Social Advocacy: A Call for Nursing Action

The nursing profession has long held advocacy on behalf of a patient as a tenet of protection for the patient, particularly in the hospital setting. In more recent years, nursing has indicated that advocacy is a critical professional nursing function on behalf of individual patients and for addressing societal issues, a role similar to other professionals such as chaplains. This paper will reflect on the history of nursing ethics and advocacy, examine the current state of the research and literature surrounding social advocacy and social justice, and discuss implications for the future of nursing and nursing research. Particular focus will be placed on the preparation for the nurse to act as a social advocate and for nursing to begin overtly addressing social issues.     

Ethnicity, socioeconomic background, and psychosis-proneness in a diverse sample of college students

A sample of 915 college students completed the Perceptual Aberration, Magical Ideation, and Schizotypal Personality Scales. No statistically significant differences were found between African-American (n=209) and European-American (n=591) students on these measures, except on the Perceptual Aberration Scale (p<0.01). Additional analyses revealed that this difference was mediated by the subjects’ gender and socioeconomic background. The results of the present study are consistent with previous studies that have examined the mediating role of socioeconomic background in the performance of African-Americans on the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) and the Millon Clinical Multiaxial Personality Inventory (MCMI) and confirm that differences on schizotypy measures are best interpreted in the context of the sociocultural background of the subjects.     

Measuring Relationships between Personality,Knowledge, and Performance using Single‐response Situational Judgment Tests

We report two studies that investigate single‐response situational judgment tests (SJTs) as measures of job knowledge. Study 1 examines relationships between job knowledge measured by a single‐response SJT, personality, and performance for museum tour guides. Study 2 extends Study 1's findings with a sample of volunteers using a single‐response SJT about volunteerism. In both studies, personality was related to knowledge, and knowledge predicted performance. In Study 2, knowledge accounted for incremental variance in performance beyond personality, but personality added no incremental variance beyond knowledge. Results suggest that knowledge of effective behavior and knowledge of ineffective behavior are separate constructs. These studies demonstrate the validity of single‐response SJTs and provide evidence that knowing what to do and what not to do are separate domains.     

A Dilemma About Necessity

The problem of the source of necessity is the problem of explaining what makes necessary truths necessarily true. Simon Blackburn has presented a dilemma intended to show that any reductive, realist account of the source of necessity is bound to fail. Although Blackburn's dilemma faces serious problems, reflection on the form of explanations of necessities reveals that a revised dilemma succeeds in defeating any reductive account of the source of necessity. The lesson is that necessity is metaphysically primitive and irreducible.