Trigger warnings may be defined as “alerts about upcoming content that may contain themes related to past negative experiences.” The rationale for using such alerts emerged from the PTSD literature, which found that many people with PTSD can be "triggered" into re-experiencing unpleasant symptoms when exposed to materials that spark traumatic memories.
The application of this idea beyond the clinic’s confines began in the late 1990s on feminist internet message boards, with the intent of cautioning readers about graphic depictions of rape in certain posts for fear that they could trigger panic attacks and symptoms of PTSD in readers who were victims of sexual violence.
Since their emergence, trigger warnings have been adopted for use with a variety of contents other than those related to violent or sexual trauma. Trigger warnings have been slapped on general language content (e.g., adult humor) medical content (e.g., human bodily functions), and stigma-related content (e.g., depictions of racism), and the concerns they purport to address have branched beyond re-experiencing traumatic symptoms, and onto the possibility of experiencing emotional distress or mere discomfort.
All the while, the value of trigger warnings has been hotly debated. Proponents argue that they serve to inform and educate consumers of the content they are about to consume. They argue that people, particularly those who have suffered a traumatic experience in their past, will be better able to handle difficult content if they are prepared in advance and are given the choice to engage or not.
Opponents argue that trigger warnings coddle and infantilize adults, and that they facilitate avoidance and/or inflate morbid and prurient curiosities, thus increasing rather than decreasing emotional turmoil and anxiety. In promoting avoidance of challenging material, opponents argue, trigger warnings also run counter to the clinical literature, which shows that trauma is best overcome through exposure rather than avoidance.
In recent years, a sizable empirical literature has accumulated looking to referee between these warring hypotheses. Yet the results have often been mixed, the quality of studies suspect, and the dissemination to the public weak. Recently, the Australian psychologist Victoria Bridgland of Flinders University and colleagues conducted a meta-analysis of the literature on trigger warnings in an effort to settle the debate. To ensure that the studies under consideration were of high quality, the authors first decided on stern inclusion criteria.
Included studies were only those that:
After a careful search of five databases, 12 studies meeting the above criteria were selected for participation in the meta-analysis. All 12 studies were published between 2018-2022 and most included trauma survivors in their sample. Participants in the selected studies were mostly from Western, democratic, wealthy countries. The authors then went on to examine and integrate the results from these studies with regard to several outcomes.
The authors note that their results largely concur with the interpretations of the studies’ own authors: “In terms of authors’ interpretation of their work, 11 of the 12 articles concluded that warnings were ineffective at their proposed goals. And most of them tended toward a characterization of warnings as inert.”
The results show, in effect, that both extremes in the debate over trigger warnings are misguided. Trigger warnings are neither necessary nor devastating for those who receive them. “Existing research on content warnings, content notes, and trigger warnings,” they write, “suggests that they are fruitless, although they do reliably induce a period of uncomfortable anticipation.”
This study is unlikely to be the last word on the issue. Future studies may well find that trigger warnings are reliably helpful for certain people under certain circumstances. Yet until such evidence for their effectiveness is produced, we may do well to heed the authors' concluding recommendation: “Trigger warnings should not be used as a mental health tool.”
Trigger Warnings Can Be Triggering
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01.04.2024
Trigger warnings may be defined as “alerts about upcoming content that may contain themes related to past negative experiences.” The rationale for using such alerts emerged from the PTSD literature, which found that many people with PTSD can be "triggered" into re-experiencing unpleasant symptoms when exposed to materials that spark traumatic memories.
The application of this idea beyond the clinic’s confines began in the late 1990s on feminist internet message boards, with the intent of cautioning readers about graphic depictions of rape in certain posts for fear that they could trigger panic attacks and symptoms of PTSD in readers who were victims of sexual violence.
Since their emergence, trigger warnings have been adopted for use with a variety of contents other than those related to violent or sexual trauma. Trigger warnings have been slapped on general language content (e.g., adult humor) medical content (e.g., human bodily functions), and........
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