The hidden dangers of positive messaging

Positive messaging is the elixir of the age, but what if all of those warm, supportive words were actually doing more harm than good?

In new research poised to shake up our upbeat-loving culture, University of Waterloo psychology professor Mark Zanna and colleagues have found that positive messaging can actually enforce negative ideas.

“People are very vigilant and attuned towards negative stereotyping, especially towards black people,” said Dr. Zanna, a social psychologist who won the celebrated Killam Prize in 2011.

“[But] positive stereotypes can be just as bad as, and perhaps even worse than, negative stereotypes. We have to make people aware of this.”

The study

In a recent series of five studies, Dr. Zanna and collaborators Martin Day and Aaron Kay gave a fake news story to study participants: one story ostensibly documented a positive stereotype; and one ostensibly documented a negative stereotype. After reading the stories, participants were asked a series of questions.

The first tests found that positive messages are barely even recognized as being biased.

In the final test, participants were shown photos of 10 people, two of whom were people of African descent, and asked to rate the criminal tendencies of each.

Participants who read the negative stereotype story [that black people were naturally more aggressive than white people] believed the people of African descent in the photos were no more likely to commit crimes than the other people.

“But participants who read the positive stereotype story [that black people were naturally more athletic than white people] believed the people of African descent depicted were more likely to be criminals,” Dr. Zanna said.

Good leads to bad

It turns out that the positive message had led study participants to see black people as essentially different. And that led them, in turn, to regard individuals from that group differently.

A paper on the counter-intuitive findings is being prepared now for publication later this year.

“There are lots of positive stereotypes in the air, and generally people think that’s okay,” Dr. Zanna said.

“People don’t understand that positive stereotyping can have negative consequences as well. It’s bad too. They have to be aware.”