Why We Get Too Excited About Positivity

Imagine that you are about to go on a national TV show, The Voice, for instance. This show starts with a process of “blind auditions,” where each artist comes out to a stage where the four “coaches” are sitting on chairs facing the other direction. The artists have to win over the coaches only with their “voice.” If the coaches like what they hear, they will turn their chairs around with a glowing sign that says, “I want you.”

This is the opportunity of a lifetime. You are nervous. You practiced so much for this moment. Once you start singing and hearing the audience cheering for you, you start feeling more like yourself. Then, you see one of the coaches turns around! Soon, two more chairs turn.

You end your performance with three coaches who want you. You are thrilled. These three superstar musicians whom you’ve respected and admired so much want to have you on their team. Now the question is: Whose team will you join? Which coach will you choose as your mentor?

Seeking advice: What we think we will do vs. what we actually do

On The Voice, deciding which person to pick as your coach is incredibly important. Your coach will guide you, provide advice on your singing, and help you throughout the competition.

This is also the case for our careers in real life. A mentor—a person who provides us with advice, knowledge, and support—is particularly beneficial for achieving our goals, such as getting a promotion or being hired for a dream job. How do we decide who to have as our mentor? Our research (Hur et al., 2020) shows that we have strong beliefs about the characteristics of good mentors, such as expertise and experience. However, in the moment of decision-making, we often go with our hearts. That is, we choose the mentor who seems most excited to have us.

Throughout multiple studies, my colleagues and I have shown that people think they will and should choose their mentor based on the mentor’s competence. We presented participants with five characteristics of mentors: expertise, mentoring experience, personality fit, honest criticism, and positivity. We then asked them to rank the characteristics in order of importance.

We found that the participants ranked expertise the highest: They think they should choose whoever has the most expertise. Interestingly, participants consistently ranked positivity the lowest: They think they should not choose a mentor simply because the mentor looks happy to mentor them.

The power of “I would love to help you out.”

So, do people actually follow their own beliefs when choosing their mentor? Do they actually choose the person with the most expertise and experience as their mentor? We wanted to test this, so we went back to The Voice and analyzed the choices that the artists on the show made on whom to choose as their coach.

What we found is, unlike the stated beliefs of those in our study, positivity dominated the decision-making of the artists on The Voice. That is, the artists on the show often chose a coach who demonstrated the most excitement at working with them, both verbally and behaviorally. This expressed positivity was the strongest predictor of the coach choice—stronger than expertise and experience.

It is worth noting that simply following positivity might not be the best strategy. It feels good to be wanted, especially by the people you respect and admire. But by following positivity, we might be overlooking important features of our mentors—those who have the knowledge, give us honest criticism, and have mentoring experience. Our study shows that people tend to show less performance improvement when working with a mentor who expresses a great deal of positivity compared to working with a mentor who gives constructive feedback.

In season 3 of The Voice, one artist gave a breathtaking performance of “Proud Mary” by Tina Turner. The performance won over three coaches: Cee Lo Green, Christina Aguilera, and Adam Levine. Surprisingly, the singer chose Adam Levine, the lead singer of Maroon 5. Among the three, he was the only coach who did not have much expertise in her genre, R&B. However, he excelled in positivity. He turned his chair first, gave her a standing ovation, and expressed excitement for mentoring her.

When asked why she chose Levine, the contestant said: “I just had to go with my heart, and when he said he felt so blessed and honored that I was here, that was just where I wanted to go.” Sometimes, despite our own beliefs, choosing from whom to seek advice and help comes down to a very simple question: Does this person seem happy to have me?