College Students Don’t Need Protection from the Truth Academic research suggests ‘trigger warnings’ carry no significant benefit and may even cause psychological harm. By James Freeman
The collapsing justification for one university fad brings hope that others may follow. Even within the academic establishment, it seems that no one can mount a fact-based defense for the trendy notion that students need to be protected from potentially disturbing ideas. This week’s encouraging news also presents an interesting test case of whether academic institutions can still perform the basic functions for which they were created.
Carleton College professors Amna Khalid and Jeffrey Aaron Snyder write in the Chronicle of Higher Education:
When debates about trigger warnings first erupted, there was little-to-no research on their effectiveness. Today we have an emerging body of peer-reviewed research to consult.
The consensus, based on 17 studies using a range of media, including literature passages, photographs, and film clips: Trigger warnings do not alleviate emotional distress. They do not significantly reduce negative affect or minimize intrusive thoughts, two hallmarks of PTSD. Notably, these findings hold for individuals with and without a history of trauma. (For a review of the relevant research, see the 2020 Clinical Psychological Science article “Helping or Harming? The Effect of Trigger Warnings on Individuals With Trauma Histories” by Payton J. Jones, Benjamin W. Bellet, and Richard J. McNally.)
We are not aware of a single experimental study that has found significant benefits of using trigger warnings. Looking specifically at trauma survivors, including those with a diagnosis of PTSD, the Jones et al. study found that trigger warnings “were not helpful even when they warned about content that closely matched survivors’ traumas.”
What’s more, they found that trigger warnings actually increased the anxiety of individuals with the most severe PTSD, prompting them to “view trauma as more central to their life narrative.” “Trigger warnings,” they concluded, “may be most harmful to the very individuals they were designed to protect.”
In theory, universities exist to separate truth from superstition, fact from fiction and thereby create knowledge, which they are then supposed to share with the world.
Now that the relevant academic literature says that a highly influential academic theory is wrong, what are college administrators going to do about it? Will they abolish trigger warnings, or will they bitterly cling to a faith-based conviction that free inquiry must come with a warning label?
Comments are closed.
