Positivity – is it all what it’s cracked up to be?

MTI3NTgyMDE2NjgxMTIyMjcwWe live in a world awash with the need to be positive and the necessity to play nicely with one another. Organisations, social media platforms (Facebook & Twitter notably), institutions & the ubiquitous positivity guru’s have, according to Barbara Ehrenreich, hijacked positive psychology to espouse the virtues of “if you have nothing positive to say – don’t say anything at all“. Ehrenreich’s book “Smile or Die: How Positive Thinking Fooled America and the World” makes a compelling argument to suggest that the myopia of positive thinking may have resulted in the misguided invasion of Iraq, global financial crash, the collapse of Lehman Bank and the subprime mortgage scandal. Anyone brave enough to counter the positive delusions or the belief in the mandatory positivity, optimism and cheerfulness were told to shut up, sidelined or fired. The proposed collective willful ignorance highlights that if the so-called uncomfortable negatives were ignored then all would be fine. Clearly, they were not fine.

Smoke & Mirrors

The illusion of positivity can create a Soviet-style control upon us, that ensures that we inculcate all involved into the belief all will all be OK – if only we believe in positive thinking. Indeed there is a sense that we can change our world by just thinking positively; almost as if we have a positivity magnet that will attract whatever our hearts desire toward us.

Positive thinking suggests then a better life will suddenly appear, usually accompanied by the latest positivity guru’s next vacuous clichéd pseudo-inspirational quote to help us feel great about ourselves.  Making things better by just simply stating the need to adjust our attitude. Needless to say, it’s unlikely to happen just like that. We may feel the warm rosy glow for a little while, though the guru has no more investment in you other than getting you to buy their next book; or attend the next nauseating “Billy Graham-esque” evangelical positivity conference. Indeed this perspective is akin to the Pollyanna Syndrome (or positivity-bias), defined as being when someone who is blindly or foolishly optimistic, almost delusional.

On Being Happy & Positive

Interestingly, we are notoriously bad at gauging how happy we are and how happy we will be in the future. A study highlighted that people who value happiness and positivity most were, in fact, the loneliest. By putting too much stock in being positive and the health benefits of being happy, it actually produced lower rates of progesterone (Gruber et al 2011). Progesterone is the hormone that is boosted when we feel connected with people. So it’s little wonder the positivity and happiness business is booming, as we may well be chasing a dream that is always out of reach.  Few of the one-eyed happy-clappy methods of helping people to be happier and more positive don’t actually work over the long term. So we keep chasing the dream, buying the self-help books and listening to svengali characters who sell us mindfulness, happiness & positivity…………..bottled conveniently just for you.

  • Take a look at Jane Gruber’s TedxCambridge talk (2011) on The Darkside of Happiness

It’s Never as Simple as Positive or Negative 

Clearly, not everyone will agree with Barbara Ehrenreich’s perceived anti-positive worldview. However, we arrive at a point that rational realism and social & emotional agility is patently missing from our organisations and within our daily lives. There are countless common-sense ideas on how to become positive and happier; be kind, count your blessings, work less, spend more time with friends and family & everything in moderation. Of course, there is every reason to believe that this is not a panacea to becoming happier or more positive. Perhaps, therefore, we just might be able to accommodate the uncomfortable “negative” aspects of our emotional lives, to help us to treat the positive & negative emotions as equal partners?

Evidence for our Emotional Darkside.

According to positive psychologists Dr Todd Kashdan & Dr Robert Biswas-Diener (2015), we have gone about promoting happiness and positivity in all the wrong ways. We are encouraged to ignore the negative emotions and just focus on the positives. Indeed we don’t actually need to choose between a negative or positive but move toward a more emotionally agility to match our emotions to the situation. The socially & emotionally agile are able to be warm and welcoming, perhaps economical with the truth when it’s prudent can apply pressure when needed, be charming and offer support. It’s all about adapting to the situation and our behaviour to recognise the changing demands of the situation (Kashdan et al 2015).

Clearly being happy & positive is a good place to be and is mainly beneficial to us all in our lives. However, “in a world where rejection, failure, self-doubt, hypocrisy, loss, boredom, annoying and objectionable people are inevitable (the authors) reject that the notion of positivity is the only place to look for answers” (Kashdan & Biswas-Diener 2015).  So what is the answer to able to gain an emotionally agile life, to be in a better position to embrace both positive and negative emotions to promote “wholeness” (Kashdan et al 2015). The authors of “The Upside of Your Darkside”goes on to cite a number of evidence-based studies that extol the virtues of negative emotions, that are in fact more beneficial and life-affirming than positive ones in some instances.

Consider when your career has ebbed and flowed from feeling great as things fly and then the desperation when it’s not. You didn’t get the job you coveted or perhaps the subjected to poor work & performance appraisal. You know the feeling when you are up to everything flows and you are on top of your game. Then there is the other side the awkward silences when these doubts and fears for your career spill out and the other person doesn’t know how to react. Staring at shuffling feet and the “did I really say that out loud” moment. So what do we do to become more emotionally agile? The positive guru will tell you to focus upon the positives; though at that point you don’t feel there are any.

These feelings of disappointment could be anger at the hurt and jealousy for the person who got the job you wanted, feeling fearful, worthless and inferior compared to others who are doing really well and you will never get that promotion. Or even just sad and depressed that all you have worked for is coming to nothing.

Those Uncomfortable Emotions

Learning to live with negative emotions and giving them space to help us see that boredom is the effect of not enough stimulus (though evidence suggests boredom can help you to be more creative, Psyblog 2014), or feeling guilty because we have crossed a moral line somewhere for example. We can use the feeling of anger to spark up creativity, guilt to make improvements in our relationships and lives, embrace self-doubt to help performance or face up to being selfish to promote greater courage (Kashdan et al 2015).  Moreover, a lot of autobiographical memories and learning experiences develop when we are experiencing negativity or discomfort in one shape or form.

This information is telling us we just need to adjust something in our lives and, more to the point, we can tolerate these emotions and the discomfort they sometimes bring. Of course, the desolation of significant life events such as bereavement will take longer and will need more time to come to terms with, alongside additional support if needed.

Give Your Emotions Space to Breath.

The belief we need to control our perceived negative emotions may be wrong, and that the cult of the positive is stifling emotional growth. Without promoting the emotional intelligence necessary to be able to feel guilt, shame, disgust or fear etc, and how to use the action tendencies or feedback being given we will just have an indeterminate “bad” feeling. As a result, want to move away from the pain and discomfort to help us perhaps misguidedly become balanced and emotionally happy.

Imagine for example protest groups such as the Suffragettes & the Civil Rights uprising in the USA without a healthy dose of anger. Where would we be by righting the social inequalities by being jolly about it? Highly unlikely to ever get the point over without tapping into those perceived disagreeable negative emotions to make changes in society and our lives. However, no one could condone or support mindless violence, aggression or bullying, being agile on your social and emotional feet is quite the contrary. It’s about mindfulness and attentive to the situation and managing it accordingly.

And Finally………………..

In the end the positivity illusions lead us to suppress those range of negative emotions that will help us grow and hopefully listen to a fear or anxiety that things may go wrong around us. How many times have we been to an interview and felt the disappointment & guilt of not doing very well. Or listened to the entrepreneur on “Dragons Den” who has narcissistic or the arrogant belief that their business will succeed?

Optimism & positivity serves a purpose and will no doubt help the job seeker and the entrepreneur. However, without these repackaging uncomfortable negative emotions, the entrepreneur is unlikely to make the business work or the next interview will go better as we need these motivations.

Needless to say, negative emotions do not need to be enacted upon so acknowledging this is what anger feels like for example is enough, or maybe we need to use the triggers of the feeling to understand how we have arrived at the point of anger and frustration The emotionally agile can use the information flooding through these negative emotions to use the anger to create better outcomes, the self-doubt to look at ways of improving performance and face the fear to help to be more self-effective.

Therefore having a choice to take time out to recognise things aren’t great currently and not being bamboozled by those espousing purely positivity, will give us all the space to know we will be just fine and we will survive those feelings.  Lastly, our emotions can act as a metaphysical thumbs up or thumbs down, letting us know how we are doing and what to pay attention to.  Recognising these negative emotions could help us to become healthier and more emotionally agile to manage situations, whilst gaining the tools necessary to springboard us to a happier positive but ultimately balanced life. Without the positivity guru in tow!


Bibliography

Kashdan, T. B & Biswas-Diener, R. (2015) “The Power of Negative Emotion” Oneworld Publications, London

Stafford, Z (2015) “The More You Pursue Happiness, The Faster It Runs From You” (http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/sep/15/more-pursue-happiness-faster-runs-from-you) accessed 09/11/2015

Fontane Pennock, S. (2014) The Dark Side of Happiness: Why Too Much of a Good Thing is not a Good Thing! (http://positivepsychologyprogram.com/dark-side-of-happiness-why-too-much-good-thing-is-not-a-good-thing/) accessed 09/11/2015

Cook  G. (2011) The dark side of happiness: Turns out there are ugly side effects to our pursuit of perfect joy – https://www.bostonglobe.com/ideas/2011/10/16/dark-side-happiness/KZLUM1rKqMqhEGGO6yelmI/story.html accessed 09/11/2015

References

Psyblog (2014) “Being Bored Can Fire Up Your Creativity” (http://www.spring.org.uk/2014/06/being-bored-can-fire-up-your-creativity.php) accessed 07/11/2015

Ehrenreich, B. (2010) “Smile or Die: How Positive Thinking Fooled America and the World” Granta, London

Kashdan, T. B & Biswas-Diener, R. (2015)  “The Upside of Your Darkside” Plume Books, New York

Gruber, J. Mauss, I.B & Tamir, M (2011) “A dark side of happiness? How, when, and why happiness is not always good.” Perspectives on Psychological Science 6.3 (2011): 222-233.