We’ve already established that publicly declaring your goals makes it less likely that you’ll achieve them. Now, at least one study has found that the power of positive thinking may not be all it’s cracked up to be.
Joanne Wood of the University of Waterloo in Ontario and two colleagues conducted experiments in which they asked students to repeat statements to themselves such as “I am a lovable person” — then measured how it affected their mood…
But in one of their studies involving 32 male and 36 female psychology students, the researchers found that repeating the phrase did not improve the mood of those who had low self-esteem, as measured by a standard test. They actually ended up feeling worse, and the gap between those with high and low self-esteem widened.
I think I can’t, I think I can’t.
