Toxic positivity

Where does the term come from?

Dictionary.com says the origin of the phrase is unknown, with at least one use recorded before 2010. It reports that use of the phrase in psychology grew around the early 2020s, and that many writers took it up during the COVID-19 pandemic [1]. This is a dictionary note; it does not name an author.

In February 2019 Whitney Goodman, a licensed marriage and family therapist, posted a chart on Instagram that called motivational quotes “toxic positivity”. Her blog post about it is titled “Why I Popularized the Phrase Toxic Positivity” [2]. This is her own account: she says she popularised the phrase, and it does not show who first used it.

In 2022 she published the book “Toxic Positivity: Keeping It Real in a World Obsessed with Being Happy” (Penguin Publishing Group) [3]. It is a book for a general audience, not a research study.

What does research say?

A 2026 scoping review (a map of what has been written on a topic) in Cognition and Emotion gathered 59 works, including grey literature (texts outside peer-reviewed journals), published from January 2011 to June 2024 [4]. It defines toxic positivity as a socially imposed and overgeneralised norm to display happiness in every situation and to invalidate negative emotions. It describes four dimensions: emotional suppression, emotional invalidation, unrealistic optimism and disingenuous happiness. The authors note that empirical studies, standard definitions and validated measures are still limited. The review has no data of its own: the dimensions come from a synthesis of texts, and causes were not tested.

A 2024 paper with two studies looked at the toxic positivity intentions people see in others on social media [5]. These perceived intentions formed five factors. For most of them, the link with false self-presentation (showing a self that is not true) ran through upward social comparison (comparing oneself with people who seem better off). The paper is about social media and perceived intentions; it does not measure harm to health and does not prove cause.

Is the pressure to stay positive harmful?

The harm of toxic positivity itself has not been measured. Older research on hiding and accepting emotions, and on feeling pressed not to be sad, links both to worse well-being; most of it is correlation, and a causal role was shown only in experiments with students [8].

In five studies, people who habitually suppressed their emotions reported more negative and fewer positive emotions, worse relationships and lower well-being; habitually reappraising a situation (re-interpreting what it means) went with the opposite [6]. These are correlations between people, and they concern suppression in general, not toxic positivity.

In three US samples (1,003, 156 and 222 people), habitually accepting one’s emotions and thoughts was linked to better psychological health [7]. In the third study the link was explained by weaker negative emotions under daily stress, with health measured six months later. The data are observational: acceptance was not assigned, and the samples were non-clinical.

In four studies, people who believed others expected them not to feel sad had more negative emotions and lower well-being [8]. The mechanism was judging oneself negatively for being sad, and experiments in studies 3 and 4 showed a causal role. The participants were students, the experiments were run only in Australia, the effect was weaker in Japan, and the studies measured perceived expectations, not what others actually said.

Among people with low levels of negative emotion, perceived pressure not to feel negative was linked to selectively avoiding negative information [9]. This was a correlation in a laboratory attention task and says nothing about behaviour.

In a 30-day diary study of 112 people with raised depression scores (10 or more on the PHQ-9, a standard depression questionnaire), perceived social pressure not to feel depressed or anxious predicted a later rise in depressive symptoms, and not the other way round [10]. This shows order in time, not proven cause, and covers only people with raised scores recruited online.

What is not toxic positivity?

The review cited above describes toxic positivity as a norm that demands a show of happiness in every situation and dismisses negative emotions [4]. By that definition, hope is not toxic positivity, and neither is humour or support. What matters is not the cheerful words themselves but whether they leave room for the feeling or push it aside. This is a framing of meaning, not a finding from data.

A better question to ask

Instead of asking whether a remark is positive, a more useful question is whether the feeling is being dismissed or given room. The studies above do not test this question directly; it follows from the review’s definition [4].