Trigger Warnings Might Actually Be Harmful

New study supports the fears of Lukianoff and Haidt

Photo by Goh Rhy Yan on Unsplash

In the era of college student sensitivities to a seemingly ever-increasing list of possible offending material, the use of so-called “trigger warnings” has become commonplace on university campuses. These warnings are usually given at the beginning of a class (or at the beginning of specific sections of a class) to prepare students for material that may be upsetting or controversial.

I use trigger warnings (sparingly)

I myself am an academic, and I myself have used trigger warnings. I don’t, however, use them to warn about upsetting material.

I teach on topics relating to sexual crime. My students know what my content is likely to be related to because I advertise the titles of my classes way ahead of the sessions themselves, and make lecture slides available before class. The way that I use these warnings is to counteract any shocks within my sessions. For example, if I’m teaching about the topic of pedophilia, I need to show students what I mean by “Tanner Stages 1–3” in terms of physical development. In doing so, I might show digitized images of naked individuals (including children) from medical sources. A ‘trigger warning’ (more a heads-up) at this stage means that my students are actually engaging with…