PSY 180: Lecture 15, Criticisms of Positive Psychology
(Ehrenreich, 2009)
Criticisms
From a few main sources
Julie _______________
Wrote The positive power of negative feelings
Barbara Ehrenreich
Wrote Bright sided: How the relentless promotion of positive thinking
undermined America
Also _______________! You’ve got _______________!
Do we go to far?
Quotes from a _______________ _______________ web site:
Don’t cry over anything that can’t cry over you
I can’t stop the birds from circling my head, but I can stop them from building a nest
in my hair
When life hands out lemons, squeeze out a smile
Don’t wait for your ship to come in… swim out to meet it
Positive thinking is nearly ______________________________
Can’t even classify themselves as victims or patients
Must be survivors, battling, fighting
People began looking at cancer as a positive
“I’m a different person than I was before it”
“If I had to do it over, would I want breast cancer? ______________________________. I’m
not the same person I was, and I’m glad I’m not. Money doesn’t matter anymore. I’ve met
the most phenomenal people in my life through this. Your friends and family are what
matter now.”
What about lost time, sexual dysfunction, long term weakening of the arms caused by
_______________ and _______________?
Even more extreme
In the book The _______________ of Cancer: A Call to Awakening
“Cancer will lead you to _______________. Let me say that again. Cancer is your
connection to the _______________.”
Posting frustrations on a message board
In response to an angry post about chemo, insurance companies, and “sappy pink ribbons”
The response?
“I really dislike saying you have a ______________________________”
“You need to run, not walk to some _______________ …”
Positivity is a must in the breast cancer community
Why the cheer?
_______________ of women attribute their survival to a positive attitude
Positive attitudes have even been suggested as a
______________________________ technique for cancer
Remember that positive attitudes are thought to strengthen the immune system
The dangers of pseudoscience
Stress can _______________ the immune system
Hans Selye “tortured” lab animals and noted an increase susceptability to disease
and is less healthy
Where is the evidence that positive attitudes (the opposite of stress) can strengthen the
immune system?
Support groups and psychotherapy (both things that would increase mood) show
______________________________ for survival rates of cancer
Conclusions are mixed at best
Another odd problem
The immune system rarely seems to _______________ cancers
It detects _______________ cells in the body to destroy
Cancer cells are not _______________
People with HIV (with a compromised immune system) are not
______________________________ to get cancer
Chemotherapy suppresses the immune system, but treats cancer
Some evidence suggests…
That macrophages (immune cells) may encourage ______________________________
That lymphocytes (more immune cells) _______________ the spread of breast cancer
A culture of “benefit finding”
Always looking for something to take away from the bad event to make it a positive
Denies the _______________ and fear- perceived by the patient as insensitive and
inept
Dittman (2004) found that women that perceive more benefits from their cancer
tend to face a _____________________________________________
Shofield(2004) found no benefit for _______________ in lung cancer
patients
What if you didn’t “survive”
Did they just not try hard enough?
Did they not have a positive enough feeling?
This can get depressing right- so let’s just not talk about it…
The desire for positivity
“99 out of every 100 people report that they want to be around more positive people”
2004 self help book: How full is your bucket? Positive strategies for work and life
The Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates that US companies lose _______________ a year to
the effects of negative attitudes and behaviors at work
Human resources consultant
Get rid of the _____________________________________________ in your life
Motivational speaker Jeffrey Gitomer
What does this lead to?
No one can _______________
Who wants to be the negative person that is _______________
Motivational speakers suggest that you stop watching the news
The _______________ _______________ _______________ was even created
More extreme ideas: The Law of Attraction
If you want it, so it will be
Based on “_______________”
Theory 1
The mass of the two objects (your thought and the thing you want) are linked
through something like gravity
Problem: _____________________________________________
Theory 2
Thoughts are vibrations (either positive or negative)
But vibrations don’t have _______________ or _______________
aspects to them (and I study sound waves)
Pseudoscience- continued
Theory 3
Thoughts are like magnets
A tiny bit of ______________________________; electrical signals in
the brain do emit magnetic fields
Michael Shermer “The brain’s magnetic field of 10-15T quickly
dissipates from the skull and is promptly swamped by other magnetic
sources, not to mention the earth’s magnetic field of 10-5T, which
overpowers it by 10 orders of magnitude”
Theory 4
Just cite _____________________________________________
When items get really small, they fail to adhere to normal laws of
physics
The problem: even our thoughts (neurotransmitters) are 100x
too large for quantum ideas to be applied
A brief history: where did the positivity come from?
The spread of ______________________________
Became popular in New England
“the task for the living was to constantly examine ‘the loathsome abominations that
lie in his bosom’ seeking to uproot the sinful thoughts that are a sure sign of
damnation”- Ehrenreich discussing Thomas Hooker (1982)
Led to people constantly working so they did not have “_____________________________”
Calvanism led to…
It has been blamed for the ______________________________ afflicting 17th century
England
“The main matter which terrifies and torments most that are troubled in mind is the
enormity of their offences, the intolerable burthen of their sins, God’s heavy
wrath…” – Robert Burton
The “New Thought movement”
A rebuke of Calvanism
God was no longer _______________
He was a ubiquitous all powerful spirit
Man was really a spirit too
The trick for humans was to access the power of the spirit and thus control the
external world
Increased in popularity because of ______________________________
What is Neurasthenia?
Major _______________ - sometimes paranoia
An epidemic of ______________________________
Ehrenreich’s theory
Calvinism focuses on how bad we all are
Supposed to work harder to deal with how bad we are
Industrialization in the 1800s and 1900s led to less work available for women
and some men
How could they work hard to cleanse themselves if there was no work they
could do?
This would make them _______________
The support
Positive thinking seemed to “_______________” neurasthenia
Possibly the first “evidence” that positive thought can influence/help health
Ehrenreich connects the positive thinking movement to the _______________
_______________ movement
Mary Baker Eddy- the founder
Religion and business
The religions found that preaching positivity was received better than preaching about
negativity
Many “______________________________” don’t discuss traditional topics like sin
and pain, and many aren’t held in traditional church structures anymore either
Business soon found this as well
CEOs soon surrounded themselves with “______________________________” to
keep positivity levels high
Differing ideas and disagreements are important for businesses
Ehrenreich suggests that this may have been exacerbated the last few years and may
have led to the _____________________________________________ that we are
trying to get out of
Other criticisms:
Remember H=C+S+V
Why is it _______________?
Couldn’t it be multiplication?
What are the _______________?
Ehrenreich calls is an oversimplified brand of pseudoscience to try to bring legitimacy to the
field
Happiness and Health
Decent support _________________________________________ - according to Ehrenreich
This conflicts with Myers view slightly
Said that health has very little impact on happiness
Even if the relationship is there, it is only correlational in nature
Does happiness lead to health, or does health lead to happiness?
Support for negativism
One study found that mildly depressed people live _______________ than nondepressed or
very depressed
Optimism likely to lead to an ______________________________
May lead them to take more risks
Realistic views from teenagers about their social standing led them to be less depressed
Pessimists were less likely to fall into depression following a negative life event
In fact, happiness doesn’t …
Help people with ______________________________
_______________, _______________, _______________ cancer
Possibly helpful with _____________________________________________
Some contradictory evidence in the field
Positive Affect and health
Possible link, but even the authors have concerns about the
______________________________ and ______________________________
Optimism and the immune system
Possible link, but some inconsistencies have been found
The big problem is when they are reported to newspapers and media, the inconsistencies
and concerns are _____________________________________________
Remember this?
Finally…
There is even some evidence against the Easterlin paradox
Money may actually lead to happiness?
Studies show that the _____________________________________________ may
influence the data
In countries that make more money per capita, people may be _______________
It is possible that other factors are mainly driving this, and not a change in
wealth
Life expectancy, freedom, etc…