Posttraumatic growth and social support in individuals with infertility.

Background: While research on the psychological experiences of infertility has focused almost exclusively on the negative aspects, clinical experience with individuals and couples facing infertility has demonstrated that personal gain can also arise from the struggle involved. This study examined whether individuals who struggle with infertility report posttraumatic growth (PTG), and if perceived availability of and satisfaction with social support are associated with such growth. Other correlates of PTG are reported as well.

Contracting and chaining to improve the performance of a college golf team: improvement and deterioration.

Recent work with operant procedures in sports has shown that feedback, reinforcement, and chaining can be effective techniques in improving performance. In many cases, however, a problem remains in getting the participants to practice the appropriate responses. In the present study, 14 college golfers were put on successive contingency contracts over three weeks to go through the Total Golf chaining-mastery program of Simek and O'Brien.