The Science Behind Trigger Warnings

[@kateroberts167]

I stumbled across your podcast only a few days ago and love BOTH your evidence-informed content and soothing voice. I'm a 60 year old Australian with a complex trauma background and diagnosed mental illness. I'm uncomfortable with trigger warnings but don't want to seem 'ungrateful' for something so well-intentioned. Thank you for this balanced and respectful discussion 🙏

[@tracik1277]

I’m not sure what I think of trigger warnings, but I wish there had been content warnings from when I was a child in the 70’s as it could have saved me a lot of anguish and sleepless nights. I do relate to what you said about certain triggers being so idiosyncratic to a specific person.

[@markb2084]

Thank you for an informative summery of the available reseasrch. So many places use trigger warnings but invariably it is based on the biases of individuals or the percieved preasure of what is deamed demanding of a warning. Whilst I have may own triggers I feel a well thoughtout introduction to a topic is adequate to convey what should be expected from the topic of discussion.

[@bes03c]

I love your evidence-based podcasts!

[@AJansenNL]

Very interesting. Makes sense. 🙏

[@thecookiejoe]

It is an interesting take. Personally I like some trigger warnings but like you said - it is hard to tell how triggering something is. I can watch the Walking Dead no problem, but Saw is just not a fun experience for me. My ADHD brain connects this also to age restrictions and media literacy in general. I remember as a child that my brother started crying over a cartoon in which a goose died. I was a little older and I read that situation completely different. To be honest I did have no concept of death so it just went completely over my head. So would some kind of age restriction or warning have been good? I don't know. Being oversensitive can be wrong and being not sensitive at all can be wrong. I joined a discord community and they were super restrictive. They had an 18+ channel in which you could talk about things that are not pg13 and they wanted you to mark proverbs and figure of speech expressions so that people that have problems identifying those have an easier life. And I left because I just can't be asked at this level. It's okay if you ask me to be mindful and understanding. And I am willing to. But a safe space is not a place in which I can't talk about most things that interest me because they might be too adult or triggering for someone else. And in general that is a huge part of why I avoid interacting with other people because the social rules are just draining me. If in your community the trauma of not understanding a figure of speech is that problematic that it can't be solved in a normal conversation in which you laugh at the end about how funny that is - then I do not want to be part of it. As part of gaining media literacy people should somewhat understand what they get into. If you listen to a podcast about mental health it is probably not about someone who leads a happy life and is healthy. It is probably going to go places that might be very real. So the trigger warning for me is in the category or name of the podcast. I do like trigger warnings on streaming sites though because sometimes I am just in a place where I need comfort food and I like when a show or movie says "listen, the show has a cute name or looks like a neutral documentary, but dude... stuff is gonna get real." and sometimes I am just, yeah not today man. Like a documentary about genocide is an interesting topic but on some days I like a trigger warning to tell me how explicit it will get. So I neither believe the narrative of pressure makes diamonds nor the contrary of putting a stone in a golden cage makes diamonds. I think its good if there is a discussion about it and if communities find their rules. Like I said, that discord community was not for me. At all. And I think of myself as a very understanding and tolerant person. But science sometimes has the tendency to lose track of the individual. Science looks at groups and patterns and interpretations. Individuals are part of groups, but you lose a lot of information when you group people up. So even if science says trigger warnings are not doing any good, if an individual asks me to be wary of a trigger then I won't dismiss that on the basis of science. Because, devils advocate, this science could be an absolute excuse to be completely intolerant and ignorant. So tldr: I do not mind general trigger warnings - especially on content on which it is not obvious in which direction it will go. Because sometimes the hard topics are just for another day. As a society we should definitely discuss trigger warning and neither dismiss them completely nor be overly protective without being asked for it.

[@kristenhovet]

Thanks for your comment! You make great points. I would probably call what you're talking about content labelling as opposed to trigger warnings, though, and I think content labelling is a very good thing. I'd also say that the vast majority of scientists are trying to make the world a better place and, in this case, do right by people living with trauma-related conditions. Trigger warnings (separate from content warnings) might make sense in the short term, as many of the researchers noted, but in the long term, they're making us more sensitive and less able to engage with challenging content (and even challenging life experiences). AND they could be contributing to longer-lasting PTSD. A big part of it for me is that (as I discussed in this episode) triggers can include content that is not obviously disturbing to others. The visible texture of a certain material, for example, can remind someone of the person who abused them, and THAT can be their biggest trigger. How is that any less concerning than obviously "bad" or "alarming" triggers? And how do we protect people from that? The answer is, we can't. I like what you mentioned about certain content being obviously challenging. If you're listening to a podcast with certain titles and descriptions, it should be obvious that some content will get very real, as you noted. I'll also say that I think the constant use and expectation of trigger warnings, and the general sensitivity around certain topics, can make some people shut down when it comes to sharing about themselves, their lives, or their experiences. What if a person literally feels like their life stories are too triggering to others? I can imagine these folks literally censoring themselves at every turn, for fear of triggering or alarming others. I've heard of people even censoring themselves around trauma therapists, who are literally trained to deal with some of the most horrifying experiences humans can have. I wish we lived in a world where people were more free to express themselves and share their struggles with those around them, at their discretion, of course.

[@thecookiejoe]

@@kristenhovet thank you for taking the time on this long answer

[@kristenhovet]

@@thecookiejoe Thank you so much for your thoughtful response and for taking the time to engage here! I hope everyone reads your comments because your thoughts really add to the conversation about this topic. I really like the concept of resilience and finding ways to build psychological resilience. It's similar to a muscle, at least in the way I think about it. If you don't use the resilience "muscle," you lose it. It atrophies. This leads to a person stumbling through experiences, not fully feeling them or even cognitively exploring them, throwing blinders up at every turn. "No, that's too much, no, I don't want to deal with that, no, that's too painful, I don't like it, I won't deal with it, I'll move on, I'll distract myself..." To build psychological resilience, a person needs to grapple with challenging material. It doesn't mean they need to constantly be exposing themselves to difficult or sensitive content or life experiences, but it means finding a balance by not shying away from painful, alarming, or confusing material or life experiences. It means really thinking about it, allowing yourself to feel all the feels, and consider what you'd do in the specific scenario (if it's a matter of confronting someone else's story). So many people's lives are brutally disrupted when tragedy hits because they have very little in the way of resilience. They've been shielding themselves, and others have been shielding them their whole lives, then crap hits the fan, and they can't deal. Their minds basically crumble. Trigger warnings make sense in a culture that has little overall psychological resilience or is at least poorly versed in that regard. I like that you mentioned taboos. Yes, exactly. If we label something as needing a warning, we are marking it as taboo. And also, potentially, adding sensationalism to those taboos thusly marked. An overly sensationalized taboo is the absolute worst, in terms of psychological wellness as a society. We shouldn't be making more or less of what these topics are. Just let them be, and they'll go on their merry way. I also wanted to add that, from what I know, in the first weeks following a traumatic experience, people generally don't partake in challenging content or media and their lives get very sheltered or small. This is a kind of natural protective mechanism that sets in. Usually this avoidance lasts temporarily and then goes away on its own. For some people, the avoidance sticks around, and someone in an active state of PTSD may continue avoiding almost all challenging content, worried that they might confront material that triggers them - reminding them of the traumatic experience or making them relive it in vivid detail. This is one of the focal points of therapy for PTSD, confronting this avoidance. All that to say, most people's natural avoidance after trauma is enough. We don't need trigger warnings on top of that.

[@thecookiejoe]

@@kristenhovet there are 2 things that I want to add to this The first being humans imitating humans. And sometimes counterintuitively. Some humans smoke because it is bad and because they had someone warning them about it. So exposure is not always having a straightforward effect. And then there is a Werther/Papageno Effect. But there is no good way to deal with this as well. The second one is that I personally have not had great experience with exposure therapy. While it is a good concept and solution for a lot of people - it also has its limits. My argument for warnings would be that it gives some agency to the viewer. Which still does not answer if that agency is needed or could be of any help. And apparently for PTSD it is not of any help. But there are other cases in which I think it could be good. But nevertheless, you make a lot of good arguments in your video and I think it is fine the way you do it. There probably just is no perfect way to do it.

[@strictnonconformist7369]

I’m one of however many that find your voice pleasant to listen to. Now, with that out of the way: I agree completely that trigger warnings aren’t logical, and from deeper analysis, are an intentionally impossible thing to get “right” in that they’re a method to discriminate against anyone judged to have been insensitive or something undesired for whatever reason in a group: everyone is going to be sensitive to something, and it could be something meaningless to every other human on the planet. It’s literally Mission: Impossible, not merely Mission: We Can Do That, It’ll Be Very Difficult But Makes A Fun Movie, But We Keep Succeeding Against All Odds Because We Have To Make A Living. There’s another autistic youTuber I know of that doesn’t eat red foods. I don’t know that they get upset reading or hearing about them, but that’s an example that might exist that nobody would ever expect they needed to cover with a TW without knowing ahead of time. Now, with a sufficiently large group, the group cannot grow without being rendered silent except for very meaningless topics being spoken about, for fear of triggering someone and being othered. The demand for TWs eliminates anything resembling free speech by silencing everyone out of fear. There needs to be a #triggerwarning on #triggerwarning every time until people pointedly ignore them and we get back to sanity and actually being able to have conversations not driven entirely by fear.

[@elsy5069]

💞 "promosm"