C/O MICHELLE CADIEUX
The Silhouette: Please introduce yourself.
Michelle Cadieux: My name is Michelle Cadieux. I am the course coordinator and one of the instructors for introductory psychology.
I've heard a lot about you guys doing costumes this Halloween. Could you tell us a little bit more about that?
Every year, we do the charity event where, if we raised enough money, your [professor] dresses up for Halloween. In reality, [Dr. Joe Kim] and I would dress up regardless of whether or not we raised enough money — we think it's a lot of fun. It's an initiative to raise money and we participate every year.
"Every year, we do the charity event where, if we raised enough money, your [professor] dresses up for Halloween. In reality, [Dr. Joe Kim] and I would dress up regardless of whether or not we raised enough money — we think it's a lot of fun. It's an initiative to raise money and we participate every year."
MICHELLE CADIEUX, COURSE COORDINATOR AND INSTRUCTOR FOR INTRODUCTORY PSYCHOLOGY
What do you guys have planned for this year?
That's kind of a surprise but Joe and I are going to have matching costumes. It turns out that, for some odd reason, I own two adult Mario costumes. I'm not actually sure why. But then, my son decided to go as Mario last year for Halloween. My husband wanted to go as matching Marios and I went through our costume closet — yes, I own an actual closet full of costumes — and all of a sudden I found a second one. So, Dr. Kim has gone as Mario a couple of times and borrowed the costume from me. It looks great on him. This year, I was just like: "Oh, we're totally going as matching Marios". I'm really into Nintendo games and I got my son really onto the Mario side of things. We went through all of Mario Odyssey together during the pandemic. Though, this year, he's going as a Pokemon. He's going as Eevee treating and my husband and I are both going as Eevee evolutions. So we're an Eevee family. He also has a Pikachu one for school.
Do you also have more costumes?
I have four different costumes for this year. I have the costume that I'm going to wear for lecture, Mario, and then I have the costume that I'm going to wear when I go trick or treating, Leafeon, and then I have the costume that I'm going to wear for my TAs during our tutorial preview. I haven't quite decided what that one's going to be yet but I have this medieval princess thing that I'm thinking of and I have a Sailor Mercury costume that I'm wearing for a Halloween party.
Do you have a favourite costume?
I have a whole bunch of really cool ones. One that students tend to pick for me is a 1950s diner waitress costume. I will wear the whole outfit including the roller skates and I will lecture while wearing roller skates. I haven't decided if students like the costume or just the higher risk that I'm going to fall on my face. Skating on carpet is actually really hard. Regardless of how good I am on skates, I might trip and my arms go up. Everyone in the room will gasp and I don't know if they're hoping that I'll fall or not. Either way, I think it's funny. [The costume] was actually made by my godmother. A lot of my costumes come from her — she used to make costumes for Halloween. She was really into it and luckily we're of similar size. So, when she was emptying out her costume closet, I inherited a bunch. The love of costumes may be genetic.
Could you tell us a little bit about the psychology of why we want to be so scared around Halloween?
Being scared is something that a lot of people find thrilling. I don't think it's necessarily connected to Halloween. It's just that Halloween can sort of be an excuse. Being scared ups your adrenaline and that feels good. There's an element of thrill that we enjoy. It's the same reason we like eating spicy chicken wings — even though it hurts — because the pain releases endorphins. We get this connection between being scared and getting that adrenaline rush in a situation when we're not actually in danger. It's why we do escape rooms, watch horror movies, play pranks where you jump out behind somebody and everyone laughs. A little bit of fear gets our blood pumping, gets our adrenaline up and that can be a really positive feeling as long as you're not in actual danger.
C/O Kevin Patrick Robbins
Students can learn more about how sexuality is defined by social constructs in a sociology course
Sexuality is often considered an uncomfortable topic, especially in the classroom; however, there are many courses at McMaster which cover topics related to sexuality.
SOCIOL 3UO3, for example, is a course that explores issues related to sex and sexuality from a sociological standpoint. Tina Fetner, the Chair of the sociology department at McMaster, has been teaching this course even before she began teaching at McMaster.
There are other courses offered at McMaster which discuss sexuality from other perspectives. PSYCH 3AC3, for example, discusses sexuality from an evolutionary and social psychology perspective, according to the course outline. LIFESCI 4XO3, another course offered at McMaster, discusses sexuality from a biopsychological perspective, according to its course outline.
Fetner explained that teaching about sexuality often leads to students feeling discomfort, even when they do not expect to.
“[Students are] super confident that they have found their way out of any kind of sexual taboos, that unlike previous generations, they are super confident about talking about sexuality, they feel very comfortable about it,” said Fetner.
Fetner acknowledged that members of the younger generation are likely more comfortable talking about sexuality than their grandparents but added that they are often still less comfortable than they consider themselves to be.
“As we actually start talking about it, we all start to giggle we all start to express our discomfort in socially appropriate ways,” explained Fetner.
Fetner explained the importance of teaching about sexuality in an academic context, despite social taboos.
“In order for us to understand ourselves and our social world, sexuality has to be one of the things that we're willing to talk about and treat not as some kind of special weird taboo subject, but as a regular topic of sociological analysis, where we can collect evidence, analyze it, and understand the social patterns, because otherwise we're missing an important part of the social world,” explained Fetner.
According to Fetner, is important that we understand and discuss sexuality because it plays a major role in influencing our interactions with one another and with the world.
“It is possible to see sexuality itself as a social force and [to see] the way that sexuality has been harnessed by even larger social historical forces, like colonialism, and like racism, and obviously sexism and gender inequality, and how either surveillance of or restrictions upon (or even criminal penalties for) certain kinds of sexuality have been used to create social divisions between groups,” explained Fetner.
Psychology students get their five seconds of TikTok fame in IntroPsych TikTok competitions
C/O MacIntroPsych
MacIntroPsych is turning the nightly routine of scrolling through TikTok into an educational habit, with psychology-themed posts and TikTok competitions for IntroPsych students. To get students engaged in the online learning environment, the course has taken to social media to make course content fun and accessible.
As the course was originally taught in a blended learning format, IntroPsych was well-prepared for the shift to online learning. A major difficulty faced by the university in transitioning to an online learning environment was transferring in-person lectures and tutorial components to an online format.
@intropsychtiktok visual processing?? ... light work ##foryoupage ##fyp ##retina ##photoreceptor
♬ original sound - Lucas Geling
“[This year, we saw] such an outpouring of support, love and gratitude for the work that we put in and that definitely made it all worth it. Not to mention, we saw a huge increase in enrollment in PSYCH 1XX3 compared to previous years — we have 100 additional students this semester. I really thought this year would be like the rest of 2020, a bit of a dumpster fire, but it ran better than I could have expected. The students were engaged, happy and funny,” said Dr. Cadieux.
In the past, IntroPsych held meme competitions on Twitter, where students sent in their best original psychology-related memes leading up to important examinations. The TikTok competitions emerged from the Twitter competitions, in a natural shift to the up-and-coming social media platform.
The transition to TikTok competitions was driven by the IntroPsych TAs, who turned their joke of becoming “TikTok famous” into a reality. They started the TikTok account in January 2020 but started posting videos more frequently in fall 2020. Now the most popular video on the IntroPsych TikTok account has surpassed 40,000 views.
“One of the awesome things about both the professors is they’re very much down to try anything that’s interesting or anything that the TAs are passionate about. The IntroPsych team isn’t afraid to have fun and incorporate learning into fun and vice versa and I think that’s what really helped set the foundation for this TikTok sphere that we made,” said Zoe Thompson, a fourth-year psychology, neuroscience and behaviour student in her second year as an IntroPsych TA.
The TAs were inspired by Darrion Nguyen, a TikTok creator who produces educational and accessible science content for students. The teaching team creates their own psychology-related videos based on difficult course concepts throughout the semester with the goal of making course content more digestible for students.
The next TikTok competition will be around the April exam period. To enter the TikTok competitions, students can let their creativity run wild and post any TikTok related to IntroPsych course content with the contest hashtags.
The top two entries are chosen by the number of likes, while there are two additional TAs’ choice runner-ups. UberEats gift cards are reserved as prizes for the top four entries.
@intropsychtiktok Be critical when reading papers to understand their weaknesses! Charity: Empowerment Squared ##macintropsych ##macintropyschtiktok
♬ original sound - best clips
“[Creating TikTok videos] is a form of elaborative rehearsal. It takes a lot of thought because you have to know something about pop culture, but you also have to know something about the concept that you’re teaching [to put] them together in a thoughtful way,” said IntroPsych professor Joseph Kim.
The IntroPsych team encourages students to make the most of their university experience and take responsibility for their learning in and outside of classes.
@intropsychtiktok ♬ original sound - Camila
“The onus is on the instructor [to facilitate student engagement], but at the end of the day, it’s also up to the students to put in an effort and make an investment in their own learning,” said Kim.
By Olivia Fava, Contributor
Two of McMaster’s professors, Chandrima Chakraborty and James MacKillop, have recently been named to the Royal Society of Canada’s College of New Scholars, Artists and Scientists.
Founded in 2014 and based in Ottawa, the College of New Scholars aims to gather the “emerging generation of Canadian intellectual leadership” from a broad range of disciplines. Recipients of the College’s title must have demonstrated exceptional achievement in the early stages of their career. By pooling together award recipients, irrespective of their disciplines, their goal is to encourage a dialogue between intellectuals with diverse perspectives, and hopefully inspire new insights.
The College acknowledges five aspects of the current academic landscape that inform their mandate: the increasing use of new media in research communication; the emergence of interdisciplinary research; the majority of Canadian professors being recently hired; greater female representation in academia; and greater First Nations and visible minority representation in academia.
A clinical psychologist by training, MacKillop’s award-winning research focuses on addiction — the factors causing it, how it sustains itself and how it can be treated. He is currently the director of McMaster’s Peter Boris Centre for Addictions Research, and co-director of the Michael G. DeGroote Centre for Medicinal Cannabis Research. He studies both cannabis addiction and the potential risks of prescribing cannabis medically. He is a member of the department of psychology, neuroscience and behaviour. MacKillop was not available for comment.
Chakraborty, on the other hand, is part of the department of English & cultural studies. In the past, her work has focused on the relationship between religion, masculinity and nationalism in India, with an analysis of media and literature. Currently, she is focused on the 1985 Air India bombings and the post-9/11 targeting of South Asian populations.
Chakraborty was nominated by McMaster to become a member of the College. According to her, the nomination was formally initiated by the previous president, Patrick Deane. She considers the nomination not only personally significant to her, but also significant in its recognition of the value of research that engages the community.
“Much of my work straddles a number of different fields. History, memory studies, trauma studies, nationalism, masculinity … For me, this nomination is a recognition of that kind of work that crosses those kinds of disciplinary boundaries. I also think this recognition is important because my work is very much situated in the community,” she said.
Specifically, Chakraborty referenced her current work on the Air India bombings, through which she has interviewed families of victims and collecting photographs. She has been learning from the community and recognizing them, in her own words, as “carriers of knowledge”. She works as a mediator to bring a seldom-recognized tragedy into the realm of public consciousness.
Chakraborty’s efforts have resulted in the first-ever public archive on the Air India tragedy. She emphasizes that this project is not simply about researchers writing about the tragedy but also about families sharing their stories on their own terms. The archive also engages questions of race, Canadian citizenship and public mourning.
“Why is it that if 329 people were on that plane, and about 280 of them were Canadian citizens or permanent residents, why do Canadians of [student] age, for instance, not know about this tragedy? How do certain griefs become part of the public realm and part of the national consciousness whereas certain other kinds are seen as local? … Is it ignorance, is it apathy, is it racism, what is it?” she asked.
When asked what she would attribute her personal success in terms of this recognition, Chakraborty named her childhood experiences as a child of refugees as well as her experiences as an immigrant in Canada.
“I might be an English literature prof, but I don’t speak like white Canadians — accent and gender and race and all of those things. You learn to work harder than others … you always feel like ‘I really have to prove myself, because nothing is given to me,” said Chakraborty.
She also expressed gratitude to her teachers and family, her colleagues at McMaster for their support and the students who have expressed interest in her work.
The College of New Scholars summarizes its membership criteria as “excellence.” Congratulations to these two researchers for demonstrating the excellence of the McMaster community in a range of disciplines on the federal level.
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Hating your body is NOT normal
You do not have to hate yourself. It is not normal, even if it is common. Often, our negative thoughts about ourselves become habits and we don’t even notice how much they have taken over our lives. It is perfectly OK to love your body as it is, or even just to come to terms with it. Disordered eating is pervasive, and bodily self-hate is everywhere, but it doesn’t have to be. The mantra of “every body is beautiful, including my own” is one that I repeat to myself constantly, and that I also tell those I love when they are struggling. Find your own mantra and use it wisely. You and your body are on the same team; cultivate a good relationship and you will be astonished what you can accomplish together.
Food is everywhere
And I don’t just mean physically, I mean socially. You don’t realize just how many events — religious, family, or friendly — revolve around food until you try to give it up. Swearing off food is nothing short of social death. In hindsight, the saddest moments in my life were those when I sat and ate my pitiful meals alone, picking at celery sticks and egg whites alone in the quiet confines of my room. Food was never meant to be a solitary activity, yet we spend too much time eating independently or in the company of Netflix. Treasure your communal meals, because the nourishment of company is just as important as what you are eating together.
Everyone is beautiful
A funny thing happened when I started being open about my body dysmorphia. The people I thought would be the happiest with their bodies — the slim and conventionally appealing — were no more satisfied with their appearance than the ordinary looking. What I discovered is that how you feel about your body has very little to do with your body itself. When I was a full 70 pounds heavier than my sickest weight, I was also happier with my body than I’d ever been (and the healthiest I’d ever been too). The best way I’ve found to begin healing your relationship with your body is to stop judging other people for their appearance. If you can learn to accept other people, it becomes a hell of a lot easier to coexist with your own “faults.”
Life is too short for diets
Remember what I said about food and social death? I was not kidding. A diet takes away your focus on the important things in life and replaces it with a cycle of guilt, self-hatred, and smug superiority. While not all diets are eating disorders, they have one important thing in common; they narrow your focus down to one thing and one thing only — the food you cannot eat. They also don’t work. Five years after a diet your chances of keeping the weight off is only five percent likely, and many people actually gain back more weight than they’ve lost. My — admittedly extreme — diet has even had permanent or semi-permanent negative effects on my body and mind. You are torturing yourself for nothing. Seriously, life is too short.
Relearn everything about your health
Thinness is not health. We all have that one skinny friend that eats terribly and does not exercise — and as an autonomous human being, that is their right — but why on earth would we assume that they are healthier than the fat person who exercises daily and enjoys wholesome food? More and more studies are showing that lifestyle has a much larger impact on health than size, and the two are not necessarily correlated. We accept the fact that some people can be naturally skinny, but we can’t accept that some people may be naturally larger, and that there is nothing wrong with that. Some people are naturally fat and they are not any less healthy, beautiful, or worthy of respect.
Photo Credit: Cicanevelde.hu
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I will admit that I am a hypochondriac. The slightest suspicion has me out the door and in line at the walk-in clinic. Unfortunately, this often leaves me feeling frustrated because seeing your family doctor or visiting a walk-in clinic doesn’t always give you the answers you’re looking for. If something doesn’t feel right, it is worth getting it checked out by a medical professional, but depending on what your problem is, doctors might not always have solutions. If you are suffering from a disorder with no physical manifestations — such as mental health concerns — a clinic or family doctor may send you away without resolving the problem.
While many sufferers of mental illness benefit greatly from medication prescribed by their doctors, it is not always necessary or as helpful as one might imagine. Two cases that come to mind in which non-medicinal alternatives can help are situational anxiety and seasonal affective disorder, both very common ailments. Both can vary in symptoms from person to person. Since doctors diagnose based on evidence presented to them, it’s going to be difficult in cases like these for them to be entirely sure of their analyses. Only you have a complete picture of how you are feeling, and while medication may be necessary in some cases, you might find that you simply need a bit of mediation, exercise, and a healthy diet. These are a few options that could help lift your spirits, if not addressing the root cause of your problem. Non-medical treatments also don’t have the side effects that medication can. One option is counselling or cognitive behavioural therapy.
I am by no means saying that doctors should be avoided. They should be consulted, however, it’s important to not rely completely on the medical system when you don’t have to.
CBT works by examining negative thinking in order to change your outlook and responses. The purpose of this type of psychotherapy is to minimize overall distress levels and self-defeating behaviour. Considering the amount of stress we students face daily, therapy is one solution to a wide range of mental health problems that is more sustainable than taking unnecessary prescription drugs.
I am by no means saying that doctors should be avoided. They should definitely be consulted. However, it’s important to not rely completely on the medical system when you don’t have to. We all know how difficult it can be to get an early appointment let alone a same-day one. Wait times can be long, especially when you need to follow up with a specialist. Therefore, one of the best things you can do for yourself if you are struggling is closely examine your own situation. Write everything down. Document your moods during the day, what you’re eating, when you’re going to bed, and anything about your health that seems out of the ordinary. Start looking for trends so that when you do see your doctor you can deliver as full a picture as possible. Sometimes you might feel like things are hopeless and that you have no control over the way you feel, but in many cases, you do have at least some agency. Sure, these tips and tricks may not completely solve the problem, but they can’t hurt. Ultimately, doctors are here to help, but they aren’t all-knowing deities. They want patients to feel better, but they are only human. If there is a problem that we may be able to help fix, we should explore all other avenues available to us.
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By: Sohana Farhin/SHEC
An experiment conducted at the University of Pennsylvania concluded that the single biggest contribution to leading a happy life is showing gratitude to yourself and others in life. Being present in your experiences, taking in all the moments and pausing to show thanks is a significant factor in what makes life worth living. Keeping a gratitude journal to write down what you are thankful for each day is one of the ways in which you can show what you appreciate in life. This finding reflects many of the principles of positive psychology, which is a way of controlling your outlooks, perspectives, reactions and expectations in order to achieve happiness.
Buddhism has greatly inspired the field of positive psychology in western countries, including Canada. Central to Buddhism and positive psychology is the Eightfold Path, also referred to as the Middle Way or the Middle Path. It is an approach that proposes that nothing should be deprived, or taken in excess, but rather that we should strive to maintain a middle ground. Maintaining this “golden mean” is said to be the root of all happiness.
The Eightfold Path consists of eight interconnected “right” elements: view, intention, speech, action, livelihood, effort, mindfulness and contemplation. Right view is a way of seeing things for what they are, and not for what you hope they would be. With right intention, one consciously attempts to get rid of negative qualities. Similarly, by working towards abandoning hurtful thoughts and habits, one is embracing the pillar of right effort. Right speech and action refer to speaking the truth with compassion and engaging in respectful actions while refraining from harmful actions, respectively. Engaging in a career that is virtuous reflects the principle of right livelihood. Right mindfulness is a mental state of presence and awareness of your body and environment. Complementarily, right contemplation is being able to fully concentrate your attention towards something. Much research supports many of these elements as integral to health and happiness. For example, a recent study from Harvard found that relaxation-response techniques, such as meditation reduced the need for health care services by 43%. We can employ elements of the Eightfold Path to live life with a positive attitude.
As we grow weary of winter, let’s do our best to remain positive and keep the hearts of others and ourselves warm during this cold month of February. Certainly we can take a tip or two from the field of positive psychology to practice positivity in our daily lives.
Photo Credit: Burnjo
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After a particularly rough day of classes, few things in life are better than relaxing to the festive croon of Michael Bublé’s voice as he sings all the holiday classics. It’s around this time of year that I begin counting down the exact number of days until Christmas Day, blasting Christmas music around the house on my laptop speakers, and nagging my housemate endlessly about the next time she plans on visiting her home in Toronto to pick up our decorations. All of this probably makes me guilty of propagating the widespread pre-Christmas consumerism rampant in early to mid-November, but I love it.
For Western society, Christmas probably marks the largest marketing event of the year. I remember heading to Fortinos a couple of weeks ago, only to find the shelves already cleared of markdown post-Halloween candy and readily stocked with ribbon-and-tinsel wreathes. When I went to the Eaton Centre that very same weekend, I found it swarmed with what must have been half the city, flocking to the mall to get their holiday shopping out of the way. This was weeks away from December, let alone Christmas.
Most widely perused streets now have their trees adorned in Christmas lights, and every coffee shop I pass by is promoting peppermint-flavoured drinks emerging to reclaim their menu space after a yearlong slumber. It’s almost as if November itself doesn’t exist: the transition from Halloween to Christmas seems to occur in the blink of an eye.
And yet, despite being a highly commercial time of the year, the thought of Christmas is usually the one thing keeping me sane in the weeks leading up to exams. There is something intrinsically happy about the preparatory Christmas atmosphere, whether it consists of curling up on the couch with a book in one hand and a steaming cup of hot cocoa in the other, dancing to Jingle Bell Rock during house cleaning and seeing the slight smiles on my housemates’ lips as they mouth the words in tandem, or even simply knowing that the gift you intend on giving someone will be absolutely perfect in letting them know how much you appreciate them.
Christmas isn’t something that has an expiration date. If there’s one thing the retail sector has done right, it’s in saying that it’s never too early for a bit of Christmas spirit. Underneath all the seasonal holiday promotions and crafty Christmas-themed ads (here’s looking at you, Coca-Cola) lies a far less tangible and far more valuable feeling, shaped by a time dedicated to our personal experiences with the people we love in the places we call home. The energy that comes with Christmas hype can and should be harnessed for motivation in getting you through the last few gruelling weeks of school, and the many social events hosted in its honour leading up to Christmas Day also serve as a reminder to take some time off for yourself, rather than working to the point of keeling over.
Winter is coming, and maybe the white walkers are coming with it, but if winter is coming, that means Christmas is too. And let’s be real: if you can handle multiple courses’ worth of exams, taking down a couple of white walkers in the meantime before Christmas gets here should be no problem at all.
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“Do you only date people from your own background?” my friend asked. I’d like to think the answer to that question is no. My partners have all been radically different from each other — in personality and appearance — and I’ve never been accused of having a “type,” but one thing I had never really thought about was that most of my partners so far have been white.
I’m not alone in my apparent habits. OKCupid data from 2009 to 2014 shows that the vast majority of members had either a preference or indifference towards dating someone from their own race. However, the data also shows us something a little bit nastier: 82 percent of heterosexual non-Black men said that they weren’t interested in being matched with Black women, and Asian and Black men were significantly less popular among heterosexual female users. This may be information from only one website, and for a set number of years, but it is indicative of wider trends in the way we approach our relationships.
It’s not terribly surprising that racism seeps into all aspects of our society, including our romance, but you might be wondering why your preferences are a big deal. Discriminating against someone in a job interview most likely has a larger impact on them than deciding not to ask them to dinner (also, if you aren’t interested in dating someone because of their race, I’m willing to bet that person isn’t all that interested in getting a meal with you anyway). However, we can’t say that racial preferences in romance have no effect whatsoever. In her article for Vice magazine about the experience of being a Black woman on Tinder, Eternity Martis talks about the impact that racism has on a user’s self esteem. Being hypersexualized, tokenized and fetishized from all angles when looking for a relationship understandably takes a toll on one’s feelings of self worth.
Martis is not alone in her experiences, which are unfortunately not uncommon. This begs the question: if our preferences are not random, and are instead part of larger societal trends, where do they come from? Some explanations might include evolutionary psychology, but if humans are programmed to be attracted to physical prowess and symmetry, why should this exclude People of Colour? Another explanation might be that we are interested in people from our own racial background, but if this was the case then we wouldn’t see specific discriminatory trends in dating patterns.
Instead the answer is exactly what you would expect: ubiquitous White supremacist beauty standards. We can see the ways this manifests in media representation. How often do we see Asian men as romantic leads in Hollywood blockbusters? On television shows, how often are Black women described as “the one”? When you can count the number of interracial couples in contemporary media on one hand, it starts to make sense why racism might make its way into our dating lives.
At this point you may be feeling insecure about your preference for brunettes, or wondering if you have been fetishizing that tall guy you see in the student center based on his height. Don’t fret. Having preferences is not the same thing as discriminatory dating. I’m not proposing that we should all date people we aren’t attracted to in order to prove a point, nor am I demanding that you change something you may have no control over such as what features you are attracted to. People in interracial relationships are not necessarily more enlightened than the rest of us, and people who date those from their own backgrounds are not necessarily more racist. What I’m asking instead is for us to take a step back, and look at our race-based preferences critically. Let’s demand better representation in our media, expect respectful interactions on dating websites, and think twice before we dismiss someone as “not our type.”
Photo Credit: AP Photo/Tsering Topgyal
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By: Sophie Geffros
The use of trigger warnings in the classroom is not just an accessibility issue; it is also good pedagogical practice.
Both of these statements may shock you. Indeed, given the recent spate of hand-wringing articles by academics regarding their use, one would be forgiven for thinking that “trigger warnings” involved warning a professor before pulling a trigger.
Of course, they’re nothing of the sort. A trigger is a stimulus that produces a disproportionately negative reaction in people with mental health concerns. They are most commonly associated with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and other anxiety disorders, and may describe a stimulus that evokes an individual’s trauma so strongly that they “flash back” and relive the traumatic event in their mind. Although every person has different triggers and a different reaction to exposure, there are some that are more frequent than others. Descriptions of abuse, sexual violence and traumatic injury are all common triggers in people with PTSD.
Alerting students to the contents of the next day’s lecture is already common practice in most classrooms. In my four years at McMaster, I cannot recall ever having been assigned a reading without the professor reminding us to pay particular attention to certain themes or phrasings. Including a warning about the graphic descriptions of rape will not prevent professors from also directing students to pay particular attention to the use of birds in Tess of the d’Ubervilles.
A trigger warning is an academic accommodation that instructors are legally obligated to provide, but the onus should not be on the student to reach out. To begin with, there are many individuals with PTSD symptoms who have not been formally diagnosed. PTSD is very common in individuals who have been sexually or physically abused, and these individuals often do not feel comfortable disclosing their symptoms to a physician, as to do so is also to admit to the abuse. Even individuals with a formal diagnosis may not be comfortable approaching Student Accessibility Services about this, and even fewer will be comfortable speaking with an instructor.
Even if you do choose disclosure, instructors are often unsure of how to react. In my first year, I tentatively approached a philosophy professor who seemed sympathetic. I told him that I had heard from other students that some of the case studies on the syllabus dealt with some distressing issues, and that as a person with PTSD, I would appreciate it if he would give us a warning about the content when he assigned the cases. He frowned thoughtfully, and asked “So PTSD, huh? What happened to you?”
I didn’t know what to say. I still don’t. If anyone has come up with a way to disclose years of sexual abuse and two very serious motor vehicle accidents to a professor without feeling as though you should melt through the floor, I would love to hear it.
That night, I experienced nightmares and flashbacks that were the worst I had experienced since seeking treatment for my PTSD.
Psychiatrists call this phenomenon “retraumatization,” and it is relatively common in people with a trauma history. It can leave a person jittery and anxious for weeks, and may result in significant relapse.
Instructors should consider that warnings for content does nothing to diminish the experiences of the group, and allows many students to learn and engage with the material who would be otherwise unable to. Most students with triggers don’t wish to avoid the material entirely—although if they do, it would be within their rights to ask for an alternate assignment—but instead wish to be given sufficient time to prepare themselves. They may discuss the content with a friend or counselor, or they simply may make sure that they are in a safe place and positive state of mind when they choose to engage with it. Regardless of their choices, the provision of a warning will drastically improve their academic experience.
A university should provide an environment that is safe and accessible for all students, regardless of their disability status or life experience. If providing a trigger warning can make the difference between a student engaging with the material or being unable to, I fail to see how an educator can refuse to provide the necessary accommodation.
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