Sensei: Learning and Performance

Did Positive Thinking Cause the Recession?

sales

A few weekends ago I happened across an article called Positive thinking is positively bad for you so always look on the glum slide of life by Virginia Ironside.  In it she gave a positive review for a book entitled Bright-sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America.  The author is Barbara Ehrenreich, an American journalist, socialist and political activist.

I haven’t got a chance to read the book yet so I’ll try to keep my mind open until I do.  All I can do is comment on the article by Ironside and some other stuff I’ve read on the Internet.  What I do know is that Ehrenreich claims overly positive thinking had a part to play in the recent financial collapse.  More tellingly, she is happy to lump together academics like Martin Seligman with health-and-wealth prosperity preachers like Joel Osteem and New Agers like Oprah Winfrey.

Anyway its an interesting debate.  Here are some other articles for those who want to read around the topic.

Singin’ in the Wane: The positive thinking movement — panacea or national addiction?

Bright-sided: Is feel-good actually bad?

A personal trainer for your happiness

Learned Optimism: How To Change Your Mind And Your Life

Image credit: gwydionwilliams.

Related Posts with Thumbnails

Last 5 posts by Allen Baird, Partner

  • Delicious
  • Twitter
  • Digg
  • Ping
  • Technorati Favorites
  • StumbleUpon
  • Facebook
  • FriendFeed
  • Bebo
  • Reddit
  • Windows Live Spaces
  • Tumblr
  • Slashdot
  • Squidoo
  • Windows Live Favorites
  • LinkedIn
  • Yahoo Mail
  • Yahoo Messenger
  • Hotmail
  • Gmail
  • MySpace
  • Google Bookmarks
  • Share/Bookmark

You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

Trackbacks / Pingbacks