Talk:Optimalism

Listing some examples would help readers to have a better understanding. (AMJonesPT (talk) 03:53, 20 June 2011 (UTC)) The article should expand and further explain exactly what optimalism is and what branch of psychology it falls under. This study of psychology is newer and has lots of new research studies about it. Providing some of the results from the studies and theories about optimalism will aid in understanding as well. Possibly identifying which psychologists are leading this research might be useful too. (AMJonesPT (talk) 21:35, 1 July 2011 (UTC))

Here are some other sources with information on this topic:

Optimalism vs. optimism
It looks like much of this article is actually about Optimism not Optimalsim. --MTHarden (talk) 03:07, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

I looked back at the previous article, and you've added a lot of information. I really liked your use of studies. There were certain points in the article that got repetitive, just watch out for that. Other than that it looks good! EYarde1 (talk) 00:08, 24 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Unless someone adds an explanation as to how optimalism is different than optimism, the two articles should be merged. Kaldari (talk) 00:46, 26 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Optimalism is different than Optimism. But the article has both concepts in it intermingled. In short optimalists act on the world to affect the best possible change. Optimists believe that the best things happen. Optimalism is a recent development in the newly developing field of positive psychology, and while the article as written confuses the concepts, optimalism ought have a distinct article separate from optimism. --MTHarden (talk) 02:36, 26 July 2011 (UTC)
 * It does appear that the vast majority of the sources are referring to optimism though. I think these should be merged or a source should be produced specifically explaining the difference.   WormTT   &middot; &#32;(talk) 14:19, 26 July 2011 (UTC)
 * All right I briefly rewrote the article and included some better sources on optimalism as distinct from optimism and perfectionism. Clearly still a stub but I feel that this topic is notable in that it is a new school of thought emerging from separate disciplines and proposed by prominent scholars in the fields of psychology and philosophy. I also added the page to WP:Philosophy --MTHarden (talk) 18:04, 26 July 2011 (UTC)
 * The article does not seem to me to match with your above explanation of the difference between optimism and optimalism. Also, a world that is "better than the available alternatives" is the "best of all possible worlds"; a world which is better than any alternative is the best (by definition), and the available alternatives are the possible worlds (to suggest otherwise is to suggest either that an impossible world is available, or that an unavailable world is possible). cmadler (talk) 19:16, 26 July 2011 (UTC)


 * Optimalism is a WP:NEO bit of marketing-speak for the same old "positive thinking" feel-good self-delusion marketed as self-help that has been enriching authors for a long time. Barbara Ehrenreich did a solid debunking of similar claims that "positive thinking" has major good results; studies that claim otherwise mistake correlation for causation (as in, people who are healthy and wealthy think happier thoughts than sick people with no money, therefore happy thoughts prevent cancer and make you rich). This is not a new scholarly concept (check Google scholar), it is a pop-psych buzzword that should be a redirect to the bio of its would-be but not-yet popularizer.   Sharktopus  talk  19:46, 26 July 2011 (UTC)
 * I understand (and agree with) the objections to the supposed power of positive thinking and to the self-help movement in general. I would also accept that the separation between between positive psychology and "feel-good pseudoscience" may be a fine line. However, because of the recent appearance of the concept of optimalism in scholarly philosophical works (although to be fair I don't know the reputation of The Review of Metaphysics) and the use of the term by an actual positive psychologist (not a motivational speaker but a Harvard PhD) I think this might qualify as more than a neologism. To be sure both the Rescher and Ben-Shahar references are primary sources, but professor Steinhart (although not yet submitted for peer-review) is secondary. I am not passionate about optimalism, my edits are in a good faith effort to include encyclopedic information. --MTHarden (talk) 20:04, 26 July 2011 (UTC)
 * I am sure you are doing your best to create good content, MTHarden, and I apologize that my comment was harsh. Looking at the latest rewrite of this article, I agree with others that optimalism describes a concept very much like what our optimism article already discusses. A dictionary would have different articles for gasoline and petrol; an encyclopedia will not. We already have a bunch of overlapping articles: optimism, best of all possible worlds, positive psychology. Those articles need some more balance, not a new sibling.   Sharktopus  talk  20:31, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

Merge proposal
After poking around on Google Scholar and Google Books, it looks like this term is not yet well established in either academic or popular literature. Indeed, it looks like 90% of the legitimate uses are from either Rescher or Ben-Shahar (the primary sources). I think that until this term becomes more established, our readers would be better served by a couple sentences in the optimism article, rather than an entire (confusing) article devoted to the term. If secondary sources start using the term, the content will naturally expand and eventually split off into it's own article, per summary style, which I think makes more sense. Kaldari (talk) 20:23, 26 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Support Not-yet-notable WP:NEO for a concept whose article currently has the name "optimism."    Sharktopus  talk  20:41, 26 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Support I don't see any clear explanation of a difference between the two concepts, and I don't see any of the editors above providing reliable sources that clarify the distinction and that specifically discuss "optimalism". (Most of the references in the article seem to be being used for synthesis. And, to be perfectly honest, positive psychology (the field that this term apparently comes from) looks like a pseudoscience to me. r ʨ anaɢ (talk) 21:26, 26 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Support The Gasoline v. Petrol analogy seems sound. And since I think I might've been the lone defender I'll go ahead and add a section into. Optimism --MTHarden (talk) 21:56, 26 July 2011 (UTC)