Think again about positive thinking

Think positive. It’s the advice that spawned legions of self-help gurus and garnered “The Secret” a celebrity following and airtime on "Oprah." Want to lose weight? Imagine yourself thin. Want a better job? Believe you can land it. Want to find love? Tell yourself you deserve it. Through the power of positive thinking, you can live your best life.

Or not.

New research published in the journal Psychological Science suggests that for people with low self-esteem, positive thinking and the repetition of affirmations can backfire. Researchers at the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada, found that the repetition of positive statements only worked when reinforcing what people already believed.