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 |
