{"id":372297,"date":"2018-08-06T05:20:08","date_gmt":"2018-08-06T04:20:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/prison-planet-com-harvard-study-finds-trigger-warnings-increase-anxiety\/"},"modified":"2018-08-06T05:20:08","modified_gmt":"2018-08-06T04:20:08","slug":"prison-planet-com-harvard-study-finds-trigger-warnings-increase-anxiety","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/prison-planet-com-harvard-study-finds-trigger-warnings-increase-anxiety\/","title":{"rendered":"Prison Planet.com \u00bb Harvard study finds trigger warnings increase anxiety"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Campus Reform<\/strong><\/a>
August 3, 2018<\/p>\n

A recently published study by three Harvard University researchers claims that trigger warnings \u201cincrease peoples\u2019 perceived emotional vulnerability\u201d and \u201cincrease anxiety.\u201d<\/p>\n

The study, \u201cTrigger warning: Empirical evidence ahead<\/a>,\u201d published last week in the Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry<\/em>, concludes that trigger warnings may not be beneficial.<\/p>\n

\u201cTrigger warnings notify people of the distress that written, audiovisual, or other material may evoke, and were initially used to provide for the needs of those with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD),\u201d the study\u2019s abstract explains. \u201cSince their inception, trigger warnings have become more widely applied throughout contemporary culture, sparking intense controversy in academia and beyond.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSome argue that [trigger warnings] empower vulnerable individuals by allowing them to psychologically prepare for or avoid disturbing content, whereas others argue that such warnings undermine resilience to stress and increase vulnerability to psychopathology while constraining academic freedom,\u201d the abstract notes.<\/p>\n

The authors note that they wanted to \u201cinvestigate the psychological effects of issuing trigger warnings,\u201d and so presented a group of \u201cnon-traumatized\u201d people with reading materials that \u201cvaried in potentially disturbing content.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some participants were randomly assigned to receive trigger warnings prior to the reading, while others were not, and both groups were then asked to answer questions designed to evaluate their anxiety levels.<\/p>\n

According to the researchers, participants who were given trigger warnings prior to reading the material had a higher \u201cperceived vulnerability to trauma,\u201d were more likely to believe that trauma survivors are vulnerable, and experienced greater anxiety from the material.<\/p>\n