Positive Self-Help Statements May Have Negative Effect
The researchers asked participants with low self-esteem and high self-esteem to repeat the self-help book phrase “I am a lovable person.” The psychologists then measured the participants’ moods and their momentary feelings about themselves.
As it turned out, the individuals with low self-esteem felt worse after repeating the positive self-statement compared to another low self-esteem group who did not repeat the self-statement. The individuals with high self-esteem felt better after repeating the positive self-statement–but only slightly.
In a follow-up study, the psychologists allowed the participants to list negative self-thoughts along with positive self-thoughts. They found that, paradoxically, low self-esteem participants’ moods fared better when they were allowed to have negative thoughts than when they were asked to focus exclusively on affirmative thoughts.
I’m not exactly sure how they measured what “low self-esteem” was but as someone who suffers with depression, I can say that this is very true for me. Ask me to repeat positive things and I just start thinking about how big of a failure I am for not being able to believe any of this shit/how I’m so far from “normal” that even this stuff doesn’t make me feel better, only worse.
I SO need to keep this in mind. This is basically documentation of why “you gotta think positive” is really, REALLY bad advice.
I remember this. Argh.
Being told what to think is highly unproductive and just adds extra pressure, creating more anxiety. It should be simple.
Printing this out to show it to my family gdi.