Citation

Bridgland VME, Green DM, Oulton JM, Takarangi MKT. J. Exp. Psychol. Appl. 2019; ePub(ePub): ePub.

Affiliation

College of Education, Psychology and Social Work.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2019, American Psychological Association)

DOI

10.1037/xap0000215

PMID

30843709

Abstract

Trigger warnings are messages alerting people to content containing themes that could cause distressing emotional reactions. Advocates claim that warnings allow people to prepare themselves and subsequently reduce negative reactions toward content, while critics insist warnings may increase negative interpretations. Here, we investigated (a) the emotional impact of viewing a warning message, (b) if a warning message would increase or decrease participants' negative evaluations of a set of ambiguous photos, and (c) how participants evaluated overall study participation. We meta-analyzed the results of 5 experiments (N = 1,600) conducted online, and found that trigger warnings did not cause participants to interpret the photos in a more negative manner than participants who were unwarned. However, warned participants experienced a negative anticipatory period prior to photo viewing that did little to mitigate subsequent negative reactions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

Language: en