We propose that, contrary to popular belief, positive self-affirmations can be useless for some people, even though they may benefit others. They may even backfire, making some people feel worse rather than better. – Wood, et. al, 2009

Affirmations and Self Esteem

• Wood, J.V., Perunovie, E., & Lee, J.W. (2009). Positive Self-Statements: Power for Some, Peril for Others. Psychological Science, 20, 860-865.
• Robins, R. W. & Trzesniewski, K.H. (2009) Self-Esteem Development Across the Lifespan. In Current Directions in Adulthood and Aging, Ed by Susan T. Charles. Readings from the Association for Psychological Science
• The idea of latitudes of acceptance was mentioned in this podcast as being one of the reasons why people with low self esteem would probably not be influenced by positive affirmations. This idea is part of what is called Social Judgment Theory.
• My previous episode on self-esteem which you may find helpful was episode 9, "How Do You Really Raise Self Esteem? The Incredibles vs. American Idol"
• Another episode that might be of interest is the one in which I discuss positive thinking and positive psychology, including the ideas of Aaron Beck, Martin Seligman and Albert Ellis.
• I also have an episode on how some people use positive thinking to run away from their feelings

Self Help – When Scientists Go Wild…

1. Make Outlandish claims with no science to back them up (ex: can cure illnesses and lose weight and stop smoking, etc.). Remember that “Extraordinary claims demand extraordinary evidence”.
2. Depend on anecdotes and testimonials. Problems with this:
   • Self-serving bias: people take personal credit when things go well in their lives
   • Hindsight Bias: success is judged by looking backward: even psychotherapy can’t be confidently judged as having been helpful in this way (feeling better could be the result of maturation or simply cognitive dissonance)
   • Fundamental attribution error: we think other people are successful because of their internal traits
   • An article was recently published in Scientific American which sheds some light on why anecdotes and testimontials are so convincing. The article is called How Anecdotal Evidence Can Undermine Scientific Results and was written by well-known skeptic Michael Shermer. Here’s a quote:
     

     …we have evolved brains that pay attention to anecdotes because false positives (believing there is a connection between A and B when there is not) are usually harmless, whereas false negatives (believing there is no connection between A and B when there is) may take you out of the gene pool. Our brains are belief engines that employ association learning to seek and find patterns. Superstition and belief in magic are millions of years old, whereas science, with its methods of controlling for intervening variables to circumvent false positives, is only a few hundred years old. So it is that any medical huckster promising that A will cure B has only to advertise a handful of successful anecdotes in the form of testimonials.

3. Claim that "everything happens for a reason": or "nothing happens by chance". Problem: confirmation bias and hindsight bias – we look for information that confirms our beliefs.
4. Propose solutions to human problems that are too simplistic: “Happiness is a choice”, or (from the movie “The Natural”): “Losing is a disease” or, “Thoughts are habits – you just have to change your habit.”
5. Make unfalsifiable claims: “you succeed or you fail because of your thoughts” (prob: “you weren’t thinking positively enough”), “I create my reality”, “I create everything in my life.”
6. Use no references or citations: there has been a lot of research on what makes people happy. Why wouldn’t a self help book discuss some of these findings? Also, some books don’t give credit to the founders and developers of the concepts that are discussed in these books: Albert Ellis, Aaron Beck, or Martin Seligman.
7. Reference something that is not measurable: ex: law of attraction, law of abundance, law of prosperity, or refer to some “force”. The law of gravity: you can’t see gravity but you can measure it.
8. Make statements that can result in blaming the victim. Ex: “That person failed because he/she didn’t think positively enough.”
9. Make references to authority figures – the Buddha, Christ, shamans, ancient priests, Hopi Indians, etc., and claim that they would all agree with you. It’s not that such people didn’t understand some trughts about life, but is the author hiding behind these people – hoping that no one would attack them because that would mean attacking these famous people. Also, just because someone famous said it doesn’t make it true.
10. Give out ordinary advice wrapped around a lot of flowery language. Examples: “work hard”, “set high goals”, “learn from your mistakes”, “give customers more than they expect”, etc. – you don’t need to refer to a “law” or some “force” for this advice to work. It’s just plain good advice. Scientists prefer parsimony – the simplest explanation for events.
11. Have a “slick salesman” appearance: frequent requests for money or subscription to other services.
12. Mis-represent psychology: “It’s a fundamental law in psychology that you get more of whatever you focus on.” There is no such law.
13. Overemphasize the role of your thoughts. Your thoughts may not be the cause of your sad feelings. You may need to look inside and examine some emotional trauma, crisis or poor parenting. Or, if you can change some undesirable behavior your thoughts may change as a result. Or, your negative thoughts may be the result of a biochemical imbalance.
14. Claim that positive thinking can address serious mental illnesses like chronic depression, schizophrenia, anxiety disorders or PTSD.

Conclusion

• Why do we like self-help books? They give us a sense of control over our lives. There’s a lot of randomness in life. Bad things happen to good people. That can be a scary thought.
• It’s uplifting, it’s comforting to listen and to read these books.
• Humans are pattern seekers – we see patterns even when they don’t exist.
• We like to feel that life has meaning.
• Our biases (self-serving, hindsight, fundamental attribution error, etc.) lead us astray.
• Human behavior is multi-determined and complex
• Critical thinking is hard. There is value in being a critical thinker; in thinking like a scientist. Some self help books promote “mushy thinking” which can make you gullible. You’re less gullible when you think critically.

Recommendations

• Apply the ideas above and do your own evaluation. Lots of self-help books so have good ideas.
• Look for a book that has citations in the back or which discusses the research. You really can study happiness and a lot of research has been done on what helps to make people feel good about themselves. There is plenty of research to cite.
• Understand the limitations of self help books. They probably are not going to help with serious psychological illnesses.

Correction

My colleague professor Blaine Peden pointed out to me that there actually are more than laws in psychology than the two I mention in the episode. Some additional ones include:

• The Gestalt Laws of Perception (similarity, pragnanz, etc.): as Dr. Peden points out: “At best these are qualitative, and there status as laws is up for debate (but they are listed as such in many textbooks–both introductory and for perception courses)”. I can’t believe I forgot about these Gestalt laws. You can learn more about them in a popular video episode of The Psych Files called Lemon Slices and a New Face on Mars! Gestalt Principles at Work
• Emmert’s Law: a quantitative relationship regarding the size of an after image and its distance to a surface. Here’s a link to another description from wikipedia.
• Matching Law: Dr. Peden: Richard Herrnstein published the quantitative statement and it is supported by a large operant literature. More on this law in wikipedia, and on the Harvard University Press site.

If you like this list feel free to distribute it to colleagues, students, or friends. I only ask that you retain the information about this podcast when you give this document to others: click here to download the list in Microsoft Word format.

Click Here to Hear All My Episodes On Positive Thinking

Image via Wikipedia

Resources For This Episode

• Here’s an interesting article that appeared in the BBC News entitled, Self-help ‘makes you feel worse’. The article summarizes a study showing that the repetition of positive affirmations (such as "I am a confident person" can actually make some feel people feel worse about themselves. Very interesting study.
• Newsweek article (January 28, 2008): “The How To of Leading a Happy Life” by Jennifer Barrett. Summarizing the work of Sonja Lyubomirsky in The How of Happiness: A Scientific Approach to Getting the Life You Want
• Prevention magazine (February, 2008): “Joy – How to make it last” by Siri Carpenter. Summarizing the work of Fred Bryant, Ph.D.
• Time magazine article (February 11, 2008): “Happiness: Enough Already” Sharon Begley
• Sharon Begley’s Blog
• Against Happiness: In Praise of Melancholy
• Chronicle of Higher Education (January 18, 2008) “In Praise of Melancholy”, by Eric Wilson, Ph.D.

Social Comparison Theory

• Definition: whenever we are uncertain about ourselves, our skills, our talents, etc., we tend to compare ourselves to other people. Typically we compare to people similar to ourselves in some way (same age, similar background, belong to the same group for example). But we can make upward and downward comparison.
• Upward Comparison: you compare your self to someone who is either older, more experienced, more talented, more well off, etc. Comparisons of this type will probably make you feel worse about yourself.
• Downward Comparison: the opposite of the above: you compare yourself to someone who is less fortunate than you. These comparisons will probably remind you of how fortunate you are and will make you feel better about yourself.

Sad Songs mentioned in this episode

• Played at the end of the episode: the “Intermezzo” from the opera Cavaleria Rusticana by Mascagni. You can learn more about Mascagni and hear another version of the Intermezzo on Erik Bruchez’s excellent Mascagni website.
• “O Mio Babbino Caro” from the opera Gianni Schicchi by Puccini
• The Moonlight Sonata by Beethoven
• Tristesse by Chopin
• Lakme Duet (also called the Flower Duet) from the opera Lakme by Delibes
• Claire de Lune by Debussey
• Feel free to suggest other beautiful sad songs in your comments to this post!

Image via Wikipedia

Click the image below to see a concept map for Seligman’s Explanatory Style.

• Interesting interview with Jerome Kagan (psychology professor from Harvard) on the topic of positive psychology that appeared in Business Week

Notes on Positive Thinking

The three kinds of attributions we make are:

• Internal (or Personal) attributions: my failure (or success) has something to do with me (my skills, my abilities, my intelligence, my talents, etc.)

• Global (or Pervasive) attribution: my failure (or success) affects other parts of my life

• Stable (or Permanent) attributions: my failure (or success) continues throughout the rest of my life

Example: student fails a test:

A pessimistic student would interpret this failure as:

• Personal: I"m stupid, I"m not good at this.

• Pervasive: I"m bad at taking tests in general. I"m bad at all types of math too.

• Permanent: I"ll always fail at math tests for the rest of my life.

A more optimistic view:

• Not Personal: This test was hard. I was more tired than usual, and besides, I’m under a lot of stress right now (these are impersonal explanations that are external to the student and if true they can relieve some of the negative feelings and low motivation that can result from an off the cuff "I'm stupid" way of thinking).

• Not Pervasive: I don’t do poorly on all my tests. I’m doing well in History for example (the failure is in one area and is not pervasive)

• Not Permanent: I did well in previous math tests, so I know I can do well again in the future.

Even success could be interpreted in a pessimistic way (ex: student does well on a test):

• Not personal: I got lucky

• Not pervasive: No way I'm going to get that lucky in my other classes

• Not permanent: I'll never get that lucky again

References on the topic of Positive Thinking

• The article entitled Pathologies of Hope can be found in the Februrary 2007 issue of Harper’s Magazine.

• It was written by Barbara Ehrenreich. Click here to go to her website. She also hosts a fascinating blog which you can subscribe to from her website.

• The article on The Secret was written by Jerry Adler and can be found in the March 5th 2007 issue of Newsweek.

• Learn more about Albert Ellis and Rational-Emotive Behavior Therapy at the Albert Ellis Institute. Here’s where you can hear the whole program from NPR on Albert Ellis. This program is narrated by NPR’s Alix Spiegel.

• If you want to learn more about Martin Seligman, you can find his book at on iTunes about Learned Helplessness or learn about Learned Helplessness at Audible.com.

Quote of the week

This week’s quote comes from page 27 of the book “Contentment” by Johnson and Ruhl, which can be found at Amazon.

“Many people in our modern world are faced with the awful dilemma of choosing between unreality or being left alone. If you don’t play along with the excesses of our time, you risk being ignored or even tossed aside.”

Video of the Week

This week’s video about sex differences is called “How to Shower – men vs. women.