Working out ratios of positive to negative content in text

In an earlier post I wrote about how research by Barbara Fredrickson and Marciel Lombardo had found positive effects when there is three times as much positive content as negative content or more.  This applies to emotions and communications.  The positive effects include:

• more financial success in the business world
• longer lasting and more enjoyable marriages
• better work relationships, with colleagues and clients
• greater happiness.

So there is good reason for me to make sure that my book on transforming depression into happiness has three times as much positive as negative content.  However, there are challenges! 

The first is how to work out the ratio.  I've done this by shading in yellow all the positive content (about happiness, enjoyment, good luck, etc) and shading in grey all the negative content (about depression, unfortunate events, hard luck etc).  Then the challenge is how to work out the ratios. I decided in the interests of sanity not to worry about the neutral content!  I also decided to do two ratios - one for each section (as indicated by a new sub-heading) and one overall ratio.

The next challenge is getting the ratio above 3:1!  This may be easier for a book that's solely about happiness.  But in writing about depression, especially writing about personal experience of depression, it becomes a whole lot harder.  I'm constantly finding I have too much grey and not enough yellow.  Thus, even though I want to cut down the overall length of the section I'm editing, I find myself adding new material in order to get the ratios right. 

So it's challenging, but I think in the long run it's worthwhile.  I've read books about personal experience of depression that made me feel so miserable I couldn't go on with them!  (Not naming any names.) I don't want my book to be one of those.  Neither do I want it to be some kind of unrealistically positive book that pretends everything is positive.  As one of my favorite quotes goes 'into every life a little rain must fall'. So making sure the ratios are right seems the best way to keep the content real while not bumming out the readers!