Ruby Receptionists, a popular Portland concern, is known for perky office vibe. It prides itself on a happy workforce, an asset it can sell to its many corporate clients who not only need to augment their own workforces from time to time, but augment it with smiling faces. Among their core values: “foster happiness” and “practice wowism.” It’s the nature of the shared-support biz, and Ruby knows it well, taking care of the little things that distinguish customer service. So it should have come as no surprise to workers when management rolled out a Facebook-like internal portal that – until recently (see below) – encouraged people to act happy there, too. How did they encourage that? By allowing people to use only positive emoticons when interacting with others.

Sound familiar? As almost everyone knows, you can only “like” something (i.e., give a thumbs up) when you reply to a post on Facebook. Sure, you can go as dark as you want if you have the patience to use words. And Facebook, in fact, has begun experimenting deeply with a new library of emoticons. But the like feature on Facebook has been part of a larger strategy to design an environment that may be the second happiest place on earth. And that strategy, it appears, may have encountered some resistance. One of the more interesting stories in 2014 was the mounting evidence that Facebook – which has been criticized for manipulating the mood of its users — may have accidentally created an environment that is depressing to its users because it can seem so artificially happy. Concerns for the happiest and second happiest places on earth: there are costs to maintaining those levels of happiest. Psychologists have a name for those costs: emotional labor.

The management at Ruby may have had these costs and concerns in mind when they reversed their emoticon strategy. At Ruby, today, you can use emoticons more expressively, and, it is hoped, more authentically.

I learned about Ruby in a recent conversation with Robert Biswas-Diener, co-author of perhaps the best psychology book of the year, The Upside of Your Darkside: Why Being Your Whole Self – Not Just Your “Good” Self – Drives Success and Fulfillment. Along with co-author Todd Kashdan, Biswas-Diener challenges a growing number of business professionals that have superficially embraced the learnings of positive psychology – a newish movement that has shifted psychology’s focus on what constitutes mental illness to what constitutes mental wellness – to create happy schools, happy workplaces, and – yes – even happy virtual environments. For Kashdan and Biswas-Diener – who happen to be leaders in the movement – correcting the record on positive psychology requires that we re-evaluate the value of embracing our dark side. And I suspect that they may have ruffled a few feathers over the past few months, since publication of their book. They are the bad boys of positive psychology, even badder because they are prominent in their field.

For me, a lay student and follower of the movement, there are a few reasons why I’m buying the book for friends and colleagues this Christmas. First, I agree with the authors that the field of positive psychology – still young – has unintentionally spawned an epidemic of shallow remedies, books, and articles on applications for the science in contemporary life. Kashdan and Biswas-Diener’s takedown on narrow and superficial interpretations on the value of positive emotion (not the only useful emotion), mindfulness (checking out, sometimes, is good for you), and forgiveness (go ahead, get angry – it might even make you more forgiving), is both liberating and refreshing. A number of prominent critiques on positively psychology have mistakenly equated these shallow interpretations with what scientists in the field actually believe, and the course correction feels long overdue. Though it might seem like an attack on the field, it is not. The Upside of Your Dark Side might in fact help the field enhance its reputation.

Second, I think the timing of this book could hardly be better. Positive psychology looks poised to enter the mainstream. The University of Pennsylvania’s masters program in positive psychology – entering its second decade – has inspired a number of similar programs around the world. Recently, the Greater Good Science Center at UC Berkeley, produced a MOOC (massive open online course) on the science of happiness, attracting tens of thousands of students from dozens of countries (disclosure: I partnered with the GGSC to develop a test community for the MOOC). And, yes, then there are all those books and articles that teachers and students have been churning out, some of them quite good, but some of them well off the mark. With the reach and impact that all these courses and content might have on personal and professional lives, Kashdan and Biswas-Diener’s book should be a welcome additional to all the curricula and reading lists.

But as someone who also tracks the impact of psychological research on technology, The Upside of Your Dark Side is an important addition to the app development toolkit. In 2015, I am hoping we see Facebook and other platforms evolve into places that allow for a wider range of self-expression. Or maybe we’ll see new applications, built from the ground up with that goal in mind. In any case, I’m feeling optimistic about the future of tech. But I am resolved not be complacent. I’ll be tapping my whole self in 2015, ready to smile when I can, but fight when I must. It’s how this student of positive psychology stays happy.