About Pollyanna's Revenge

Pollyanna's Revenge is a book about positive psychology. Its name is inspired by the fictional Pollyanna, a eponymous character who always looked for the positive spin in every situation. Pollyanna has become way of referring to someone who may be overly optimistic in a difficult world. Perhaps naively so. As such, Pollyanna's Revenge is referring to the fact that our minds want us to be happy. The book provides multiple examples of automatic, non-conscious mental processes that help people sustain their happiness. In particular, the book focuses on the fading affect bias: A body of literature that finds that the mind is actually wired to savor and sustain the positive feelings associated with our good memories while allowing more negative memories to soften and fade with time.