
The phrase “toxic positivity” seems like something of an oxymoron — especially in American society, where optimism and positive attitudes are synonymous with success in the workplace. It’s when the pursuit of positivity suppresses valid negative emotions and forces individuals to assume a false veneer of wellness that it becomes toxic, experts say. And while […]
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Click here to purchase a paywall bypass linkThe phrase “toxic positivity” seems like something of an oxymoron — especially in American society, where optimism and positive attitudes are synonymous with success in the workplace.
It’s when the pursuit of positivity suppresses valid negative emotions and forces individuals to assume a false veneer of wellness that it becomes toxic, experts say. And while the term is somewhat new, toxic positivity — or “oppositional optimism” — has been lurking in workplaces for a long time.
“Toxic positivity is really about hiding problems, because you don’t talk about them, or because you put up an image that no problems exist,” said Stephen Courtright, Henry B. Tippie research professor of management and entrepreneurship at the University of Iowa’s Tippie College of Business.

Positivity in itself isn’t bad; in the 2007 study, “Building Genuine Trust Through Interpersonal Emotion Management: A Threat Regulation Model of Trust and Collaboration Across Boundaries,” co-author Michele Williams, Henry B. Tippie research fellow and associate professor of management and entrepreneurship, found that positive feelings, stemming from perceptions of being understood or seen in the workplace, can foster trust and improve cooperation by encouraging prosocial behaviors like helping and sharing information.
“Organizations are often trying to get that cooperation and trust building by positivity, but they’re not realizing that one of the keys is genuine emotion,” she said. “So if you are pretending to be positive because your organization requires you to do that, that’s called emotional labor, and it takes a lot of work.”
The fallout
The pressure to stay upbeat and positive can lead to burnout, especially if an employee is facing challenges at home or experiencing setbacks at work, like cost cutting, layoffs, loss of job benefits, difficult co-workers or poor communication between leadership and staff.
Perhaps the biggest setback of all is the relationships that deteriorate when workers keep their frustrations muted. In a 2017 study he co-authored, “What Doesn’t Kill You Makes You Stronger: How Teams Rebound From Early-Stage Relationship Conflict,” Mr. Courtright found that suppressing negative emotions places a strain on workplace relationships and leaves “fewer resources for things like conflict management or communicating.”
“If I’m bottled up with resentment, and if I am with that individual (that I have conflict with), I am constantly on guard thinking about how resentful I am for that person, which saps me of energy,” he said. “And so the same phenomenon works in work teams as well. If we experience this more severe form of conflict, and then we just suppress the negative emotions (and) just sort of sweep it under the rug, what happens is that we stop working well together. We stop feeling connected to one another, and in the end, that makes us a much worse team.”
“It’s hard to have a genuine relationship with someone when you’re suppressing all of your emotions,” Ms. Williams agreed. “When leaders encourage their employees to suppress their emotions, that has a negative impact on the relationship with the leader, on job satisfaction.”
Author Barbara Ehrenreich takes the negative repercussions of toxic positivity a step further. In her 2009 book “Bright-Sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America,” she blames the 2008 housing market crash and ensuing economic downturn on the relentless pursuit of positive thinking, which ignored economic soothsayers and experts warning of impending disaster.
“Consider the somewhat tipsy case of Countrywide Mortgage, the company whose rash lending practices almost single-handedly set off the subprime crisis that preceded the global credit meltdown,” she wrote. “In 2004, Countrywide’s CEO, Angelo Mozilo, ever smiling through his bright orange tan, had been the recipient of the Horatio Alger Award as ‘an individual who has emerged from humble beginnings to prove that hard work, determination and positive thinking are key to successfully achieving the American Dream.’ Even as his company’s stock plummeted in 2008, the press consistently found him ‘optimistic’ and ‘upbeat.’ Bruce C.N. Greenwald, a finance professor at Columbia Business School, said of Mozilo: ‘People who get themselves in trouble are good at self-hypnosis. That is why they are such good salesmen — they convince themselves about the story…And he had lived in a world where there had been no defaults for so long that he didn’t believe they could happen.’”
Why we avoid conflict in the workplace
Many people go with the flow to avoid conflict, which can feel especially high-stakes when it occurs on the job, due in part because there’s limited ways we can handle it.
“You sometimes have less strategies,” said Ms. Williams. Because your job is your livelihood, conflict can feel risky and we may not practice the skills we need to deal with it the same way we would in our personal lives.
Fear of retaliation for speaking up about an issue is another reason why people feel pressured to “keep up appearances.”

“Image becomes very, very important for the individual and for the organization and so I think that’s why people struggle to solve the problem,” said Mr. Courtright.
When employees, especially high performers, fear reprisal for raising concerns, they are more likely to leave the organization, he said. High performers thrive on solving problems and contributing, so an environment that discourages open dialogue drives away those who care the most.
“Once we have the really high-value people who start leaving, other high-value people start leaving, (and) they can set (off) a chain reaction,” he added.
Some people handle conflict by either avoiding it or acquiescing to everything, Ms. Williams said.
“These are the people who just kind of say yes to everything, and then they’re overwhelmed, and they either burn out or they aren’t able to meet their deadlines because they’ve just said yes to everything instead of having that conflict and pushing back,” she said.
But avoiding or ignoring problems only leads to a gambit of repercussions, from health problems to unethical behavior, Mr. Courtright asserted.
“We haven’t found a lot of good things that come from ignoring the problems. It might help short-term to do that, but long-term, organizationally and individually, there’s a cost attached to that,” he added.
Instead of repressing their thoughts, opinions or feelings for fear of conflict, workers would benefit from learning to reframe them and practice reappraisal, he said, which calls for stepping back to examine a situation, pinpoint its root causes, and chart a way forward.
This method focuses on addressing underlying issues through thoughtful problem-solving. Unlike suppressors, who dismiss problems without reflection, reappraisal champions analysis, empathy, and proactive solutions to foster meaningful progress.
“The more that all parties in that team are reappraising when they have a conflict, then the more that they’re able to sort of resolve that conflict, move forward and actually be better as a result,” Mr. Courtright said.
Seeing things from another’s point of view is key, Ms. Williams said.
“You should be seeing conflicting opinions as ways to improve your own thinking. If you’re approaching everything as a win/lose, it’s very hard to resolve a conflict — if you’re trying to win the conflict versus you’re actually trying to understand the other person and come to a positive resolution,” she said.
What if I work in a place that promotes toxic positivity?
If you find yourself in an environment where toxic positivity comes from the top down, the best course of action is to join forces with others.
“Sometimes there has to be a guiding coalition to make change happen,” Mr. Courtright said. “One person doesn’t make change happen. If you have a like-minded group of individuals, especially if those individuals are very well respected, then you’re going to be better off in changing that culture, or in at least the minimum, solving the problem that’s at hand.”
Addressing a conflict or problem instead of glossing it over with misplaced optimism requires some finesse. Reframe the issue in light of how it challenges the leader’s goals, he suggests.
“You’re meeting the leader where they’re at,” he said. “Say, ‘This is where you want to get. I’m with you. I’m on the same page, but this is the barrier, and so we need to acknowledge this as a barrier, because I want to help you …’ You’re still bringing up the problem. You’re not suppressing the problem, but you’re putting it in a way that the leader can grasp and can understand, or that at least the leader pays attention to, because it affects them as well … it’s a shared goal that you have.”
Leaders who want to encourage openness and honesty can do so by helping employees reframe a challenge instead of ignoring it.
“If the leader helps them reframe their emotions, to see a failure or a downturn as just a part of the process or something that they’ll get through … that’s actually seen as the leader being helpful in helping them deal with their emotions, and that has a positive effect on the relationship and job satisfaction,” Ms. Williams said.
Whether you call it toxic positivity or oppositional optimism, leaders can discourage it in their workplace by extending empathy, encouraging dialogue and creating an environment where employees can voice their concerns or opinions without fear of reprisal.