People who have ‘woke’ opinions are more likely to be depressed and anxious, study suggests

People who subscribe to “woke” ideas about social justice issues may be at higher risk of depression and anxiety, a study suggests.

In a series of two studies, Finnish researchers asked more than 5,800 students and professors, as well as several members of the general public, to rate the extent to which they agreed with statements widely criticized as ” awake.”

Translated from Finnish, these statements included statements such as: “The reason why white people have a higher income level than black people on average is because of racism” and “Trans women are women.”

They found that those who aligned with “woke” ideals had higher instances of anxiety and depression.

Additionally, they were not as satisfied as those who disagreed with these statements.

And women were more likely to agree with these statements than men.

However, political opinions strongly played a role. The researchers found that being on the political left was more associated with lower mental well-being than 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 while wokeism began in America, it has now been imported to almost every Western country.

He said: “The advent of critical discourse on social justice (often called ‘woke’) has sparked much debate in the Finnish media over the past two years.

“This debate was largely devoid of data and so it might be considered an interesting question to study the prevalence of these attitudes.”

“Prior to the study, no reliable and valid instrument existed to assess the extent and prevalence of these attitudes in different populations. So I decided to develop one.”

The experiment was conducted for the first time among 851 staff and students at the University of Turku.

It was then carried out with more than 5,000 participants across the country.

Participants were asked to review the different statements and rate the extent to which they agreed with them.

This included sentiments such as “If white people have a higher income level than black people on average, it’s because of racism” and “A white person can’t understand how a black person feels as good as another black person. »

Researchers found that three in five women viewed “woke” ideas positively, while only one in seven men felt the same.

“It was probably the gender divide that surprised me the most,” Dr. Lahtinen said.

People with left-wing political affiliations were more likely to agree with statements about social justice, as were women studying social sciences, education and humanities.

However, those with more conservative views were more likely to disagree with these statements.

Dr. Lahtinen also found that those who agreed with these feelings had higher levels of anxiety and depression.

Specifically, those who agreed with the statement “The reason white people have a higher income level than black people on average is because of racism” were most likely to be anxious or depressed.

They also had the lowest happiness scores.

“The scale will need to be validated in North American samples to find out how these attitudes manifest there,” Dr. Lahtinen said.

“I encourage my colleagues in the United States to study the prevalence of these attitudes in the country where they originated.”