In the paper by Dr. Alexandru Tiba and colleagues, the authors show that a positive event does not automatically produce healthier automatic emotions. What determines whether a person feels a functional positive emotion or a dysfunctional one is the way they interpret that event. A flexible or rational person tends to generate a balanced interpretation and a rational belief, which leads to healthy positive feelings such as happiness, joy, or cheerfulness. By contrast, an irrational or rigid person may think in demanding terms such as “I must get this job” or “I need this to happen,” and this can produce excessively intense positive states like euphoria, excitement, or elation. These high-arousal states are labeled dysfunctional positive feelings. The traditional ABC model states that an Activating event leads to a Belief, which then produces a Consequence. For example, failing an exam may activate the belief “I must never fail and failure is unbearable,” which in turn produces guilt and anxiety. The positive ABC model applies the same logic to positive events, proposing that when people respond to positive situations with irrational beliefs, they are more likely to experience dysfunctional positive feelings.
The authors clarify that it is not happiness itself that is bad nor is strong happiness automatically harmful. The key distinction lies in the quantity, density, and persistence of these emotional states, and whether they are driven by irrational beliefs. Rigid thinking can occur around good things as well, taking the form of demandingness (“This must happen” or “I need this to happen”), positive intolerance (“If this happens I will be so happy that I won’t be able to handle it”), and extreme self‑valuation (“If this happens it proves that I am special and if it does not, I am not”). In their study, when participants vividly imagined positive situations, primary positive irrational beliefs helped explain why some people experienced more dysfunctional positive feelings. Preferences for healthy positive feelings were important for functional positive emotions, and primary rational beliefs were generally associated with functional positive feelings, though some secondary irrational beliefs such as positive intolerance and extreme self‑valuing mediated the link between primary irrational beliefs and dysfunctional positive feelings. As an example, receiving praise might lead one person to feel pleased and motivated, while another person with rigid beliefs might feel an overwhelming, almost uncontrollable elation that reinforces the idea that they must always be praised to be valuable.
