Can I feel safe and protected here? At universities there are now often trigger warnings and safe space notices during lectures or seminars that are intended to ensure this. What signals do they send? Do they even work? An experiment shows that the trigger warnings about traumatizing content were well received, but had no other effect. The safe space instructions, which promise a safe space, led to students reporting an increased feeling of security. They also rated the teacher who gave a lecture in the videos as more trustworthy and caring towards the students.
738 US students were recruited for the online experiment. They were randomly assigned to four experimental conditions in which they were each shown a video showing a lecture by a teacher about trauma. In the first condition, this person read a trigger warning, in the second there was a safe space notification, and in the third there was both. In the fourth control condition, participants saw no evidence. They then assessed the trustworthiness of the speakers in various questionnaires.
As the scientists report, the trigger warnings and safe space messages also sent out political signals: the teachers who received trigger warnings and safe space notices were perceived as more liberal, but by some also as left-wing authoritarian.
source
Pratt, S. et al. (2025): Sending signals: Trigger warnings and safe space notifications. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied. DOI: 10.1037/xap0000541
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