Toxic positivity does more harm than good
bloomberg.com
Toxic positivity does more harm than good
1–10 of 296 posts
Re: Toxic positivity does more harm than good
#2I think Toxic Positivity is a bit of a misnomer, I'd probably call it "False Positivity".
It's not some subset of real positivity that is toxic, it's just... not actual positivity. It's an act.
Re: Toxic positivity does more harm than good
#3Apparently Bloomberg is now breaking the back button on mobile.
Re: Toxic positivity does more harm than good
#4I've got friends that suffer something like this but I have never been able to put it to words. The danger is when these fastidiously benevolent people implode without warning or giving any signal they may do so.
Re: Toxic positivity does more harm than good
#5This has kind of been a problem at my workplace. Everything from the company's marketing material to its recruiting practices exudes an almost overwhelming amount of positivity. They put a huge emphasis on hiring "the nicest people in the world". Disagreements or arguments at the company are almost non-existent, because everyone tries their hardest to be positive and nice at all times. Every other sentence in Slack ends with an emphatic exclamation point (or two or three) and / or a smiley face.
I like my job, and I will gladly take it over a workplace with toxic negativity, but it's still been somewhat exhausting. There's that underlying anxiety that if you're somehow not seen as exuding the correct level of positivity, that you might get let go.
Everyone at the company is constantly patting themselves on the back about how it's "the greatest place to work in the world" and that they have "the most incredible co-workers". This makes it hard to disagree with things or point out things that aren't working, because everyone is so afraid to hurt somebody's feelings.
Re: Toxic positivity does more harm than good
#6I think Toxic Positivity is a bit of a misnomer, I'd probably call it "False Positivity". It's not some subset of real positivity that is toxic, it's just... not actual positivity. It's an act.
The author's point seems to be that it is toxic to a person to (try to) exist in permanent state of positivity.
I can get behind that notion. I've had friends who were chronically positive. It gelded our friendship because they hoarded all the negative stuff in their life.
Re: Toxic positivity does more harm than good
#7I think Toxic Positivity is a bit of a misnomer, I'd probably call it "False Positivity". It's not some subset of real positivity that is toxic, it's just... not actual positivity. It's an act.
Next up True Negativity or Positive Toxicity. Take your pick.
“Our language is an imperfect instrument created by ancient and ignorant men. It is an animistic language that invites us to talk about stability and constants, about similarities and normal and kinds, about magical transformations, quick cures, simple problems, and final solutions. Yet the world we try to symbolize with this language is a world of process, change, differences, dimensions, functions, relationships, growths, interactions, developing, learning, coping, complexity. And the mismatch of our ever-changing world and our relatively static language forms is part of our problem.” - Wendell Johnson
Re: Toxic positivity does more harm than good
#8I've felt a lot of "false" positivity espoused by project managers, especially those in charge of agile ceremonies.
Examples: "I'm really {proud,impressed} of all of you for your output this sprint", "You guys are {killing,crushing,owning} it", "You all should be very proud of what you guys did", etc.
These aren't given after periods of crunch time, they're literally every week to the point where it feels so contrived and artificial. They're given when we're just doing normal, expected work.
I've mentioned this to colleagues and friends and there seems to be two camps of people: those who want constant positive reenforcement and those who it completely has the opposite effect, an annoyance. I guess I fall into the latter.
Re: Toxic positivity does more harm than good
#9The article's conclusion makes sense to me. Too much negativity is wrong for kind of obvious reasons. Too much positivity is also wrong, because not everything is positive so it sounds fake.
In my experience, the best outlook is to appreciate what is actually good in life (e.g. your qualities, good things that happen), and accept that what is bad (e.g. your flaws, bad things that happen), are bad.
Unfortunately if you barely have anything, than your life objectively sucks and no outlook is going to make you happy. But the thing is, I've seen a lot of people who are depressed that don't "barely have anything", they have food and shelter and qualities and things going on in their lives which should make them happy, but they still spend their time thinking about the things they don't have.
Re: Toxic positivity does more harm than good
#10Or better stated, dishonesty does more harm than good.