Positive Thinking – Boon or Bane?

Contrary to popular belief, positive thinking might harm you more than it helps.

Oettingen & Mayer prompted 80-odd students to rate the extent to which they experienced positive thoughts about graduating from school and finding a job. Following-up two-years later, researchers found the same students who indicated positive thoughts were less successful (applied to fewer jobs; received fewer offers; earned less money).

Heather Barry Kappes posits that positive thinking may ‘dull the will to succeed.’

More recent research suggests a possible connection between expressions of positive outlook in mainstream media and later results. Sevincer, et al examined twenty-one inaugural addresses of US Presidents. They found that Chiefs who “waxed optimistic about the future saw a rise in unemployment and a slowdown in economic growth during their terms in office.”

Oliver Burkeman observes that “Ceaseless optimism about the future only makes for a greater shock when things go wrong; by fighting to maintain only positive beliefs about the future, the positive thinker ends up being less prepared, and more acutely distressed, when things eventually happen that he can’t persuade himself to believe are good.”

What does this mean for leaders, especially vis-a-vis the prevailing confidence in positive psychology?

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From, Adam Alter’s, “The Powerlessness of Positive Thinking.”

References:

Oliver Burkeman, The Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can’t Stand Positive Thinking (Faber & Faber, 2013)

Gabriele Oettingen & Doris Mayer, “The Motivating Function of Thinking About the Future: Expectations Versus Fantasies,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology (Vol. 83, No. 5) 2002: 1198-1212.

Sevincer, et al, “Positive Thinking About the Future in Newspaper Reports and Presidential Addresses Predicts Economic Downturn,” Pscyhological Science (25.6) 2014.

 

Psychopathy + High-Potential = CEO

In The Wisdom of Psychopaths, research psychologist Kevin Dutton highlights some psychopathic qualities which are frequently billed as essential to corporate leadership, e.g.:

  • Persuasiveness
  • Beguiling charm
  • Focus under pressure

In stressful situations, most people become agitated. Psychopaths, however, tend to calm during “moments of heightened tension.” This emotional self-control may be one of the enviable qualities we should strive to emulate.

This comparison prompts us to consider: is psychopathy a good thing in business leadership? Should we strive to emulate its characteristic qualities or re-evaluate our rubric for a successful business leader?

From, Do psychopaths make good CEOs?

 

Hikikomori – a digital recluse?

In the March 15, 2010 edition of Newsweek, Devin Stewart reports that “the estimated number of hikikomori” is burgeoning. Hikikomori, as it turns out, is the Japanese term for “shut-ins who have given up on social life.”

Stewart seems to suggest that this is related to the miserable economy, where Japan’s massive debt has contributed to just 14% of respondents reported feeling confident in Japan’s direction, according to an Ipsos/Reuters poll cited by Stewart. But, what if the economy is just a single contributor among many? And what if hikikomori are cropping up across the globe and not just in Japan?

As I read Stewart’s brief column, I couldn’t help but remember a March 2007 essay published in Harper’s where I first encountered Internet Addiction (“I was a Chinese Internet Addict.”) That essay discussed the phenomenon, likely to be added to the DSM-5, in which individuals become so obsessed with the internet that they lose touch with reality (I’m dramatizing, but only slightly). What of the people who give up on physically social lives, and opt for solely (or predominantly) digital ones?

This bears keeping in mind. As social media develops and becomes more pervasive – as comprehensive connection to a digital world becomes more facile, what do we stand to lose?