Toxic Positivity

Toxic positivity is the act of avoiding, suppressing, or rejecting negative emotions or experiences. This may take the form of denying your own emotions or someone else denying your emotions, insisting on positive thinking instead. Although setting aside difficult emotions is sometimes necessary temporarily, denying negative feelings long term is harmful because it can prevent people from processing their emotions and overcoming their distress.

Of course, there’s nothing wrong with showing positivity, optimism, and gratitude—those traits help humans flourish. Positivity only becomes problematic when it functions to reject negative emotions—if someone responded to a disclosure of distress, for example, with “It’s all for the best, “Just try to be positive,” or “Good vibes only!”

Toxic positivity describes a pattern of behavior; it’s not an official psychological term or diagnosis. It’s also not without controversy; some believe that the term can be overused to the point of undercutting resilience and encouraging pathology, and others emphasize the risk of tempering healthy positivity.

It can sometimes be difficult to distinguish positivity from toxic positivity. For example, if a friend says, “Look on the bright side,” they may not mean to ignore your distress (and you might not take it that way). But if someone consistently rejects your negative emotions, and if you consistently feel instructed to feel or act in a way that is disingenuous, toxic positivity may be at play.

Positivity is also particularly unhelpful in certain situations. Research suggests that looking for silver linings is beneficial in uncontrollable contexts, such as being laid off, but harmful in situations that they can control. Using positivity when one’s identity is threatened, such as in the case of experiencing racial oppression, also leads to lower well-being. Encouraging someone to use an emotional regulation strategy that they aren't skilled at can also lower well-being.