Positive psychology and romantic scientism

Abstract

Replies to the comments of Nickerson (see record 2014-36500-010), Guastello (see record 2014-36500-011), Musau (see record 2014-36500-013), Hämäläinen et al. (see record 2014-36500-014), and Lefebvre and Schwartz (see record 2014-36500-015) on the authors article (see record 2013-24609-001). Fredrickson and Losada's (2005) article was the subject of over 350 scholarly citations before our critique (Brown et al., 2013) appeared, and its principal "conclusions" have been featured in many lectures and public presentations by senior members of the positive psychology research community, although its deficiencies ought to have been visible to anyone with a modest grasp of mathematics and a little curiosity. Unfortunately- because human behavior is, after all, complex and difficult to understand-we have no way of knowing whether the fact that it took so long for these deficiencies to be recognized was due to an unwarranted degree of optimism about the reliability of the peer-review process, a reluctance to make waves in the face of powerful interests, a general lack of critical thinking within positive psychology, or some other factor. We hope that our revelation of the problems with the critical positivity ratio ultimately demonstrates the success of science as a self-correcting endeavor; however, we would have greatly preferred it if our work had not been necessary in the first place.