Comments on: Kool-Aid Psychology

By: Tom Adams

Tom Adams — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 15:57:21 +0000

Seligman says that his optimism techniques should be used when the risk is small and the payoff big, so you cycling through the intersection technique obviously does not apply.

Seligman points out so-called realist are not as persistent as optimists in situations where success is unlikely but the risk is small and the payoff from success is big. So the optimist optimize their success better than the so-called realist.

These are very fundamental points in Seligman’s book “Learned Optimism”. If you have read his stuff how could you have missed this?

By: PR Miller

PR Miller — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 12:51:44 +0000

H = S + C + V (Happiness = your Set range + the Circumstances of your life + the factors under your Voluntary control) makes as much sense as F = A + O + G (Fruit = Apple + Orange + Grape). The fact that some people actually buy this drivel and think that reading it is going to make them happier is a good indication of: A. How dumb some people are and B. How desperate people are to feel like they have control of their own happiness.
Everybody wants to be happy, but happiness for many is very simply reaching a point in their life where they no longer have to have concerns and worries. I say “Good luck with that.”

By: Richard Parton

Richard Parton — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 11:32:34 +0000

I find the article fairly poorly informed. The key thing is that ‘positive thinking’ and ‘positive psychology’ are conflated. This is a common misunderstanding, and I think understandable, though perhaps not in a publication such as the Scientific American. ‘Positive Psychology’, as a branch of psychology, is the study “the strengths and virtues that enable individuals and communities to thrive”, as the article correctly cites. The word ‘Positive’ in this context simply means that it is not the study of pathology (as Travis put it), which has primarily been the focus of the psychology of the past half century. It is true that especially ten or so years ago, researchers we would now call ‘positive psychologists’ (at the time they would not necessarily have recognized the term) did associate ‘positive thinking’ with happiness. There are numerous pieces of research showing pretty strong correlation with ‘happiness’ – Hills & Argyle in 2001 found a correlation of 0.75, which is pretty strong, contrary to the above article’s assertion the link is poor or poorly substantiated. There are plenty of other pieces of research which support this, published in good peer-reviewed journals. More recent work though, including specifically by Seligman, have shed more light on this link, and it is now accepted that simply ‘trying to think positively’ can be unhelpful, in fact this is closely tied to the ‘H=S+C+V’ formula. Personally I think he is unfairly criticized in the article, although I can sympathise with the argument that reducing happiness to what appears to be a simple formula can be misleading, although this is especially the case when it is taken out of context. In the publications of Seligman’s where I have seen this formula used it is more adequately explained as a way of trying to sum up the three domains or groupings which do indeed ‘add up’ to make 100% of the factors that are known to correlate with and predict the ‘happiness score’ you would give in a robust measure of happiness – which also is relatively well defined, contrary to what the article above suggests (see: http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/16/39/38331839.pdf – this is assuming you can accept the construct ‘subjective well-being’ as happiness, there is ongoing debate about this). Roughly: ‘S’is your personality, genetic factors etc, aka your ‘set range’ and contributes around 50%, ‘C’ is the parts of your environment and living conditions, aka your ‘circumstances’ which affect your happiness but whose affect you are not at liberty to alter, contribute circa 10%. The final portion is ‘V’ what is in your ‘voluntary’ control, around 40% – so in fact they do ‘add’, and Seligman has published fairly robust papers showing why it is formulated in this way. This is also why he referred Ehrenreich to beta weighting, though personally I think it would have been more constructive to describe what he meant.
Anyway to return to the point, various pieces of research, including Seligman’s, show that (of course!) simply asking someone to ‘think positively’ is neither an effective therapeutic approach, and indeed there is a limit to which we can actually affect this (some of our ‘optimisim’ is bound up in the ‘involuntary’ areas of Seligmans formula, i.e. we aren’t at liberty to actually change it). Many positive pyschologists point out that ‘positive thinking’ may even be counter-productive, this can be summed up by a quote from Positive Psychologist Ed Diener that goes somewhere along the lines of ‘it might not be desirable for a person to be too optimistic, people may be better off when they are a mix of optimism and pessimism’ (sorry, I don’t have the exact reference to hand).
Finally I should say that although I haven’t read Ehrenreich’s book, I can very much sympathise with what sounds like pretty poor and outmoded practice, I hope that that clinical practice catches up with the evidence and best-practice that already exists sooner rather than later!
In conclusion I find the article misleading and poorly informed.

By: Michael Monterey

Michael Monterey — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 01:56:14 +0000

I think the main benefit of the article is zeroing in on the fallout and residue of “pop” psychology absorbed by the masses of nonprofessionals and dilletantes. Now, let me qualify that by adding that any professional psychotherapist or cosmologist who lacks thorough grounding in the essence of Tantric Buddhist psychology and ontology is woefully unprepared for serious problem solving in our ecocidally maniacal world. Kool Aid psychology certainly helped derail much of the great potential of the humanistic psycholgy movement for lay society, especially the New Age market segment and predatory Randian capitalists. We could quibble about the exact relevance and nuances, but Shermer’s insights and honesty breathe much needed fresh air into this increasingly polluted, imbalanced psychophysical field.

By: Henry James

Henry James — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 15:09:06 +0000

Studying people who are successful at life and love seems rational to me because emulating their behavior could bring similar results. “Understanding,” “faith” and “belief” are fairly impotent words compared to “Prediction.” Prediction, based on past events, is what winnows the wheat from the chaff in science (and life) and Positive Psychology is what I have used to: Never pay interest on a credit card carried for 38 years, never have children I didn’t want, never suffer “addictions” after decades of narcotic use, live successfully with a partner for 37 years, manage our small business for 25 years, acquire undergrad and grad Behavioral Psych degrees, conduct well rated training programs, live with MS, etc. – all using predictive skills based on Positive Psychology. It helped engineer these outcomes which were then executed with human behavioral principles.

My poor Catholic mother used to praise Norman Vincent Peale’s Power of Positive Thinking when I was a kid, but I read him and thought he was ridiculous because he didn’t have any real methodology or convincing data. I couldn’t have expressed this very clearly at age 12 but I could tell Norman’s book didn’t predict anything real and was bullshit. Positive Psychology, on the other hand, seems very data based in comparison.

I wish our educational system taught what might be called Positive Psychology Skills like Empathic Listening, Problem Solving (Individual & Group,) Relative Risk & Reward Assessment, as well as Logic and Philosophy, at every level. Kids would be much better equipped to communicate successfully and make decisions confidently than with the false pride of “Self Esteem” and the “Good vs. Evil” or “Disease Models” with which they are currently indoctrinated.

Dr. Shermer, please take a second look and make sure you’re targeting the right animal. “Positive Psychology” doesn’t look like “Positive Thinking” to me.

By: mike Duquette

mike Duquette — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 18:55:52 +0000

I havent read the books mentioned here but I would like to point out the ‘Secret’ books that are out are huge sellers and are causing people to believe suppernatural events can be caused by positive thinking. I think this is a dangerous idea and needs to be put in its place of absurdities.

By: Sarah Ross

Sarah Ross — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 15:19:49 +0000

Seligman’s equation IS regression-based, with each of the variables predicting happiness. There would be no need for each of the variables to be on the same scale. As Seligman stated, this obviously shows a misunderstanding of regression equations.

By: Chris Benson

Chris Benson — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 04:45:06 +0000

I have not read Ehrenreich’s book (yet – your review has piqued my interest!), but it sounds to me like she came to this debate with a chip on her shoulder. Picking on that “happiness equation” as if it were a mathematical treatise seems equivalent to beating up someone for saying that survival,S=f+s+c where f=food, s=shelter, and c=clothing.

I agree that realism trumps both optimism and pessimism hands down, but given and either/or, I try to look on the “Bright Side.”

By: Travis

Travis — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 22:23:06 +0000

I think this is a misreading or oversimplification of Seligman and the positive psychology movement, although I’ve not read deeply in that movement. While optimism and positive thinking are a part of it, it is not the type of Pollyanna-ish positivity that this article seems to imply.

Positive thinking, to a psychologist, is more like ‘balanced thinking’, unencumbered by excessive negative focus or negative bias. It is intendended to reflect reality, without the morale-destroying negative filtering of events that characterizes much depressive and anxious thinking. Simply ‘thinking positively’ is not sufficient to bring success or happiness, or cure disease – at least, I’ve not heard people like Seligman claim so.

The insight of the Positive Psychology movement is simply this: “Why should psychology only study pathology? Why not also give attention to human strengths and virtues, the attributes and behaviors that allow for success and relative contentment or happiness?”

I don’t think Seligman is nearly as vacuous as this article makes him sound, and Positive Psychology is not at all synonymous with blind optimism or ‘the power of positive thinking’ or any other empty sloganeering self-help movement.

By: John

John — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 18:26:45 +0000

If Seligman had been a bit better mathematician he would have written: H = H(S,C,V) Which means, in words, Happiness is a function of Set range, Circumstances & Voluntarily controlled factors. But it doesn’t state how each term contributes to happiness.

Not only would this be more rigorous (ie. ‘right’ in a math sense) it would explain why Seligman wasn’t ‘scooped’ by ancient philosophers. If the actual contributions of S,C & V to happiness are highly complex and non-linear and multi-variate non-linear functions this relationship would be MUCH harder to unravel than a linear combination.