WARNINGS CAN TRIGGER ANXIETY

THE Mail has fallen foul of the faculty lounge after Saturday’s exclusive story on trigger warnings for fairytales at Glasgow University.

UK academics are importing campus culture wars from the US and, being academics, they regard popular scrutiny as an impertinence.

But trigger warnings should be scrutinised. Studies support their clinical application with PTSD sufferers but there is little research into their use in higher education by instructors untrained and unqualified in psychology.

One study concluded that they had only ‘trivial effects’ and were ‘neither meaningfully helpful nor harmful’, while another found that subjects issued warnings reported heightened vulnerability and anxiety.

A 2016 survey of abnormal psychology lecturers found less than a third gave warnings and only a quarter viewed them positively.

Trigger warners say sceptics lack empathy, but rigour is not the enemy of compassion and nor is empiricism.

Given the risks of encouraging avoidance or ‘priming’ anxious responses, responsible academics should wait for the evidence before foisting trigger warnings on their students.