The Complex Dynamics of Wishful Thinking The Critical Positivity Ratio

We examine critically the claims made by Fredrickson and Losada (2005) concerning the construct known as the “positivity ratio.” We find no theoretical or empirical justification for the use of differential equations drawn from fluid dynamics, a subfield of physics, to describe changes in human emotions over time; furthermore, we demonstrate that the purported application of these equations contains numerous fundamental conceptual and mathematical errors. The lack of relevance of these equations and their incorrect application lead us to conclude that Fredrickson and Losada’s claim to have demonstrated the existence of a critical minimum positivity ratio of 2.9013 is entirely unfounded. More generally, we urge future researchers to exercise caution in the use of advanced mathematical tools, such as nonlinear dynamics, and in particular to verify that the elementary conditions for their valid application have been met

The Persistence of Wishful Thinking

Comments on the article by Fredrickson and Losada (see record 2005-11834-001). Recently the current authors (Brown, Sokal, & Friedman, 2013) debunked the widely cited claim made by Fredrickson and Losada (2005) that their use of a mathematical model drawn from nonlinear dynamics (namely, the Lorenz equations from fluid dynamics) provided theoretical support for the existence of a pair of critical positivity-ratio values (2.9013 and 11.6346) such that individuals whose ratios fall between these values will “flourish,” whereas people whose ratios lie outside this ideal range will “languish.” For lack of space in our previous article, we refrained from addressing, except in passing, the question of whether there might be empirical evidence for the existence of one or more critical positivity ratios (“tipping points”). In response to our critique, Fredrickson and Losada (2013) withdrew their nonlinear dynamics model, but Fredrickson (December December 2013) reaffirmed some claims concerning positivity ratios on the basis of empirical studies. We would therefore like to comment briefly on these claims and the alleged supporting evidence. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved

Positive Psychology and Romantic Scientism

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. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved

Protocol for the development of a tool (INSPECT-SR) to identify problematic randomised controlled trials in systematic reviews of health interventions

Introduction: Randomised controlled trials (RCTs) inform healthcare decisions. It is now apparent that some published RCTs contain false data and some appear to have been entirely fabricated. Systematic reviews are performed to identify and synthesise all RCTs that have been conducted on a given topic. While it is usual to assess methodological features of the RCTs in the process of undertaking a systematic review, it is not usual to consider whether the RCTs contain false data. Studies containing false data therefore go unnoticed and contribute to systematic review conclusions. The INveStigating ProblEmatic Clinical Trials in Systematic Reviews (INSPECT-SR) project will develop a tool to assess the trustworthiness of RCTs in systematic reviews of healthcare-related interventions. Methods and analysis: The INSPECT-SR tool will be developed using expert consensus in combination with empirical evidence, over five stages: (1) a survey of experts to assemble a comprehensive list of checks for detecting problematic RCTs, (2) an evaluation of the feasibility and impact of applying the checks to systematic reviews, (3) a Delphi survey to determine which of the checks are supported by expert consensus, culminating in, (4) a consensus meeting to select checks to be included in a draft tool and to determine its format and (5) prospective testing of the draft tool in the production of new health systematic reviews, to allow refinement based on user feedback. We anticipate that the INSPECT-SR tool will help researchers to identify problematic studies and will help patients by protecting them from the influence of false data on their healthcare. Ethics and dissemination: The University of Manchester ethics decision tool was used, and this returned the result that ethical approval was not required for this project (30 September 2022), which incorporates secondary research and surveys of professionals about subjects relating to their expertise. Informed consent will be obtained from all survey participants. All results will be published as open-access articles. The final tool will be made freely available.National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) Research for Patient Benefit programme (NIHR203568)

A reproduction of the results of Onyike et al. (2003)

Copyright (c) 2021 Nicholas J L Brown, Jan B van Rongen, Jakob van de Velde, Matt WilliamsOnyike et al. (2003) analyzed data from a large-scale US-American data set, the Third National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES-III), and reported an association between obesity and major depression, especially among people with severe obesity. Here, we report the results of a detailed replication of Onyike et al.’s analyses. While we were able to reproduce the majority of these authors’ descriptive statistics, this took a substantial amount of time and effort, and we found several minor errors in the univariate descriptive statistics reported in their Tables 1 and 2. We were able to reproduce most of Onyike et al.’s bivariate findings regarding the relationship between obesity and depression (Tables 3 and 4), albeit with some small discrepancies (e.g., with respect to the magnitudes of standard errors). On the other hand, we were unable to reproduce Table 5, containing Onyike et al.’s findings with respect to the relationship between obesity and depression when controlling for plausible confounding variables—arguably the paper’s most important results—because some of the included predictor variables appear to be either unavailable, or not coded in the way reported by Onyike et al., in the public NHANES-III data sets. We discuss the implications of our findings for the transparency of reporting and the reproducibility of published results.fals