The author references the work of Barbara Frederickson, a psychologist who had a very popular theory on "Positivity Ratios", a theory that was in part justified by misuse of differential equations from fluid dynamics, and was thoroughly debunked in "The Complex Dynamics of Wishful Thinking: The Critical Positivity Ratio" [1].
There have been several good summaries of this paper and the work that led up to it over the past few months (my favorite being this [2] one).
I'd take this author's view with a grain of salt (or something stronger).
There have been several good summaries of this paper and the work that led up to it over the past few months (my favorite being this [2] one).
I'd take this author's view with a grain of salt (or something stronger).
[1] http://www.physics.nyu.edu/sokal/complex_dynamics_final_clea...
[2] http://narrative.ly/pieces-of-mind/nick-brown-smelled-bull/