The Dark Side of Optimism. NewsWire

NewsWire: 6/18/21

• Are Americans suffering from too much “toxic positivity”? We are surrounded by bosses, politicians, and life coaches urging us to be optimistic and grateful no matter what, which may be doing more harm than good. (Bloomberg Businessweek)
• NH: Cheer up! Look on the bright side! Count your blessings! It could be worse!
• Americans are a positive bunch. In the early 19th century, Alexis de Tocqueville observed that “the Americans have all a lively faith in the perfectibility of man… [What] appears to them today to be good, may be superseded by something better tomorrow.” From Horatio Alger’s tales to the prosperity gospel, from The Power of Positive Thinking to The Secret, one of the hallmarks of American culture is boundless optimism. Every cloud is followed by a rainbow, and every lemon can be turned into lemonade. (See “A Round of Applause for Failure.”)
• It wasn’t until the 1990s, however, that optimism became an industry. Under the umbrella of positive psychology (launched in 1998), we’ve seen explosive growth in life coaches, self-help books, and other individualistic approaches to finding happiness, just as Gen Xers were coming of age and Boomers were entering midlife. Since 2001, the number of part- or full-time life coaches worldwide has soared +790%.
• Who heads this industry? Think Tony Robbins, Oprah Winfrey, Eckhart Tolle, or Joel Osteen. Their messages differ, but what they have in common is the idea that everything that will save you is within you.
• Through the power of optimism, people can think themselves to the top. It doesn’t matter if the packaging is secular or religious, evangelical or Pentecostal. During the pandemic, many Americans turned to manifesting and other personal forms of mysticism. They swear by the efficacy of the "law of attraction." It doesn't matter if your success comes at the expense of everybody else. An Xer would just shrug and say, “it works for me.”
• Research has shown that there is indeed a link between positive thinking and health. But as this piece points out, this doesn’t mean that optimism is an unqualified good. Other studies have shown that when taken to extremes, it’s often counterproductive. The super-optimists may be no better off than the chronic pessimists.
• The pressure to think positive can end up making people feel worse about themselves when they’re not doing well. A 2018 study published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology reported that people feel sadder when they are less accepting of their negative emotions.
• Meanwhile, a 2020 study that compared people's financial expectations to actual outcomes over a 18-year period found that both overestimating (optimism) and underestimating (pessimism) outcomes were associated with lower psychological well-being than setting realistic expectations. Compared with realists, optimists saw a -13.5% reduction in life satisfaction scores and an +11.8% higher level of psychological distress over the long run.
• The researchers suggested that during the pandemic, neither optimists nor pessimists had an edge over the other. "Optimists will see themselves as less susceptible to the risk of Covid-19 than others and are therefore less likely to take appropriate precautionary measures," co-author David de Meza explained. "Pessimists, on the other hand, may be tempted to never leave their houses or send their children to school again"--which was not a recipe for happiness. 
• There are, of course, different types of optimism. Public optimism is when you figure you can contribute to and gain from building a better world for everybody. Personal optimism is when you're focused on the benefits of staying upbeat about your own life no matter what misfortunes are afflicting others. 
• These types of optimism tend to ebb and flow in accordance with generational change and shifts in the social mood. Coming out of World War II, public optimism was very much in vogue--with hit songs like Bing Crosby's "Accentuate the Positive!" Over the last few decades, the tide has been flowing the other way, toward private optimism. It has grown into a multimillion-dollar industry spearheaded by you-are-the-center-of-everything Xers and Boomers: fanatical emcees who swear you can change everything that matters by just changing your own attitude and your own life.
• Soon, this tide too will shift, perhaps in favor of a clarion call that puts more emphasis on what we share in common. And yes, this makes me feel optimistic.