The Power of Bad and How to Overcome It review – professional Pollyannas

We are living in a golden age and can defeat negativity, argue John Tierney and Roy F Baumeister in this complacent, reactionary book

Without wishing to sound too Prince Andrew about this, there are hotels in New York where I won't stay. One is called the Casablanca, and is extolled in this book as a fine example of how to stick it to the "power of bad".

By "bad", the authors don't mean moral or aesthetic bad, but what they call negativity bias. That bias means an unfortunate impression outweighs a good one; a financial loss is more painful than an equivalent gain; and that a hotel's many five-star reviews on TripAdvisor have no clout over potential customers who have read the single one-star review - particularly if it mentions rats' droppings in the bed.