Customer Reviews

Optimism & Pessimism: Implications for Theory, Research, and Practice

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If you are like me and feel that optimism and pessmism can be both good and bad, you must check out this book! The chapters are interesting, thorough, and cover alot of ground. One or two of the dozen or so chapters can be a bit dense however. Nonetheless, this is by far the most balanced book I've seen written on optimism by some top people like Martin Seligman (who wrote Learned Optimism). It was refreshing to see that the cup can be both half empty and half full at the same time! (The Ying and Yang art cover is absolutely fab if you're into such things.)

I'm a freelance writer based in New York and I write columns for several national publications on diverse topics ranging from education to health.

This informative book, with chapters by several different psychologists, is a wonderful balancing of the one-sided "positive psychology" movement. One size does not fit all of us !! And this book respects and understands our individual differences. I particularly appreciate the chapter by Julie Norem, Ph.D., which previews her insightful new book, The Positive Power of Negative Thinking, about the psychology of Defensive Pessimism.