‘Trigger Warnings’ Are Harmful To College Students
A new study from Harvard University psychologists, published in the Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry, found that such an overuse of trigger warnings can actually be harmful to those who are exposed to them.
“According to the most-basic tenets of psychology, the very idea of helping people with anxiety disorders avoid the things they fear is misguided,” Lukianoff and Haidt wrote, before explaining that someone with a fear of elevators would not be told to avoid them, but rather to gradually engage with them until they were comfortable to use one. “Trigger warnings,” on the other hand, reinforce the fear and compound anxiety.
Another problem with such warnings is that they achieve the exact opposite effect from their intentions. From Harper:
To some people, trigger warnings are an essential part of the classroom. They’re seen as a way to make ‘marginalized’ students...