These
expressions, often heard and said, encourage their recipients to adopt a
positive attitude. We often think of a positive attitude as an outlook on life
that is optimistic, confident, and faithful, associating postivity with
focusing on the good in our lives, believing in the future, and believing in
ourselves. Many of our associations with positivity involve faith: faith that
the future will yield favorable outcomes, faith in ourselves and our abilities,
faith in others, and faith in the world.
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| An image demonstrating the popular philosophy that positive thinking, if done well, is the key to success |
For many of
us, thinking positively and having faith are unquestionably benevolent
behaviors. Throughout the postmodern age this perspective has subtly spread,
something author and blogger Lara Owen attributes to the self-help industry.
"It is an oft-repeated tenet of the self-help industry," she writes,
"that positive thinking is something to strive for and that if you do it
well enough, you can get everything you want." Many people today consequently generalize positivity as constructive,
stabilizing, and encouraging growth, and negativity as destructive, destabilizing,
and propagating failure. As a result, we disregard the perils of
positive thinking and the potential advantages of negative thinking, and fail to understand that a synthesis of both attitudes
is possible--and perhaps most beneficial.
Before we
can consider a synthesis of both types of thinking, it's important to understand how positive thinking falls short of
encouraging productivity (its advertised benefit). Many of the strategies suggested for achieving purely positive thinking act as double-edged swords, helping people feel happier while getting less done. For example, in an Inc.com article, writer Geoffrey James
recommends that to become positive thinkers we should "focus on what's going well"
and "get a sense of proportion" in our lives. Such strategies promote ignorance of emotions resulting from problems in life. This
ignorance can lead to an inhibited ability to acknowledge problems and delayed
or insufficient responses to problems. Another of James' suggestions--to
"improve your body chemistry" through trying not to encourage or
surrender to bad moods--also serves to encourage avoidance of emotions through
suppressing their manifestations. Such ignorance and avoidance allowed by
positive thinking strategies are detrimental because they involve repression of
unresolved emotions, which leads to psychological instability and vulnerability.
Another
problematic aspect of positive thinking is visualization, the formation of
mental images in one's mind of favorable future outcomes. SuccessConsciousness.com founder Remez Sassoon explains visualizing
positive outcomes "is the primary tool for attracting success and
prosperity." Critics like expert blogger Dr. Heidi Halvorson, however, believe visualization results in reduced success and productivity, and point to studies that show that the brain reacts to the mental images as it would they were real (you can read Dr. Halvorson's pertinent blog post here).
Surely a
purely negative attitude--devoid of faith or confidence in oneself or the
future--also involves its share of destructive distorted thinking. Instead of
suffering at one end or the other of the the spectrum, however, it is more
realistic to adopt an outlook on life that involves a synthesis of positive and
negative thinking.
Such an outlook would comprise of confidence in oneself
coupled with a healthy acceptance of the possibility of failure. A method for
achieving this outlook--fantasy realization--is outlined in an APA journal
article published by the NYU psychologists Dr. Halvorson mentioned in her blog.
"Fantasy realization theory states that when people contrast their
fantasies about a desired future with reflections on present reality, a
necessity to act is induced that leads to the activation and use of relevant
expectations." Thus, for the general, mentally healthy population, the
highest degree of productivity, efficiency, and success can be achieved through
a combination of positive, faithful thinking and negative thinking.
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| This graphic shows how a realistic outlook contrasts purely positive and negative attitudes |
Is it weird that I was just pondering about this topic the other day? Except I guess I was thinking more about compliments, and the effects that stem from compliments. I think you make a good, and often overlooked, point that positivity isn't always good. If you look at compliments, although they are meant in (hopefully) a good way, they could make people lazier and satisfied with where they are that they stop whatever progress they initially were making.
ReplyDeleteAnd because changing the way we think might be too large of an initial step, what if we changed the language in our compliments/positivity that we share with others and give ourselves? So, maybe rather than saying "Yeah, you're the best, number 1, etc." what if we changed that to, "you're doing really well, you're on the right track." Thus, changing our language of optimism into words of encouragement instead.
I think it's very difficult to strike the right balance between negative and positive thinking because there are always those events/scenarios that push you to be either positive or negative. But I think language plays a key role in how we might want to communicate positive thoughts in a more beneficial way.
In the spirit of spreading encouraging optimism:
"I think I can! I think I can! I think I can!"
In response to your article, there was this article I read (Big Think - Stockdale Paradox). It's about how optimism might create resilience, and how as you said is still important to have.
DeleteI completely agree with you that there's a potential danger in positive comments, in that they can reduce the recipient's drive/future success. A while ago I read about an experiment that was done in which a group of children were assigned somewhat difficult puzzles. Halfway through the activity, half of the group received positive, reinforcing feedback from adults, praising them and their intelligence. The group that didn't receive any feedback performed better in the rest of the activity. So sadly this shows that sometimes no feedback is better than positive feedback.
ReplyDeleteI also agree with your point that we should try to encourage each other rather than praising each other. I think that encouragement is better because it involves acknowledging how far a person's come AND what still needs to be done. Surely the language of optimism is assuring, securing, etc. and might instantly make the recipient more calm, relaxed, and content, but like you I think if the recipient of the comments chooses to believe what was said to him/her, his/her drive/future success could be reduced, thus making him/her less happy in the long run.
Also, you make an important distinction that it is difficult to avoid polarized thinking in extreme situations. Sometimes we may feel utterly despondent after a series of "bad" events, or at the top of the world after a series of "good" events. It may be difficult to regulate our emotions and adopt a realistic perspective about recent events or our lives in general. In those situations, it may be best to carve out a definite time during which to celebrate or be upset/grieve, and after which somewhat regular life can be resumed. In terms of thinking, such a plan might start out with extremely polarized thinking (immediate emotional response) and progressively involve more and more realistic thinking (as the person reflects during the time they've carved out for that). But that's still pretty idealistic.
As for the article, I disagree that the kind of optimism Dr. Charney advocates facilitates mental resilience or actual resilience in the face of problems. He suggests someone who's having issues should first realistically assess their problems ("I'm in really big trouble") and then have the attitude and confidence to then tell themselves they'll get through it ("I will prevail"). I like the realistic assessment part, but I think when a person tells themselves they'll get through something they ignore the realistic possibility they won't, and like we've said, they might feel more satisfied and not as likely to fight to persevere.
In retrospect, I would like to alter my position on Dr. Charney's approach to resilience. Dr. Charney's strategy--telling oneself "I am in a very tough spot. But I will prevail." in the face of problems--does not involve a promise that the outside world will fulfill your wishes or desires ("it'll all work out for me in the end."), like conventional optimism might. Instead, his strategy involves a personal promise to oneself. A promise that necessitates action and perseverance. So, because his strategy allows a person to both realistically reflect on present problems in their lives and feel the need to persevere/have confidence they will, I would brand this an effective strategy, and a productive use of positive thinking.
ReplyDelete