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Look what they've done to my song, Ma.
Look what they've done to my song.
Well it's the only thing I could do half right
And it's turning out all wrong, Ma.
Look what they've done to my song.
--Melanie Safka (1971)
When positive psychology first began, some of us clucked our tongues about the threat posed by bad company, meaning people with various intentions, bad or good, who might be attracted by the positive but indifferent to the science. Positive psychology has since grown, and I believe that its bad company has also proliferated.
What I do here is update my worries about bad company by expanding the idea and proposing a taxonomy. In his recent writing, Howard Gardner suggested that the ability to taxonomize - to categorize the world - was one of the distinct multiple intelligences. Linnaeus and Gardner himself certainly qualify as geniuses at creating taxonomies. Whether I belong in that select group is doubtful, but here goes.
Within the general category of positive psychology's bad company are what I call:
• The stupid company - those who pay attention to the science of positive psychology but dumb it down.
• The mean company - those in and out of psychology who mount a relentless attack on positive psychology and more generally on anything positive (e.g., happiness, optimism). Even when their criticisms are correct, I am always confused about what they are urging on the rest of us. In any event, I wish they would actually read what positive psychologists - meaning the non-stupid ones - have written about the need for a balanced psychology that acknowledges and studies what goes right as well as what goes wrong.
• The one-trick-pony company - those who seize on a single positive psychology exercise or intervention (e.g., counting one's blessings, identifying and using one's character strengths) and suggest it as THE cure for all that ails us.
• Ironically, the happy company - those who acknowledge that positive psychology is not simply happiology but then write books only about happiness and how to achieve it. I realize that "happiness" in a book title translates into sales (check out amazon.com sales ranks for evidence), but why are positive psychologists letting the marketplace dictate the public face of the field?
• And most insidiously, the complacent company - those who treat positive psychology - its theories and findings - as a done deal. Where are the new topics worthy of study? Where are the new applications and interventions?
When I give a lecture on the future of positive psychology, I usually end with this quote: "I feel uneasy about the company I'm with ... religionists, philosophers, yearners, utopians, Pollyannas, etc., rather than the tough-minded scientists I admire so much more." Then I ask who wrote it. The answer is Abraham Maslow, uneasy founder of humanistic psychology. Maslow distinguished safety science, a complacent approach to inquiry, and growth science, a bold approach willing to ask new questions and to be wrong. Positive psychology needs to be a growth science, and the bad company does not help.
