Positivity , by Barbara Fredrickson

"Prioritizing positivity: An effective approach to pursuing happiness?": Correction to Catalino, Algoe, & Fredrickson (2014).

In the article “Prioritizing Positivity: An Effective Approach to Pursuing Happiness?” by Lahnna I. Catalino, Sara B. Algoe, and Barbara L. Fredrickson (Emotion, 2014, Vol. 14, No. 6, pp. 1155– 1161. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0038029), there was an error in the first paragraph of the Materials subsection, “Prioritizing positivity.” from the Method section. The first paragraph, the 11th line sh...

American Psychologist Updated Thinking on Positivity Ratios

Prioritizing Positivity: An Effective Approach to Pursuing Happiness?

A decade of research reveals the benefits of positive emotions for mental and physical health; however, recent empirical work suggests the explicit pursuit of happiness may backfire. The present study hypothesized that the pursuit of happiness is not inherently self-defeating; in particular, individuals who seek positivity, as exemplified by how they make decisions about how to organize their d...

The complex dynamics of wishful thinking: the critical positivity ratio.

We examine critically the claims made by Fredrickson and Losada (2005) concerning the construct known as the "positivity ratio." We find no theoretical or empirical justification for the use of differential equations drawn from fluid dynamics, a subfield of physics, to describe changes in human emotions over time; furthermore, we demonstrate that the purported application of these equations con...

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