Unexpected Negative Participant Responses and Researcher Safety: “Fuck Your Survey and Your Safe Space,Trigger Warning Bullshit”

Our Protocol Is Biased

At the top of the consent form, which all participants (hopefully) read before agreeing to participate in the study, we explained, “The purpose of this study is to examine individuals’ emotional disappointment with Hillary Clinton’s Presidential election loss. We aim to explore the negative emotional responses and potential coping mechanisms following Clinton’s election loss.” It appeared that many of the negative commenters did not read the study call or the purpose statement in the consent form. As a result, people who were not unhappy with the election outcome completed the questionnaire and had a difficult time comprehending why the questions were “slanted” toward being upset at the election results. For example:

This survey is pretty biased and should only be for those that are sad/angry/upset that Clinton lost.

In addition, the study does have a narrower focus (Clinton supporters who were upset about the election results, feelings of loss and grief), which is standard for qualitative research. It is not uncommon, when trying to get at the experiences of a specific group of people, to narrow the focus of the study. We were concerned about the emotional and coping experiences of a specific group of people. This would be no different than if we asked people who had recently experienced a death to talk about their grief and coping (which is a common approach to studying grief and loss). In fact, the questions asked of participants could easily be used in a study examining more traditional forms of grief and loss and no one would question their validity. Interestingly, participants found this approach problematic (e.g., “the survey should only be for those who are angry or sad about the election”), even though we specifically stated this purpose in the call and on the consent form.

Some people took their insults a bit further and questioned the education system as a result of their assessment of our questionnaire:

You really should try to be a bit less overtly biased in surveys such as this. Things like this are even further eroding my respect for academia, and it wasn’t all that great before taking this silly survey.

We Are Unethical Researchers

Another group of insults centered on disparaging our research ethics and professional integrity. In these cases, participants questioned not only the study design but also our ethics. Whereas the previous critique was about our skills as researchers, these comments speak to how we (un)ethically approach research, participants, and the exploration and presentation of knowledge.

I know you are going to make this survey say whatever the hell you want so have fun changing facts and massaging people’s little emotions. I hope government money was not spent on the stupid study. If it was I’m telling Trump.

We found the number of comments questioning our ethics disturbing because we pride ourselves of being ethical researchers, and because we study grief and loss, spend a lot of time attending to the thoughts, feelings, and comments from participants (Carmack & DeGroot, 2013-2014). Even though these participants’ comments were not used in our original articles, it was because they did not meet the study criteria, not because of what they said. If we had been using a more traditional qualitative method, such as individual interviews or focus groups, we would have ended their participation at the beginning because they did not meet the study criteria. In our design, however, they received the chance to express their concerns and thoughts.

Interestingly, many of our participants, in their attempts to call into question our ethical practices, engaged in unethical behavior themselves. For example, when asking about participants’ gender, they identified as a “fox,” “catdog,” “shapeshifting reptilian,” and, “Attack Helicopter.” Many of them said that they were purposefully trying to “throw off the results” of our study or make our data set unusable. This is important to note because although they chose to participate, every answer, even down to demographic information, was designed to corrupt our study. In this way, their intrusion was twofold: one intrusion into Pantsuit Nation and one intrusion into our study. As Vera-Gray (2016) noted, the overall goal of intrusion is to insert oneself into a space where they are not invited in order to cause disruption and upheaval. It was not enough for Trump supporters to invade the safe space of Pantsuit Nation; they also had to invade the safe space of the study to mock and belittle the loss experiences of Clinton supports and undermine and, as we discuss later, threat the safety of the researchers. This trolling, designed to undermine our research, intellectual, and professional goals, was especially galling in light of their comments that we were unethical.

Our Research Topic Is Ridiculous

Many people believed the topic of this research to be unworthy of study. They wrote comments such as “are you serious???,” “For gods sakes. Shut up!!!,” and, “You guys serious about this? Are you freeking kidding me?” They told us to “stop wasting everyone’s time.” Contributors also stated the following:

This survey has to be a joke. These are grown men and women crying because someone they thought should win didn’t.

The focus on “ridiculous” was not just relegated to our research topic. Some people saw our “ridiculous” research as a marker of academia’s downfall:

The fact that this survey exists is a sad commentary on the state of “higher education” today. I’m fearful for the future if this country if this generation continues down the path it’s [sic]on. As a potential employer I’m taking note of institutions that are catering to the demands of these kids and will avoid them at all costs.

This critique is similar to using the “bias” of our questionnaire design to serve as a representation of the downfall of academia. In this case, participants seemed to think that a study topic (which they did not deem worthy) was directly related to lack of worth of the academy. Several participants noted a concern that “tax dollars” funded the project (we did not have any grants related to this study). Interestingly, participants assumed that somehow the study of this topic would be passed on to students and make them unhireable (which speaks to a larger issue of believing students lack the strong constitution of their beliefs and can be easily swayed). Much like before, the underlying assumption here is that the larger academy is trying to indoctrinate students into a liberal/socialist agenda, which makes all our work suspect.

We Are Crybabies

Some people resorted to simple ad hominem attacks such as calling us “emotional idiots,” “crybabies,” “libtards,” and, “fucking retarded.” Others declared that we “are truly beyond pity. You need to grow up and get over yourselves,” and that we “are another example of everything wrong with our society.” At no point did we say we felt the same as the individuals we were interested in studying or what our political affiliation was. Participants assumed that because we were studying this topic, it must be because we are “liberal crybabies.” Other participants said:

Liberal idiots such as yourself and this slanted survey are the problem in today’s society. Get over it you sissies, you lost. Your candidate was one of the most corrupt in this nations history and the majority of Americans know it.

Inherently, most of the comments mentioned in this article posted by these participants fall into the ad hominem category. In their study of ad hominem attacks on scientists and scientific claims, Barnes et al. (2018) noted that the lay public tend to focus on attacks related to the misconduct, conflict of interest, education, and sloppy study design or argument as ways to undercut scientific claims. Although participants did make many of these claims about us, their larger attacks are related to less to us and more to their disdain for a particular political party. The comments shared earlier highlight the vitriol present in today’s political climate and how individuals feel embolden to rely on ad hominem attacks to communicate about difference in feelings.

We Should Die Relatively Soon

Tied to the ad hominem attacks, a handful of moved beyond insulting us to telling us we should commit suicide or die by some other means. Several participants even volunteered to kill us (in case we lacked the willpower to kill ourselves).

GET A FUCKING LIFE! EMBRACE REALITY! Or just kill yourself. It’s whatevs!

The (In)visibleness of Participants and Researchers

We know that online disinhibition (Suler, 2004) is one aspect of online communication that can both help and hurt open-ended qualitative online research. This refers to the phenomenon where people “say and do things in cyberspace that they wouldn’t ordinarily say and do in the face-to-face world” (Suler, 2004, p. 321). On one hand, the anonymity provided by the internet allows people to feel “safe” when disclosing information to researchers. On the other hand, people can feel uninhibited and brave enough to say negative comments that they would never say to someone’s face, which is likely the case with the negative comments presented earlier. These people apparently viewed our questionnaire as an outlet to share their disdain for anyone who supported Clinton. Furthermore, Harmer and Lumsden (2019b) argue it is difficult to regulate because anonymity is enabled by the internet platform (i.e., due to online disinhibition). Reflecting on our design, we could have added the eligibility qualifier of “I am upset by Hillary Clinton’s loss in the 2016 Presidential election” as a checkbox next to “I agree to the conditions of the consent form,” but we did not. We assumed that people would read the participant call and the consent form purpose statement.

Also, we recruited participants in a Clinton support group, so it did not occur to us that individuals would be in the group who did not support Clinton. Of course, there was also no way for us to anticipate the group would be infiltrated by Trump supporters with a purposeful goal of causing strife and derision. Although qualitative research design asks researchers to anticipate struggles in research and “be prepared for the unexpected” (Kumar & Cavallaro, 2018, p. 651), there are limits to what, realistically, researchers can anticipate and prepare for related to their study. Our experience adds to those unexpected events: Participants who enter into the research space with ill intent. What can you do when individuals participate in a study with the expressed desire to disrupt and invalidate? Other than setting up markers at the beginning of the study to identify these participants and excluding these participants’ comments, there may be no other way to prevent participation. However, this unexpected event does speak to a larger concern about the “good faith” of research. We enter the research space with good intentions; it never occurred to us that our participants might not all do that as well.

Of course, the most distressing comments were the ones encouraging or hoping death for us simply because we decided to study this topic. These types of concerns are similar to Chiswell and Wheeler (2016) and Sharp and Kremer (2006), who worried about their safety when out in the field interviewing farmers. It is especially concerning that individuals feel emboldened enough that they feel they can and should write those kinds of things. Our names and contact information are clearly available on the consent form and online—anyone could come find us at our offices or follow us home. If they looked into it further, they could also determine exactly when and where we would be teaching our classes. We would be remiss if we said these comments did not bother us or make us question our safety. One of the authors works at a university who created a risk assessment office with a focus on faculty safety because of a similar situation with another woman faculty member. Although we feel generally supported by our (mostly male) department chairs, colleagues, and deans, as Cloud (2009) explained, for women faculty, these threats are different:

I believe that the impact of such mail on its female recipients—who may have internalized gender-based insecurity about professional qualifications and physical appearance, and who may have real reason to fear workplace discrimination or physical/sexual assault—is compounded in ways that my male colleagues do not experience. One of these colleagues once advised me to ignore my hate mail, saying that he never gave a thought to his own. I found myself starkly reminded that (generally) men and women, by virtue of living in sexist society, experience the world very differently from one another. (p. 471)

Cloud (2009) recommends taking back control of the narrative by sharing participants’ comments in public forums, such as blogs or in articles. This act of rhetorical protest creates a “pedagogy of accountability” where everyone can learn and grow in the public space. In Cloud’s case, however, she knew her harassers’ names and could engage with those individuals. Unfortunately, there is no way for us to know who most of those people are, aside from the few who provided email addresses and encouraged us to contact them to prove we actually read their comments. The anonymity or confidentiality of participants continues to be one of the gold standards of research, and it should be. However, we also need to start to consider what happens when we make ourselves so visible and work so hard to maintain participants’ confidentiality in the face of participant impropriety. In cases like this, where participants respond in an aggressive, verbally violent, and threatening manner, do participants have a moral responsibility for the safety and well-being of researchers? Based on our analysis, participants would say no. In this case, the power dynamics of the researcher–participant relationship reverses, where participants control and decide whether the researcher gets to remain safe.

Personally, some of the most disturbing insults were those questioning our professional integrity. In a time when facts and expertise is being disregarded (Nichols, 2017) and researchers are fighting for legitimacy to counter “fake news” attacks on our credibility strike at the heart of our professional identities and the work we as researchers and educators. As death and dying researchers, we vigilantly strive to maintain the highest levels of ethical consideration for our participants and in our research design. In fact, we published an essay on the complicated ethical issues one must navigate while researching issues of death and dying (Carmack & DeGroot, 2013-2014). All proper institutional review board approval was received from the researchers’ universities (exempt review), and protocol was strictly followed. We did not collect Internet Protocol (IP) addresses of participants completing the questionnaire. As mentioned earlier, DeGroot did, however, email all participants who provided their emails and noted at the end of the questionnaire that they doubted we would read their comments or would simply delete the data to meet our research goals. Comments questioning our integrity, credibility, and work are especially hurtful because they are designed to “other” us from other Americans, to make us seem like we are “not real people” (Cloud, 2009, p. 464). Unlike them, we are not hardworking, ethical, “in touch” with the world, or patriotic. These comments, designed to “own” us, underscore the distance participants may feel between themselves and academics. Instead, they paint us as “fraudulent intellectuals” (Cloud, 2009, p. 465) who do not understand the “real world” and what it is like to do “real work.” By foiling us as other in this anonymous space, we cannot get to creating or participating in a culture of accountability and civility (Cloud, 2009); instead, the anonymity reinforces the derision present in our contemporary sociopolitical landscape.

Cumulative Distress

Qualitative researchers have spent much time discussing many of the dangers related to researcher safety and well-being because of the topic of study and unexpected events that arise related to conducting research. Less talked about is the additional emotional toll of the data preparation, transcription, and analysis process, especially for nonsensitive topics. As we have stated throughout, we do not categorize this topic (election loss) as a sensitive topic, and while we did frame the study as one related to grief and loss, it is certainly not in the same vein as the work about sensitive topics such as sexual assault, miscarriage, and the death of loved ones. Regardless of how we defined the study, it did not mean that we did not experience distress from coding the data. The emotional impact of coding, known as cumulative distress (Johnson & Clarke, 2003; Woodby et al., 2011), is concerned with the emotional damage caused by the coding of emotionally sensitive and triggering qualitative data. Qualitative researchers are in a particularly vulnerable position during the coding and analysis process, be in through the repeated exposure to the data (a hallmark of qualitative analysis) or the unique nature of fully immersing oneself in the data to gain a holistic picture of participants’ comments (Patton, 2015; Woodby et al., 2011). An important distinction is needed here, however, when talking about others’ research related to cumulative distress and our study. Other articles about cumulative distress focus on how researchers’ deal with hearing about their participants’ experiences. In our case, the comments were directed at us, critiquing our work, impugning our character, and wishing death for us.

DeGroot is known to have a “tin chest and thick skin,” so the participants’ comments, broadly considered, did not affect her strongly on an emotional level. After deciding to remove irrelevant data from the initial analyses (Carmack & DeGroot, 2018; DeGroot & Carmack, in press) and the procedure for that, DeGroot was the one who went through and eliminated those comments from the document for analysis so Carmack would not have to do a deep read or analysis of them beyond the initial read-through and recognition of these comments. This “unofficial” part of the procedure was not planned; rather, it was simply understood between the two.

At the same time, we were beginning to analyze the negative comments for this manuscript, a [very] conservative media outlet picked up (and spun) our research on people’s grief following the 2016 presidential election (Airaksinen, 2018), using our research to say Clinton supporters were still mourning the loss 2 years after the election (our articles specifically point out we were focused on right after the election, not 2 years later). The article comments were eerily similar to the negative statements made by our “ineligible” participants. They also wished harm on us and questioned our motives for the study. Carmack did not read the negative comments presented in this manuscript until after the first two research articles were complete; in fact, she read them on the day the news article came out about their study (Airaksinen, 2018). She read all of the Trump supporters’ comments in one sitting, experiencing the enormity of the rage and hate directed at her and DeGroot. Although DeGroot did warn Carmack that many of the comments were highly inflammatory, she did not anticipate comments about killing herself. After reading them, she was emotionally exhausted and, coupled with the unnerving remarks from the news article, was worried about people who were writing these kinds of comments contacting them or showing up at their offices. As qualitative researchers, we understand that “some level of emotion work” is needed when making sense of qualitative data (Dickson-Swift et al., 2009, p. 68). This has been a guiding motto for us, especially in our study of death, grief, and loss, and we have developed our own coping strategies for dealing with the emotional impact of our research. We believe this helped us make sense of and actually analyze the negative comments. This experience highlights the importance of maintaining vigilance in thinking about and engaging in research emotion work. It would be easy to assume that because we were studying a nonsensitive topic, we did not need to do any emotion work. However, all of this reminds us that we need to spend more time during study design to consider ourselves as researchers just as much as we consider participants (Lofland & Lofland, 1995).