People who have ‘woke’ opinions are more likely to be depressed and anxious, study suggests
- Those who agreed with “woke” ideas were more likely to be anxious or depressed
- Women were also much more likely to subscribe to ideas of social justice
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People who subscribe to “woke” ideas about social justice issues may be at greater risk for depression and anxiety, a study suggests.
In a series of two studies, researchers in Finland asked more than 5,800 students and teachers, as well as various members of the general public, to rate the extent to which they agreed with statements widely criticized as “woke.”
Translated from Finnish, these include statements such as: “If white people have a higher average income level than black people, it is because of racism” and “trans women are women.”
They found that those who aligned themselves with “woke” ideals were more likely to suffer from anxiety and depression.
The researchers found that those who agreed with ‘woke’ statements had higher levels of anxiety and depression and lower levels of happiness
Moreover, they were not as happy as those who disagreed with these statements.
And women agreed with the statements more often than men.
However, political views played a major role. The researchers found that being politically left had a higher association with lower mental well-being than having a high ‘social justice score’.
Oskari Lahtinen, lead author of the study and senior researcher at the INVEST Research Glagship Center at the University of Turku in Finland, said that although wokeism started in America, it has now been imported into almost all Western countries.
He said: ‘The advent of a critical social justice discourse (often called ‘woke’) has sparked much discussion in the Finnish media in recent years.
‘This debate has been largely data-free and so it can be considered a valuable question to investigate how widespread these attitudes are.
‘Prior to the study, there was no reliable and valid instrument to assess the extent and prevalence of these attitudes in different populations, so I decided to develop one.’
The experiment was first conducted among 851 employees and students of the University of Turku.
It was then carried out nationally with more than 5,000 participants.
Participants were asked to examine the various statements and indicate to what extent they agreed with them.
This included sentiments such as: “If white people have a higher average income level than black people, it is because of racism” and “A white person cannot understand how a black person can feel as good as another black person.”
The researchers found that three in five women felt positively about “woke” ideas, while only one in seven men felt the same way.
“The gender gap was probably the most surprising to me,” Dr. Lahtinen said.
Those with left-wing political leanings were more likely to agree with social justice statements, as were women studying social sciences, education and humanities.
However, those with more conservative views were more likely to disagree with the statements.
Dr. Lahtinen also found that those who agreed with the sentiments had higher levels of anxiety and depression.
In particular, those who agreed with the statement “If white people have a higher average income level than black people, it is because of racism” were most likely to be anxious or depressed.
They also had the lowest happiness scores.
“The scale would need to be validated in North American samples to know how these attitudes manifest there,” said Dr. Lahtinen.
“I encourage colleagues in the United States to investigate the prevalence of these attitudes in the country they come from.”