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Biomedical subjects

M J Shamp

Publications and source records attributed to M J Shamp.

2 recordsLinked to original sources

Enhancing quality improvement team effectiveness.

Quality improvement teams are different from other work groups in their purpose, leadership, membership, training, procedures, and dynamics. To have effective quality improvement teams, health care organizations must focus on six key process variables, with particular attention to group dynamics. Quality improvement teams progress through the "traditional" stages of team development--forming, storming, norming, and performing--with a "special stage" of closing. Within each stage, there are two core dimensions--team process ("relationship" issues) and the project itself ("task" issues)--and critical tasks that need to be performed by the Quality Council, team members, team leader, and the facilitator.

Decision Making, Organizational↗

Some sexual, personality, and demographic characteristics of women readers of erotic romances.

In two experiments, 24 college women and 48 housewives and businesswomen in Atlanta, Georgia, volunteered to fill out questionnaires to investigate sexual, personality, and demographic variables associated with the reading of best-selling erotic romances. While there were some differences in the results obtained from younger and older women, readers tended to be between 25 and 35 years old (mean age = 30.6) while nonreaders were either younger or older. No differences between readers and nonreaders were found in marital status, income, or education. Measures of traditional versus liberal attitudes toward women's roles, locus of control, self-esteem, and intimacy were similar for both groups. Readers and nonreaders of erotic romances reported different motives for recreational reading (escape versus self-knowledge) and read different kinds of books. Readers reported having sexual relations twice as often per week as nonreaders and stated that they frequently used fantasy as a complement to intercourse, while nonreaders did so rarely or never. It was concluded that erotic romances provide a form of sexual stimulation for their readers similar to that provided by sexual fantasies and that they are a form of "soft-core" pornography that women find socially acceptable and nonthreatening.

Adolescent↗