The Negative Impact of Positive Thinking

Since the 19th Century, it's been an article of American faith that positive thinking leads to health and prosperity. In recent years, positive thinking's become a "minor industry," promising favorable outcomes in the real world. But has it made American business blind to reality? Barbara Ehrenreich, author of Nickel and Dimed, Dancing in the Streets, and Bright-Sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America, calls it a "mass delusion" that helped cause September 11, the war in Iraq and the current financial disaster. What about the Science of Happiness and research on the brain waves of successful people? In this conversation, first broadcast in October of this year, we speak with Ehrenreich and others.