The Ineffectiveness of Trigger Warnings

Wednesday - January 3 2024, 15:34 UTC - 10 months ago

An analysis in Clinical Psychological Science challenges the notion that trigger warnings can provide individuals with a heads-up to emotionally brace themselves or avoid content that may resonate with past traumas. This research showed that distress levels remained consistent, whether participants were forewarned or not, due to a "forbidden fruit" effect, which could make potentially aversive material more tempting to viewers. It suggests that emotional regulation training could be more meaningful in helping people use these warnings to better prepare themselves beforehand.

Proponents of trigger warnings argue that they can provide individuals with a heads-up to emotionally brace themselves or avoid content that may resonate with past traumas. However, an analysis in Clinical Psychological Science, a publication of the Association for Psychological Science, challenges this viewpoint. The study indicates that trigger warnings may actually increase anticipatory anxiety before someone encounters sensitive content, without reducing the likelihood of engaging with such content .

Victoria M. E. Bridgland from Flinders University, along with Payton J. Jones and Benjamin W. Bellet from Harvard University, found that these warnings don’t necessarily alleviate distress after exposure to potentially triggering material. Their research showed that distress levels remained consistent, whether participants were forewarned or not. "When people see trigger warnings it makes them feel anxious, but that anxiety doesn’t seem to be any sort of helpful emotional preparation," Bridgland said .

"We need more strategies to give people versus just putting a warning on something and assuming that is going to give them a toolkit for mental health." Bridgland, Jones, and Bellet reached their conclusions by comparing the results of 12 studies about the effects of content warnings on participants’ negative emotional reactions, avoidance behavior, and comprehension. The majority of these studies included a mix of participants who were trauma survivors and people who did not report a history of traumatic experiences .

The researchers’ analysis resulted in four findings: "Existing published research almost unanimously suggests that trigger warnings do not mitigate distress," Bridgland and colleagues wrote. "Indeed, trigger warnings (including those used in the current studies) typically warn people about the distressing reactions they may have but do not explain how to reduce these reactions." These findings also suggest that people do not use content warnings to avoid viewing triggering content, even when they have the option to do so, the researchers noted .

This may be due to a "forbidden fruit" effect, which could make potentially aversive material more tempting to viewers. Given that many people do not use content warnings to avoid troubling material, Bridgland’s ongoing research suggests that emotional-regulation training could help people use these warnings to better prepare themselves beforehand.