Alison Beard, in an article in the
Harvard Business Review, briefly describes several recent critiques of positive thinking, points out that
Martin Seligman, the father of positive psychology, said that the feeling of happiness is only one element of a fulfilling life, and goes on to say "Where most of the happiness gurus go wrong is insisting that daily if not constant happiness is a means to long-term fulfillment. For some glass-half-full optimists, that may be true. They can “stumble on happiness” the way the field's most prominent researcher, Dan Gilbert, suggests; or gain “the happiness advantage” that the professor-turned-consultant Shawn Achor talks about; or “broadcast happiness,” as Michelle Gielan, Achor's wife and partner at the firm GoodThink, recommends in her new book. As I said, it apparently takes just a few simple tricks. But for the rest of us, that much cheer feels forced, so it's unlikely to help us mold meaningful relationships or craft the perfect career." Poor Ash's Almanack states "My much bigger disagreement is with Achor’s anti-defensive-pessimism stance: for all the good that Before Happiness did me (and believe me, it was a lot), abandoning defensive pessimism was a painful and emotionally damaging mistake. I explain my contrasting viewpoint pretty extensively in the notes, but simply put, I think Achor creates a
false dichotomy between having a growth mindset and approaching the world with a “positive mental attitude” (as Gonzales might put it), and using a margin of safety to overcome loss aversion." ==References==