What Is Toxic Positivity and How Does It Affect Us?
Is there something as too much positivity? At what point does positivity stop being good for your well-being?
An optimistic outlook in life benefits our mental well-being. But when we start operating our lives with a ‘good vibes only’ mantra we reinforce ourselves and by extension, others around us to be perpetual optimists; to always see the flip side of a situation. This is known as toxic positivity, wherein individuals tend to be the perpetual optimist regardless of how challenging the situation might be.
This article explores the depths of toxic positivity and how it is counterproductive to our well-being.
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What is Toxic Positivity?
Toxic Positivity is the act of overgeneralizing a positive outlook in all aspects of our lives without considering its appropriateness to the situation. Making suggestions that things could have been worse or that we should shift our focus to more positive things are just a few examples of toxic positivity. Does this sound familiar? This is because we have either heard it from someone, said it to someone else or both.
For example, in the initial days of the pandemic, many individuals were asked to focus on the positives in their lives rather than learning to cope with the negative emotions due to the numerous losses of life, and jobs among other life-changing and/or traumatic events. And having an optimistic mindset does not necessarily help protect our well-being. In fact, it can have the opposite effect as it often results in individuals suppressing negative emotions which harm us in the long term.
Suppressing emotions that make us uncomfortable has shown to perpetuate the distress experienced by individuals. Similarly, a study by James Gross and Robert Levenson, observed that individuals who were asked to suppress their emotions when watching explicit medical procedures on film had higher levels of physiological response (e.g., heart rate, dilated pupils, profuse sweating). Thus, showing that when we tend to suppress our emotions.
Not only does having a positive outlook reduce our well-being it also distorts what we make of negative or vulnerable experiences. A narrative review found that when individuals have a positive outlook in volatile situations such as domestic abuse relationships, they often tend to diminish the severity of the situation, choosing to remain in these unhealthy relationships. Showing that constantly having a positive outlook can have an effect on our well-being for the worse.
How Can We Avoid Positivity From Becoming Toxic?
Literature suggests that maintaining a positive outlook regardless of the situation tends to encourage individuals to work towards an impossible standard whilst alienating negative emotions. So what can we do to ensure that we do not fall into the pothole that is toxic positivity?
Being more mindful is one way to avoid positive toxicity. Mindfulness is another construct that has been gaining popularity in recent years. Mindfulness is an individual’s awareness of their present experiences without any judgement. In fact, an analysis of 400 research papers found that mindfulness was one of the more effective tools used in helping individuals improve their well-being.
According to psychologist Tabitha Kirkland the more present we are in a moment, acknowledging our emotions the more likely we are to lean towards ‘true happiness’ than if we were to suppress our negative emotions.
Furthermore, research has shown that when individuals practice unconditional self-acceptance, they are less likely to show depressive symptoms. This kind of mindfulness encourages us to accept all our experiences without any judgment/preconceived notions as well as be able to distinguish between our performance and self-worth. In the beginning, it is helpful to attempt mindfulness when you are in a state of zen, says Kirkland. This allows us to focus on everything instead of isolating our attention to particular domains of our lives.
And although it is a common opinion that emotions prevent us from being rational when approaching any situation, there is research that suggests emotions are a type of rationality. For example, experiencing negative emotions such as fear or anger suggest there are stimuli around us that are a potential source of threat to us. Similarly, positive emotions such as happiness, foster a more conducive mindset such as increasing creativity. Thus, by using our emotions as a source of information we can use them to process how we perceive a given scenario.
Positivity, like all good things in life, is beneficial only in moderation. Too little positivity will lead you will be overwhelmed by every stressor you experience on a daily basis. Too much positivity and you will dismiss/suppress your feelings, ultimately distorting the way you analyse the stressful situation.
References Campbell-Sills, L., Barlow, D. H., Brown, T. A., & Hofmann, S. G. (2006). Effects of suppression and acceptance on emotional responses of individuals with anxiety and mood disorders. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 44(9), 1251–1263. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.brat.2005.10.001 Chamberlain, J. M., & Haaga, D. A. (2001). Unconditional Self-Acceptance and Responses to Negative Feedback. Journal of Rational-Emotive and Cognitive-Behavior Therapy, 19(3), 177–189. https://doi.org/10.1023/a:1011141500670 Desmet, P. M., & Roeser, S. (2015). Emotions in design for values. Handbook of Ethics, Values, and Technological Design, 203–219. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-6970-0_6 Gross, J. J., & Levenson, R. W. (1995). Emotion elicitation using films. Cognition & Emotion, 9(1), 87–108. https://doi.org/10.1080/02699939508408966 Sinclair, E., Hart, R., & Lomas, T. (2020). Can positivity be counterproductive when suffering domestic abuse?: A narrative review. International Journal of Wellbeing, 10(1), 26–53. https://doi.org/10.5502/ijw.v10i1.754 Upadhyay, I. S., Srivatsa, K. A., & Mamidi, R. (2022, July). Towards toxic positivity detection. In Proceedings of the tenth international workshop on natural language processing for social media (pp. 75-82). |