such problems in educology still encounters a number of obstacles: the boundaries, fields and goals of teacher activities, the realisation of which depend on a teacher’s individuality are not sufficiently defined, because everything what is individual is referred to as a common element. A statement of Ušinskas (1983) that in teaching everything is based on a personality and “only a personality is capable/may educate a personality” also remains declarative (1983, p. 14). Processes of individual professional becoming of college teachers have not been researched, but they continuously foster interest of scholars as there is a growing tendency to assess a teacher in terms of his/her individuality, uniqueness and individual style (Pukelis, 2004; Laužackas, 2003... [to full text]

Relevance of the scientific problem: Individual experience of teachers, perceiving one’s self as an instance of the subject’s activities in the teacher career is becoming one of the pre-conditions for professional development. However, modern educology still targets at general requirements for a teacher’s work rather than his/her professional individuality. It is impossible to realise the new paradigm of humanistic education without the quintessence of perception of an educator’s personality, aim, content and characteristics of professional development. All this cannot proceed without an expression of professional individuality, which realises the humanistic potential of educating. Nevertheless, solving of such problems in educology still encounters a number of obstacles: the boundaries, fields and goals of teacher activities, the realisation of which depend on a teacher’s individuality are not sufficiently defined, because everything what is individual is referred to as a common element. A statement of Ušinskas (1983) that in teaching everything is based on a personality and “only a personality is capable/may educate a personality” also remains declarative (1983, p. 14). Processes of individual professional becoming of college teachers have not been researched, but they continuously foster interest of scholars as there is a growing tendency to assess a teacher in terms of his/her individuality, uniqueness and individual style (Pukelis, 2004; Laužackas, 2003; Leontjev, 1999... [to full text]

By asking, “Is Circle (also known as “council”) an effective methodology for environmental education?”, this thesis explores the significance of creating Circles of learning as a communication process with implications for environmental education and personal transformation. From a phenomenological perspective, I have positioned my research as an autobiographical narrative of what it is to be both researcher (observer) and research instrument (facilitator & participant) as well as creating the conditions for a case study of Circle participants. Further, I held interviews with Circle practitioners and instructors. The premise of Circle is to create an intentional listening space for each person to have a voice and be witnessed as they tell their stories. This paper provides some insight here, and explores how Circle can become an effective means of exploring ecological identity, self-awareness, relationship-building, a sense of community, emotional connections to nature and a sense of wonder within the process.