I've read The Positive Power of Negative Thinking. This book is about defensive pessimism, a relatively new psychological concept by Julie Norem and Nancy Cantor.
This book tells us that negative thinking is not necessarily a bad thing. Defensive pessimist can reach their goals by thinking negatively and controlling their anxiety in a strategic way.
Concept of defensive pessimism is relatively new, but it seems to be received many attention. Papers on defensive pessimism by Norem and Cantor are carried on many academic journals, including Journal of personality and social psychology, a top journal in the fields of social and personality psychology, and have got many citations.
Not only in academic society. Many newspapers and magazines, for example, New York Times, SELF, and the Washington Post have also cited defensive pessimism.
As a negative thinker, I'm very pleased to know that psychologists begin to recognize the positive effect of negative thinking. Most Japanese also believe that negative thinking is bad.
Japanese edition of The Positive Power of Negative Thinking is published. But this book doesn't seem to sold well in Japan as in the US. Few newspapers and magazines in Japan have seemed to cite this book.
