Barbara Fredrickson Selections From Love Summary

The Way You Write is More Important than the Argument Itself

What is more important when trying to convince someone of your point: eloquence or knowledge? Some may argue that both are essential for a good paper or speech, but in the end, what matters most? The most intelligent person on Earth may be able to recall any fact, but if they are not well-written or well-spoken they cannot capture the attention of the everyday person. Psychologist Barbara Fredrickson, the author of Selections from Love 2.0: How Our Supreme Emotion Affects Everything We Feel, Think, Do, and Become, is knowledgeable about her field of study, the positivity of love on the body, yet she is unable to properly get her point across to the reader. Throughout her writing

Her entire article is about love and it’s meaning, yet she provides conflicting information about the topic. At one point she says “your body’s definition of love…[allows for] a clear path [to emerge],” while on the next page she writes that the reader “can think of love, or positivity resonance, as one of the more complex and recurrent scenes nested within the act of your day” (Fredrickson 108, 109). The essence of Fredrickson’s argument is about love, yet she cannot properly explain the concept in a clear way to the reader. The conflicting ideas of “clear path” and “complex and recurrent scenes” weakens the strength of her argument. On the same note, Fredrickson contradicts herself as she begins to describe how oxytocin connects you to other people. In an experiment, a brain scanner was used to show what areas of a person’s brain lit up when they were told to imagine something painful occurring to them. When these same people were told to imagine their loved ones in the same situation, the same areas of the brain would light up. The first issue with the oxytocin experiment is that her statements contradict her ideas of relating with others during times of distress. In her work she writes, “When you’re feeling bad--afraid, anxious, or angry--even your best friend can seem pretty remote or separate from you” (Fredrickson 113). This provides a conflicting idea to her statement that “your loved one’s pain is your pain” (Fredrickson 113). So one may ask: if you feel the pain your loved ones are feeling, then how can you feel more remote to those loved ones who are undergoing a painful or negative emotion? Contradicting information not only perplexes the reader, but it also makes the overall strength of an argument weaken considerably. As a writer and a psychologist, Fredrickson is responsible for putting more care in her choice of words to avoid