"Think positively!", "Head up!", "Good vibes only!": In everyday life we are often suggested that happiness is just a question of attitude. Every setback should be understood as a challenge to understand every crisis as an opportunity in order to leave no space to a negative mindset. However, many people suffer from this not to be able to fulfill this claim of a convulsive confidence - a phenomenon that is now also known as "Toxic Podiatry".
The fact that optimism should be bad sounds very intuitive. And in fact, numerous studies indicate that, positive thinking is generally good for us. For example, a positive basic attitude is associated with more satisfaction, fewer heart disease and overall longer life expectancy.
"It is cheap to see the world a little pink," says Astrid Schütz, professor of personality psychology at the University of Bamberg, who, together with her colleague Lasse Hoge, the book »Positive Thinking. Advantages - risks - alternatives «published. "People who are not depressed see things rather positively distorted anyway." According to the psychologist, this perspective helps not to fall into pessimism and to keep a hopeful look at life.
When optimism shoots beyond the goal
But there are also situations in which a positive attitude can actually harm more than benefit. For example, if negative emotions are suppressed. The American researcher Laura Campbell-Sills found out in 2006 that the aside of bad feelings is not a good tactic to regulate his emotions. Together with her team, she showed 60 test subjects with an anxiety or affective disorder a film that usually causes negative emotions among the spectators. Half of the participants were given the instruction to suppress their emotions; The other half should simply accept them. Before, during and after the performance, the researchers measured the subjective feeling of stress and various physical parameters of the test subjects. Although both groups felt similarly stressed during the film, the acceptance group then showed fewer negative feelings, and it also had a lower heart rate. So suppressing negative emotions does not mean that you inevitably feel it less, the scientists conclude. Rather, as further research revealed, they may only be more stressful.
It can also be disadvantageous to raise a good mood to a certain extent on a pedestal. This was shown in 2011 by a research team led by the scientist Iris Mauss: test subjects who were instructed to consider happiness as particularly important subsequently experienced feelings of happiness less intensively than a control group. The effect was probably due to the fact that the participants were disappointed with their own feelings. A paradox, the research group concluded: valuing happiness in particular sometimes does not seem to make you more happy, but less so. In 2014, scientists even discovered a link between the constant pursuit of happiness and depression. And current research also shows that constantly emphasizing the relevance of happiness leads to brooding and frustration when one cannot live up to one's own standards.
Negative feelings do not give any space to anyone
Often there is the pressure to look at things positively, not from the inside, but from the outside - from social networks or conversations with friends. Again and again to be signaled that abuse and anger have no place, but increasingly negative feelings rather than make them disappear. The author Anna Maas also had to learn that after the birth of her first child was difficult. She would have liked to work up the traumatic experience, but felt little understood by her environment. Her impression was reinforced by sentences such as: "Be happy that you are doing well now!" Unpleasant feelings would have had no place, reports Maas. "I had the feeling that I would be ungrateful if I wasn't completely happy now."
This claim to give every setback, every negative experience or sensation a positive spin was particularly present for Maas and many other people at the beginning of the pandemic. While the author was worried about childcare and existence, she repeatedly came across posts on social networks whose subtext conveyed: "The crisis is your chance!" In her non-fiction book "The Happiness Lie – When Positive Thinking Becomes Toxic" from 2021, she therefore reckons with the phenomenon of toxic positivity: "It's not always all about the mindset. It's normal and human to be at the end of your nerves sometimes.«
A work by psychologist Egon Dejonckheer shows how closely the social claim to be happy with which well -being is linked. In 2022, the Dutch surveyed 7443 people from 40 countries with more than 40 colleagues and compared these values to the "World Happiness Index" of the respective countries. In doing so, he discovered that the harmful influence forced positively apparently depends on the social climate: especially in countries with high luck index, the perceived pressure to be as satisfied as possible was associated with poorer well -being. The authors conclude that even a high level of happiness can harm if it gives the members of a society the impression that negative feelings are not desirable.
From toxic to healthy positivity
But how does it succeed in finding a middle ground between pessimism and toxic positivity? Healthy optimism is not characterized by negative feelings, but by keeping hope of a good end, Astrid Schütz explains: »Optimists recognize that something is negative, but you have the hope that it will be positive. “A proven strategy from psychotherapy to deal with unpleasant is reframing - the reinterpretation of negative feelings. Unpleasant emotions are viewed from a new perspective without suppressing them, because that would cost cognitive resources and would therefore be stressful. Other effective methods from mindfulness research are based on accepting negative emotions and accepting them first. In some cases, it is also worth taking a closer look at unpleasant feelings - so fear can warn of dangers and signal trouble crossing border.
From time to time, negative thinking can even be used specifically as a strategy, says Astrid Schütz: "When facing challenges, it can be helpful to think carefully about what could go wrong." Based on these considerations, concrete plans can then be developed. Especially with diffuse fears, it often helps to think through a situation consciously with a negative outcome, because concrete consequences are often less scary than vague fears.
A movement against the ubiquitous positivity is now formed on social media. Influencers indicate that their life is not always perfect, they show themselves crying or angry. In the Podcast "Drinte", the hosts regularly welcome their listeners with the sentence: "We hope you are fine - if not, it's okay too." You take up what research has recently found: Whether positive or negative The most important thing is that your own feelings feel right. No matter what your own environment or society thinks of it.
