Allergy warnings don't help people avoid an allergic reaction after consuming the food.
Are we shocked?
Trigger warnings don’t help people cope with distressing material
41–50 of 78 posts
Re: Trigger warnings don’t help people cope with distressing material
#42The best way I've seen it described is in the Coddling of the American Mind [1] which basically says that trigger warnings aren't a treatment for PTSD, they are a symptom.
Re: Trigger warnings don’t help people cope with distressing material
#43Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, it may, particularly if it's an unavoidable trigger. That should be done safely and consensually within the context of a therapy session/plan with a professional guiding it. It's like surgery. Entirely acceptable in certain scenarios, but you'd object if your English lit prof decided to DIY it during class.
Aren't the trigger warnings a DIY treatment themselves? In the absence of specific professional advice, I'd think the default would be to treat people normally. Why are we so eager to put trigger warnings on things without any evidence that they're doing more good than harm?
No, they’re not a treatment. They may aid someone who is in treatment, though.
I know an abuse survivor who has been in therapy for many years working on the impact of it. We avoid movies with abuse depictions as it causes severe disassociation and setbacks in that treatment.
Someone for whom it’s triggering but less severely so might just opt to watch said movies with a trusted friend on a day they’re feeling emotionally sound.
They allow folks to choose the level of exposure to optional, potentially damaging things. Just like an R rating on a film might make you pause before bringing an 8 year old to the theater.
Re: Trigger warnings don’t help people cope with distressing material
#44Trigger warnings aren't meant to be useful; they are a manner of virtue signalling.
Trigger warnings are harmful for society as well. Grown adults at university get coddled with the stuff, then released out into the cold, cruel, uncaring world. Not a good turn for society.
I notice a trend, at least in online fora, to glorify or almost celebrate anxiety and neuroticism. I'm not weighing in on the cause for this phenomenon but I wouldn't be surprised if this is related in some way.
Re: Trigger warnings don’t help people cope with distressing material
#45Earlier quoted context omitted.
>What is material that is supposed to capitalize on surprise? It's a hard one to answer but I'll give the answers I can from my time in university. It's hard mostly because each instructor handles the material differently so often examples are oneshots. With regard to sociology and anthropology, the Nacirema are often presented as a real tribe at first. Many students will realize what's happening, but the point of th…
None of those things seem to be like particularly harmed by people being told in advance that violence or rape will happen. Or even knowing in advance that racism or sexism would be depicted. Knowing in advance that the n-word word appears will not make cornerstone speech different nor make Frederick Douglass book read different. Students don't have to say n-word to read it in context either? Trigger warning to class…
I agree that none of the examples I gave would lose much of their impact, but I'd argue that's also not directly tied in to the ovarching point I was trying to express (though obviously I expressed it badly or else that's where the focus would be).
It's easy to point to any one example and say "Well that could still work." but the point I was trying to drive at is that this changes the dynamic of the lecture. Surprise can be used as a catalyst for introspection or introducing a strategic amount of discomfort to illustrate a point, etc. the point I was trying to make is simply that it has utility. When you are /required/ to have a trigger warning, as an instructor, you are being obligated to compromise the effect you were trying to persue and presumably you were trying to persue it because you thought it would help the class with some form of comprehension whether that be intellectual or emotional.
Even if you're not outright required to issue trigger warnings (lets say because a middle ground policy is implemented that encourages instructors to do so but leaves it to their discretion) those instructors are still required to adapt to triggered students or else they wouldn't have been encouraged/required to do so in the first place. But because there's no reliable way to know what specific content will trigger a student in a given class the system is actually incentivizing censorship because now the only way to ensure you minimize trigger events is to assume that every student is triggerable and so optimal content becomes content which is as unchallenging, emotionally speaking, as possible.
Allergies wouldn't be a terrible analogy. Lots of schools, in America I can't speak for Europe and elsehwere, have regulations about common allergies like peanuts. These regulations are targeted towards common allergies because otherwise the task of preventing allergic reactions becomes an all encompassing battle to minimize liability. That's not to say students with rare allergies shouldn't be accommodated at all, but at some point the impact on the other students has to be addressed.
Re: Trigger warnings don’t help people cope with distressing material
#46[deleted]
Re: Trigger warnings don’t help people cope with distressing material
#47Earlier quoted context omitted.
"Indifferent towards rape." Seriously? Not being triggered by a depiction of a rape in a novel doesn't mean you're indifferent towards rape. And while "springing" "triggering" "content" on a weak person is a bad idea, encouraging them to seek out triggering content on their own and approach it at their own pace is going to create a stronger, better person. It's not just about the trigger either - learning that you ca…
> Not being triggered by a depiction of a rape in a novel doesn't mean you're indifferent towards rape. That wasn't the point being made. The point is that if depictions of rape are triggering to you, it's not necessarily important to work on not being triggered by rape depictions. Avoidance is generally acceptable there.
Isn't it better for a person to not be triggerable?
Wouldn't you wish, if a friend of yours was chronically vunerable in a way that hindered them that, all else being equal, they would become more resilient- for their own sake?
Re: Trigger warnings don’t help people cope with distressing material
#48Earlier quoted context omitted.
None of those things seem to be like particularly harmed by people being told in advance that violence or rape will happen. Or even knowing in advance that racism or sexism would be depicted. Knowing in advance that the n-word word appears will not make cornerstone speech different nor make Frederick Douglass book read different. Students don't have to say n-word to read it in context either? Trigger warning to class…
I agree that none of the examples I gave would lose much of their impact, but I'd argue that's also not directly tied in to the ovarching point I was trying to express (though obviously I expressed it badly or else that's where the focus would be). It's easy to point to any one example and say "Well that could still work." but the point I was trying to drive at is that this changes the dynamic of the lecture. Surpris…
What I am saying is that this is purely theoretical construct. That fine tuned impactful lesson that is so great, but breaks if I dont know the violence will be there, it does not exist. Not even art works that way.
And if it does, it sounds awful lot like something manipulative. Minor red flag wtf is going on manipulative. It is supposed to be college lesson.
Edit: I have seen trigger warning I lecture about American history from one of big schools (on youtube, they released it free). The lecturer just said "I will show violence" or some such and that was it. If you left the room, you would not get any special material. You would just avoid sight of dead mistreated people.
Re: Trigger warnings don’t help people cope with distressing material
#49Earlier quoted context omitted.
People who can be expected to experience increased distress from the topic are much more likely to choose to avoid it, so I'm not surprised in the least by that association. Also from the article: > critics argue that the avoidance of potentially upsetting material is actually a counterproductive approach because it offers no chance to learn to manage one’s emotional reactions. This is wrong. You don't learn to manag…
"Indifferent towards rape." Seriously? Not being triggered by a depiction of a rape in a novel doesn't mean you're indifferent towards rape. And while "springing" "triggering" "content" on a weak person is a bad idea, encouraging them to seek out triggering content on their own and approach it at their own pace is going to create a stronger, better person. It's not just about the trigger either - learning that you ca…
> encouraging them to seek out triggering content on their own and approach it at their own pace is going to create a stronger, better person
Are you a therapist?
Are you their therapist?
Re: Trigger warnings don’t help people cope with distressing material
#50Earlier quoted context omitted.
Training works on people; people are animals. To a certain extent, this is what therapy is: helping people train parts of their brains to behave differently.
The difference is that we have therapists who are licensed to do this, and who are better at judging progress and when it might be appropriate to progress you. Your average lecturer or teacher is not trained in this way, at least specifically regarding trauma.
The average lecturer was managing a class, but now they need to prescreen individuals for experiences that make them too weak for normal classes?
Just about 10 years ago cutting edge therapists were implanting false memories of childhood trauma.. If someone does not seem to need a therapist based on actual behavior then I don't think schools should be inviting lecturers to create pre-screening based on students reactions to trigger warnings, etc.
Bad ideas like every lecturer learning pop psychology "safety" and then reading tea leaves to tell people under their authority to get help is how you create a generation with psychological problems.