The key message that made Inside Out 2 bigger than Barbie

While anxiety is one of our most uncomfortable emotions, the Pixar sequel shows how it can be valuable, and not always just something to be “fixed”.

Warning: This article contains spoilers for the film Inside Out 2.

As fans will know, the film gives viewers a first-hand view of a girl named Riley’s inner life, in which emotions are personified as wise-cracking characters in her mind’s Headquarters. Riley is now 13, and Joy, Fear, Sadness, Anger and Disgust have been joined by Anxiety, Embarrassment, and Ennui.

Anxiety soon hijacks the Headquarters and banishes Riley’s Joy (Amy Poehler) and her gang to the “memory vault”, alongside Riley’s deepest secrets. They must battle their way back to the Headquarters and restore Riley’s sense of self, while she struggles to navigate the social awkwardness of ice hockey camp.

Like its predecessor, the film’s script was informed by scientific consultants, who ensured that it accurately captures the multifaceted nature of our emotions – and this is surely a large part of its appeal for adults as well as children. We can all relate with the maelstrom of feelings that Riley endures and learn to appreciate them for their roles in our lives.

Anxiety is no doubt one of our most uncomfortable emotions. The physical symptoms – racing heart, breathlessness, muscle tension – can leave us feeling as if we are no longer in control of our bodies, and our stream of consciousness can descend into a cascade of worst-case thinking. As the film shows us, however, anxiety serves a purpose: it ensures that we pay attention to the things that matter most to us. Even if we are not in physical danger, it can alert us to situations that are important to our self-esteem and future happiness, propelling us to act.

For an animated film, Riley’s Anxiety (played by Maya Hawke) makes the ideal anti-hero; an energetic redhead with a gap-toothed smile who is eager to please and frantic to plan for every possible threat to Riley’s self-esteem. The more her plans backfire, the more despotic she becomes – pushing Riley to ditch her old friends and ruthlessly pursue a position on the high school ice hockey team. She begins to believe that no one will like her if she fails in this mission. This backfires: she starts alienating her existing friends and ultimately places herself under such pressure that she starts to experience a panic attack. We have surely all been there – falling into vicious cycles of worry and self-doubt, in which we believe that our whole world will crumble with a single disappointment or failure.

Even when she is behaving her worst, however, we know that Anxiety has Riley’s wellbeing at heart. The havoc she wreaks on Riley’s mind – including the theft of her “sense of self” – all result from misguided attempts to ensure that Riley will be safe and loved in the future. “I was just trying to protect her,” she says tearfully, when the other emotions finally persuade her to cede control.

In real life, it can be easy to forget the fact that anxiety exists for good reason – and reminding ourselves of those benefits appears to be beneficial to our wellbeing. Consider a year-long study of doctors and teachers in Germany. Those who saw anxiety as a source of energy – agreeing with statements such as “feeling somewhat anxious about a situation at work makes me more active in problem solving” – were less likely to suffer from emotional exhaustion at the end of the year than those who viewed it as a sign of weakness or a threat to their performance.

Another experiment recruited US students taking Graduate Record Examinations that are part of university admissions for higher degrees. Before a mock exam, some participants were provided with a short text reminding them that anxiety can sometimes be beneficial to performance. “This means that you shouldn’t feel concerned if you do feel anxious while taking today’s GRE test. If you find yourself feeling anxious, simply remind yourself that your arousal could be helping you do well.”

They subsequently performed better on the mock exam and the real thing, with particular improvements on the maths section – the area most likely to trigger their anxiety. The scientists name this mental shift “reappraisal” – and note that it’s a way of “turning the knots into your stomach into bows”, a sentiment worthy of the happy-go-lucky Joy.

There are many possible reasons why this might be, but one simple explanation is that a negative view of anxiety only adds more reasons to worry. When we feel our nerves building, we start assuming that this is itself a sign of imminent failure. If we see anxiety as a natural and helpful reaction, it relieves us of this additional burden.

As Inside Out 2 teaches us, we must be careful not to let anxiety go into overdrive with “catastrophic thinking” by imagining endless chains of negative events. Catastrophic thinking often comes with over-generalised states accompanied by a sense of extreme certainty. There is no evidence that the one event (Riley has no friends) will inevitably follow the other (she fails to make the team) – but that is what she comes to believe. One of my favourite scenes of the film sees Joy trying to break Riley out of this habit by pointing out all the positive outcomes that might occur which are just as likely (or unlikely) as the worst-case scenarios.

In real life, practices like Cognitive Behavioural Therapy teach us to recognise the over-generalised beliefs and question the evidence behind them. Do we really have good reason to think that our worst nightmares are about to unfold? Or is that – as Joy points out – simply one of many possibilities? Can we, like Joy, look for less frightening ways of viewing the situation and its outcomes?

By the end of the film, Riley’s Anxiety has learnt to work in balance with her other emotions: she can help Riley to prepare for the future without putting her on high alert all the time. Child or adult, many of us could surely learn the same lesson to enjoy a more authentic and satisfying life.

David Robson is an award-winning science writer and author of The Laws of Connection, which examines 13 science-based strategies to transform your social life, published by Canongate (UK & Commonwealth)/Pegasus (US and Canada). He is @d_a_robson on X and @davidarobson on Instagram and Threads.