Psych at Work

“Where Barbara Ehrenreich and I agree – we’re both trying to separate wheat from chaff. We just differ on what we think is wheat and what we think is chaff.”

—Positive psychology researcher Martin E.P. Seligman, PhD, on his differences with Barbara Ehrenreich, author of “Bright-Sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America.” Ehrenreich says positive thinking does little good in the long run and can even do harm.
The New York Times, Dec. 30

“Although our minds are in the right places, and we may truly believe we are not prejudiced, our hearts aren’t quite there yet.”

—Yale University’s John Dovidio, PhD, on new research that suggests TV show characters often express subtle racial biases that shape viewer attitudes.
Time, Dec. 17

"Most people aren’t alarmed by climate change — and that may be a holdover from early days of human evolution when 'things in the future didn’t matter. It was whether the enemy was just around the corner.'”

—Robert Gifford, PhD, on how global warming is a tough sell.
Associated Press, Dec. 17