The 3-to-1 "Positivity Ratio" just might be bull

Barbara Frederickson, associate editor of American Psychology, accepts the errors in the maths that Nick Brown pointed out, but still stands by her theory of positivity.

61 yr old grad student debunks widely quoted research published by co-editor of American Psychologist magazine.  

Co-authored by Barbara Fredrickson and Marcial Losada and entitled Positive Affect and the Complex Dynamics of Human Flourishing, (2005)

The oft-repeated research claimed if you have 3 positive thoughts to any one negative thought, you will flourish.

It's been a mainstay "fact" for the the life coaching industry the past few years.

Suddenly a plethora of positive psychology books began to appear, written by eminent psychologists. There was Flow: The Psychology of Happiness by Mihaly Csizkszentmihalyi, who with Seligman is seen as the co-founder of the modern positive psychology movement; Authentic Happiness: Using the New Positive Psychology to Realise Your Potential for Lasting Fulfilment by Seligman himself. And of course Fredrickson's Positivity, approved by both Seligman and Csizkszentmihalyi. Each of them appeared to quote and promote one another, creating a virtuous circle of recommendation.

The student noticed the math wasn't just bad, it was bogus.   The 3:1 formula was used to generate the 3:1 results!   Story of the student's takedown of the research here.

Man dressing as mannequin

Sure he acts like he hates going shopping with his wife, but I think he loves it.  His hobby is dressing like the mannequins in the stores.

"Vancouver-based media specialist Steve Venegas turned his experience into a game."

oh, OK.  You win at media sir.













Bonus:   some other art you could put your 10,000 hours towards:

3D printed food

Cute Kitty ceramics

Bird photographer

biologically accurate yarn art

microbiology glass figures

"The service we render others is the rent we pay for our room on earth."

quote from http://www.quoteworld.org/quotes/5761#ixzz2qHaHcxoy
--

Wilfred Grenfell

Sir Wilfred Thomason Grenfell, KCMG (28 February 1865 – 9 October 1940) was a medical missionary to Newfoundland and Labrador.

Brought reindeer from Norway to Newfoundland to be used as food and as a draught animal.  Unfortunately they died.   Worse, they infected Canada's caribou with  cerebrospinal elaphostronglyosis (CSE).

OK I'll stop being funny.  He really was a great missionary.  Grenfell is honoured with a feast day on the liturgical calendar of the Episcopal Church (USA) on October 9.
(source: Wikipedia)

Elbert Hubbard quote

"A man is not paid for having a head and hands, but for using them."

  --  Elbert Hubbard

http://www.quoteworld.org/quotes/6828#ixzz2q0WQ6Jje

Bio Facts:
He made good money as a soap salesman.  He was a famous philosopher, an anarchist and socialist who ran an artist colony.  He and his wife died in the sinking of the Lusitania (1915).

His seminal work (in my opinion) was "Jesus was an Anarchist".   Excerpts:

My faith is great: out of the transient darkness the shadows will flee away and the Day will yet dawn.

He was a feminist: 

Out in the great world women occasionally walk off the dock in the darkness, and then struggle for life in the deep waters. Society jigs and ambles by, with a coil of rope, but before throwing it demands of the drowning one a certificate of character from her Pastor, or a letter of recommendation from her Sunday School Superintendent, or a testimonial from a School Principal. Not being able to produce the document the struggler is left to go down to her death in the darkness.

He was anti-war:

An Anarchist does not believe in sending warships across wide oceans to kill brown men, and lay waste rice fields, and burn the homes of people fighting for liberty. 

He was a Socialist:

Being an Anarchist I am also a Socialist. Socialism is the antithesis of Anarchy. One is the North Pole of Truth, the other the South. The Socialist believes in working for the good of all, while Anarchy is pure Individualism.

tweeting at famous people

Gracie Gold favorited my tweet yesterday so it got me thinking about how many tweets I've done to famous people, tweets you wouldn't expect them to notice...

Hey.  We all have our life's work.  My life's work is occasionally tweeting at famous people.

Acknowledged me!

Gracie Gold
Christopher Kas

didn't notice me? No problem, they get a ton of traffic and I promise I'm not a stalker.

Roger Federer
Patrick McEnroe
Kyrsten Sinema
Nicolas Sarkozy
Abby Wambach
Warren Buffett
Tim Tebow
Kelly Hogan
Erin Andrews
Chris Leake
Ashley Wagner


My apologies to Maggie, Iris, Preston, Miles, Jeremy Wilson, Mike Francis, and others who have acknowledged my tweets but I ruled under the really-famous cutoff of famousness.

Richard Pryor singing the blues, 1966