The content argues that the pressure to maintain a consistently positive facade, particularly within Asian-American communities, can lead to "toxic positivity," resulting in the suppression of negative emotions and a reluctance to seek mental health support.
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Guys, I genuinely believe the Oscars
don't mean award. Forget about Adrian Brody.
Brody.
Hear me out. The other day, I put on
this generational performance in front
of my friends who asked me how was my day.
day.
Well, I bombed the test. My water bottle
broke and spill on my laptop and my
homework in my dog. No, I do not mean
the other way around. Anyways,
what was the question again? How was my day?
Oh, I just had a wonderful day. Life is
I put on this Academy Award-winning
performance on a daily basis. But it's
not just me. My friends and peers also
have the tendency to always have a
positive outlook. You might be
wondering, how is positivity a bad
thing? Well, when the expectation to be
positive becomes, as the Berkeley
Wellbeing Center describes, the act of
suppressing or denying stress,
negativity, or other negative emotions,
it can be toxic.
And this issue is especially prevalent
among Asian-American communities.
According to BMC Health Services
research, Asian-Americans suffering from
mental illnesses are likely to delay or
forgo mental health care.
So today, let's be real. First, we'll
open up the curtains on the causes of
this phenomenon, then step onto the
stage to announce its consequences
before finally give an acceptance speech
on how to battle it.
I grew up hearing this one sentence over
and over again. quite literally, why
can't you just be happy? And especially
frequently during family gatherings.
Indeed, one of the core values of Asian
culture is the close social networks we
form. And it wasn't just my family. As
the Oxford Handbook of Emotional
Development puts it, social networks is
the sticking glue of Chinese society.
And maintaining these networks and
relationships require balance and
harmony, which unfortunately a lot of
people achieve this through masking or
denying negative experiences that could
lead to social conflict. For example, a
kid will be condemned as being petty
when complaining about being impolitely
teased by elders during a family
gathering. Instead, they will be told
that it is not a big deal and they must
submit themselves to being ridiculed to
maintain the harmonious atmosphere.
For those with mental illnesses, the
situation is even more dire.
As Medical News Today puts it, they are
sometimes considered as being incapable
of living up to the harmonious image and
are seen in some Asian households as
failures, valueless, or not having a
meaning or purpose. Moreover, the
immigration to America only adds another
layer to the toxic positivity we are
being pressured into. Being an Asian in
America means being attached to the
model minority myth, which defined by
the anxiety and depression association
of America, a stereotype that
generalizes a group of people to a
seemingly positive attribute. Indeed,
all Asian kids are seen as hardworking,
diligent math geniuses. Although this is
a positive stereotype on the surface, it
could lead to great negative consequences.
consequences.
Sherlock or Feno in a TED talk
introduces the concept of a stereotype
threat when members of a group puts
pressure on individual action to avoid
encouraging negative group stereotype.
This means that the model minority myth
can easily get internalized and
Asian-Americans feel pressured to always
live up to this positive perfect image
which induces the suppression of
negative emotions.
I know some of us might think what
actual consequences could there be by
what just seem like being over optimistic.
optimistic.
The thing is when we're constantly
pretending to live in a show of all
sunshines and rainbows, the divine line
between the positive outlook and the not
so positive reality becomes blurred. And
we genuinely believe that the world must
only be about positivity and any
negative emotions do not belong and must
be suppressed.
Because of the connection between
negativity and shame or incapabilities,
Asian-Americans are less likely to seek
help when it comes to mental illnesses.
American Psychological Association finds
that Asian-Americans are three times
less likely to seek mental health
services than white people and that only
8.7% of Asian-Americans have sought
mental health care compared to 17% of
the general population.
This is not an uncorrelated coincidence.
According to a study conducted by social
cognitive and effective neuroscience,
when European Americans are told to
suppress their emotions, their brain
activity increases, indicating emotional
struggle and effort towards that. But
when Asian-Americans are told to do so,
their brain activity significantly decreases.
decreases.
This suggests that the constant turning
down of emotions can have actual
physical impact. In some instances,
people are literally unable to detect
their emotions to seek proper help.
Not only are Asian-American individuals
less likely to seek help, the image of
the perfect Asian prompts the society to
offer less help as well as more and more
Asians live up and are pressured to be
positive always and always become
hardworking and diligent.
This is it gets internalized by the
society that we're always fine and do
not need more help or attention.
In a study conducted by Journal of
Immigrant and Minority Health,
participants are asked to look at two
identical mental health clinical
symptoms, except that one has an Asian
success story attached to it. It is
discovered that when primed with a model
minority stereotype, participants are
more likely to judge the target as
better functioning in mental health and
having less clinical symptoms.
This means that the perceptual bias of
the model minority leads people to
naturally assume that we are mentally
fine even when evidence clearly suggests otherwise.
