Marcial Losada (1939–2020) was a Chilean psychologist, consultant, and former director of the Center for Advanced Research (CFAR) in Ann Arbor, Michigan. He is known for his work in
academia
An academy (Attic Greek: Ἀκαδήμεια; Koine Greek Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of secondary or tertiary higher learning (and generally also research or honorary membership). The name traces back to Plato's school of philosophy, ...
and business focusing on the development of "high performance teams", and having participated in partially retracted collaborative work with Barbara Fredrickson of the
University of North Carolina
The University of North Carolina is the multi-campus public university system for the state of North Carolina. Overseeing the state's 16 public universities and the NC School of Science and Mathematics, it is commonly referred to as the UNC Sy ...
, a retraction for which he has been assigned the culpability.
Early life and education
Marcial Francisco Losada was born in 1939 in Chile. He received a Ph.D. in
organizational psychology
Industrial and organizational psychology (I-O psychology), an applied discipline within psychology, is the science of human behavior in the workplace. Depending on the country or region of the world, I-O psychology is also known as occupational ...
from the
University of Michigan
, mottoeng = "Arts, Knowledge, Truth"
, former_names = Catholepistemiad, or University of Michigania (1817–1821)
, budget = $10.3 billion (2021)
, endowment = $17 billion (2021)As o ...
.
Career
After finishing his doctoral work, Losada served as a Center for Advanced Research (CFAR) in Ann Arbor, Michigan. In his career, Losada developed a
nonlinear dynamics
In mathematics and science, a nonlinear system is a system in which the change of the output is not proportional to the change of the input. Nonlinear problems are of interest to engineers, biologists, physicists, mathematicians, and many other ...
model, the
meta learning
Meta-learning is a branch of metacognition concerned with learning about one's own learning and learning processes.
The term comes from the meta prefix's modern meaning of an abstract recursion, or "X about X", similar to its use in metaknowled ...
model, to show dynamical patterns achieved by high, medium and low performing teams, where performance was evaluated based on profitability, customer satisfaction, and
360-degree feedback
360-degree feedback (also known as multi-rater feedback, multi source feedback, or multi source assessment) is a process through which feedback from an employee's subordinates, peers, colleagues, and supervisor(s), as well as a self-evaluation by t ...
. In pursuing these goals, he founded and served as executive director of Losada Line Consulting, which had presented past workshops and seminars at companies including
Apple
An apple is an edible fruit produced by an apple tree (''Malus domestica''). Apple trees are cultivated worldwide and are the most widely grown species in the genus ''Malus''. The tree originated in Central Asia, where its wild ancestor, ' ...
,
Boeing
The Boeing Company () is an American multinational corporation that designs, manufactures, and sells airplanes, rotorcraft, rockets, satellites, telecommunications equipment, and missiles worldwide. The company also provides leasing and p ...
Merck
Merck refers primarily to the German Merck family and three companies founded by the family, including:
* the Merck Group, a German chemical, pharmaceutical and life sciences company founded in 1668
** Merck Serono (known as EMD Serono in the Unite ...
Mellon Foundation
The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation of New York City in the United States, simply known as Mellon Foundation, is a private foundation with five core areas of interest, and endowed with wealth accumulated by Andrew Mellon of the Mellon family of Pitt ...
Codelco
Codelco (''Corporación Nacional'' ''del'' ''Cobre de Chile'' or, in English, the National Copper Corporation of Chile) is a Chilean state-owned copper mining company. It was formed in 1976 from foreign-owned copper companies that were nationalise ...
, and
Telefónica
Telefónica, S.A. () is a Spanish multinational telecommunications company headquartered in Madrid, Spain. It is one of the largest telephone operators and mobile network providers in the world. It provides fixed and mobile telephony, broadba ...
.
Losada claimed the dynamical patterns related to team performance appear in
coordinate space
In mathematics and physics, a vector space (also called a linear space) is a set whose elements, often called '' vectors'', may be added together and multiplied ("scaled") by numbers called ''scalars''. Scalars are often real numbers, but can ...
s of "positivity-negativity," "inquiry-advocacy" and "other-self," and are controlled by connectivity, which is supposed to reflect interpersonal attunement of a team. Losada, along with Barbara Fredrickson, developed the concept of the critical positivity ratio (also known as the Losada line), which states that there exist precise cut-off points for an individual's ratio of positive to negative emotions, above and below which the individual will fail to flourish.
Beginning in 2008, measured criticism began for the 2005 and earlier papers, including from Luoma,
Hämäläinen
Hämäläinen is a surname originating in Finland (in Finnish, it means " Tavastian"), where it is the sixth most common"Most common surnames"Saarinen of the Systems Analysis Laboratory at
Aalto University
Aalto University ( fi, Aalto-yliopisto; sv, Aalto-universitetet) is a public research university located in Espoo, Finland. It was established in 2010 as a merger of three major Finnish universities: the Helsinki University of Technology, the ...
, and Navas at CNRS, reports that did not draw widespread attention. The criticism of the work for flawed methodology and invalid application of differential equations was renewed and much amplified by the report by psychologists Nicholas J.L. Brown and Harris Friedman and mathematician
Alan Sokal
Alan David Sokal (; born January 24, 1955) is an American professor of mathematics at University College London and professor emeritus of physics at New York University. He works in statistical mechanics and combinatorics. He is a critic of postmo ...
.Brown, N. J. L., Sokal, A. D., & Friedman, H. L. (2013) The Complex Dynamics of Wishful Thinking: The Critical Positivity Ratio American Psychologist. Electronic publication ahead of print.
Losada's coauthor, Fredrickson, continues to insist on the measurability of such a ratio, and the existence tipping-points, but has distanced herself from the mathematical portions of the 2005 paper, which were subsequently retracted by the journal; Fredrickson reports that Losada declined to respond to the criticism.
Personal life
Losada passed away in 2020.
Bibliography
* Losada, M. (1999). The Complex Dynamics of High Performance Teams. ''Mathematical and Computer Modelling'', 30 (9-10), 179–19 * Losada, M., & Heaphy, E. (2004). The Role of Positivity and Connectivity in the Performance of Business Teams: A Nonlinear Dynamics Model. ''American Behavioral Scientist'', 47 (6), 740–765.
* Fredrickson, B. L. & Losada, M. (2005). Positive Affect and the Complex Dynamics of Human Flourishing. ''American Psychologist,'' 60 (7) 678–686.http://www.lsa.umich.edu/psych/peplab/pdf/human_flourishing.pdf
* Fredrickson, B. L. (2009). ''Positivity: Top-Notch Research Reveals the 3-to-1 Positivity Ratio that Will Change Your life''. Crown Publishers, New York.