Toxic positivity, i.e., when individuals respond to the negative experiences of others by insisting on positivity and/or dismissing the experience, has garnered the interest of practitioners and popular press worldwide. While the concept has surfaced in some academic disciplines (e.g., healthcare and linguistics), and the workplace is a key setting where toxic positivity occurs, surprisingly, toxic positivity has been overlooked in management scholarship. We address this gap by conceptualizing and operationalizing toxic positivity in the workplace. Across five studies, we develop and validate a measure to assess toxic positivity in the workplace and investigate antecedents and outcomes of toxic positivity. Our findings provide valuable insight into an important phenomenon, laying the foundation for future research on toxic positivity in the workplace.
