Online consent risk-warnings about negative psychological side-effects do not change participant expectations or cause negative psychological side-effects

= 200) to encounter a risk-warning (e.g. "you may experience distress") or no warning during informed consent procedures, prior to an online trauma analogue paradigm. Opposing our predictions-and signalling good news for Institutional Review Boards and researchers-we found no evidence that warned participants reported more negative expectancies or experienced psychological nocebo effects (e.g. distress). Because risk-warnings are used as a harm mitigation strategy, and we did not find that people's expectancies differed, our findings raise concerns over how effective risk-warnings are in guiding people's decision-making during the consent process. Thus, our research has implications for informing and warning participants in trauma-related research.