Annotated Bibliography: The Coddling Of The American Mind

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I. Title
Lukianoff, G., & Haidt, J. (2015, September). The Coddling of the American Mind. Retrieved April 04, 2016, from http:/pqqwww.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/09/the-coddling-of-the-american-mind/399356/

II. Hypothesis
A movement driven by college students is on the rise, to demand protection from words, ideas, and subjects that cause discomfort and to punish those who offend even those that do it accidentally. The recent political correctness movement is coddling college students from reality and poorly prepares them for professional life.

III. Key Ideas
The resurgence of political correctness movement focuses on emotional well-being.
Aims to turn college campuses into "safe spaces" that shelter young adults from uncomfortable …show more content…

Campus culture that polices speech produces patterns of thought similar to causes of depression and anxiety.
Expressing allegiance to a team when making moral judgments can interfere with our ability to think critically. Social media makes this easy.
According to a study conducted by the American College Health Association, 54% of college students “felt overwhelming anxiety” in past 12 months, up from 49% in the same survey conducted 5 years ago,
Cognitive Behavioural Therapy teaches good critical thinking skills; these skills requires grounding one’s beliefs in evidence rather than in emotion.
Trigger warnings are ideas and attitudes that are found politically offensive by students, in the name of preventing other students from harm.
People acquire fears from past traumatic experiences and from social learning.

IV. Study Details: Sociological Based
Children born after 1980 had peanut butter removed from lunches, “zero tolerance” policies for bullying implemented and playground structures removed all in the name of safety.
In 2008 at Indiana University-Purdue University a white student was charged with racial harassment for reading the book “Notre Dame vs. The Klan” which featured a photo of a Klan rally on the book …show more content…

Instead of giving in to these students’ demands, universities should abandon restrictive speech codes and officially discourage trigger warnings. Universities should also prepare students for how to live in a world with potential offenses, an example of this is teaching them practices of cognitive behavioral therapy. A suggestion that I have for a future study is to teach students throughout high school the practices of cognitive behavioral therapy to help cope with emotionally discomforting subjects, as well as inform them that the real world will have no “trigger warnings” to help you through life. By doing this, it exposes people to the fact that reality doesn’t accommodate trigger warnings and cop outs due to emotional health reasons, and it gives them methods to combat these anxiety-inducing subjects to help them live their lives. These findings teach us that in life we will have to deal with discomforting people and opinions, but by knowing how to live