diff --git a/src/apps/molresponse/FrequencyResponse.cpp b/src/apps/molresponse/FrequencyResponse.cpp
index 45f6d894b02..2e552e9f90a 100644
--- a/src/apps/molresponse/FrequencyResponse.cpp
+++ b/src/apps/molresponse/FrequencyResponse.cpp
@@ -598,7 +598,7 @@ Tensor<double> QuadraticResponse::compute_beta(World &world) {
     auto apply_projector = [&](auto &xi) { return projector(xi); };
 
     auto perturbation_A = generator(world, *this);
-    auto XA = -1.0 * x_data[0].first.copy();
+    auto XA = 1.0 * x_data[0].first.copy();
 
     // first step to compute beta is to construct the X_space representations of the virt/virt and occ/occ blocks of gamma