The $11 billion self-help industry is built on the
idea that you should turn negative thoughts like "I never do anything right"
into positive ones like "I can succeed". But was positive thinking advocate
Norman Vincent Peale right Is there power in positive thinking
Researchers in Canada just published a study in the journal Psychological
Science that says trying to get people to think more positively can actually
have the opposite effect: it can simply highlight how unhappy they
are. The study’s authors, Joanne Wood and John Lee of the
University of Waterloo and Elaine Perunovic of the University of New Brunswick,
begin by citing older research showing that when people get feedback which they
believe is overly positive, they actually feel worse, not better. If you tell
your dim friend that he has the potential of an Einstein, you’re just
underlining his faults. In one 1990s experiment, a team including psychologist
Joel Cooper of Princeton asked participants to write essays opposing funding for
the disabled. When the essayists were later praised for their sympathy, they
felt even worse about what they had written. In this
experiment, Wood, Lee and Perunovic measured 68 students’ self-esteem. The
participants were then asked to write down their thoughts and feelings for four
minutes. Every 15 seconds, one group of students heard a bell. When it rang,
they were supposed to tell themselves, "I am lovable. " Those
with low self-esteem didn’t feel better after the forced self-affirmation. In
fact, their moods turned significantly darker than those of members of the
control group, who weren’t urged to think positive thoughts.
The paper provides support for newer forms of psychotherapy (心理治疗) that urge
people to accept their negative thoughts and feelings rather than fight them. In
the fighting, we not only often fail but can make things worse. Meditation (静思)
techniques, in contrast, can teach people to put their shortcomings into a
larger, more realistic perspective. Call it the power of negative
thinking. What is the finding of the Canadian researchers
A. Encouraging positive thinking many do more harm than good.
B. There can be no simple therapy for psychological problems.
C. Unhappy people cannot think positively.
D. The power of positive thinking is limited.