Alert! Trigger Warnings Don't Work

The Dr. Phil Podcast

Dr. Phil McGraw

Mental Health, Self-improvement, Society & Culture, Education, Health & Fitness

4.4 • 13.2K Ratings

🗓️ 16 May 2025

⏱️ 45 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

We take a deep dive into trigger warnings and how they are permeating our country. There are now warnings regarding movies, novels, Mother’s Day and Father’s Day, museum exhibits and more. We take an inside look at policies at colleges and hear from Cornell students on whether it’s a good idea in the classroom to have warnings about immigration, racism, and violent crimes … including the student who sponsored a resolution to make them mandatory which did not pass. We analyze the current research on this issue, discuss all the words like spiders and blood that are considered too difficult to hear without a warning and hear two university professors debate whether students are too sensitive (critics call them “snowflake students”) or should be encouraged to hear trigger warnings for their mental health if a topic is too close to home.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Trigger warnings can be triggering.
0:02.0	The heated debate surrounding trigger warnings.
0:04.0	Romeo and Juliet, it comes with a trigger warning.
0:06.0	It says, production contains suicide and violence.
0:10.0	Well, spoiler alert.
0:12.0	The research indicates that trigger warnings are not effective.
0:16.0	Trigger warnings don't hurt.
0:17.0	Oh, actually, they do.
0:19.0	Wouldn't it be simple to just say heads up, right? But it's not right.
0:21.6	It's not going to happen in the real world.
0:24.6	This has gone way too far.
0:30.6	I have a warning.
0:36.6	There is a huge ideological movement I have a warning.
0:44.2	There is a huge ideological movement attempting to sweep our nation.
0:46.1	It is more than unhealthy.
0:47.1	It's toxic.
0:56.2	Based on fiction and lies and targeting you, your family, and eating away at the very heart of what has made America the subject of worldwide envy for generations.
1:00.9	This ideology strives to undermine America's meritocracy and other core defining values
1:07.3	by contaminating messaging in our educational systems, corporations, certain brands marketed to you,
1:15.2	the media you watch or click to consume.
1:18.5	It is an ideology that seeks to undermine drive, ambition, self-worth, and pride by replacing it
1:26.4	with a commitment to a quality of outcome regardless of quality of input.
	...

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