anxiety Flashcards
anxiety
state of emotional and physical arousal
emotions include having worried thoughts and feelings of tension
physical changes include an increased heart rate and sweatiness
anxiety is a normal reaction to stressful situations, can affect the accuracy and detail of eyewitness testimony
anxiety has a negative effect on recall
anxiety creates physiological arousal in body - prevents us paying attention to important cues
eg presence of weapon creates anxiety - focus on weapon reducing recall
weapon focus procedure
Johnson and Scott - participants believed lab study
in waiting room - low-anxiety - heard casual conversation then man walked out with pen and grease on hand
other - high anxiety - heated argument, breaking glass and holding knife covered in blood
weapon focus findings
participants had to pick man from set of 50 photos
49% - man carrying the pen
33% - man with blood covered-knife
tunnel theory of memory - people have enhanced memory for central events - weapon focus due to anxiety can have this effect
anxiety has a positive effect on recall
witnessing stressful events - anxiety through physiological arousal - fight or flight response triggered - increasing alertness improving memory
positive effect procedure
Yuille and Cutshall - study on actual shooting of gun in shop in Canada - shop owner shot thief dead
21 witnesses - 13 took part in study
interviewed 4 to 5 months after and compared to original policies interviews
accuracy determined by number of details reported in each account
asked to rate how stressed they were and emotional problems since event
positive effect findings
witnesses very accurate in accounts and little change in amount recalled or accuracy after 5 months - some details less accurate eg weight and height estimates
highest stress most accurate 88% vs 75%
anxiety does not have detrimental effect on accuracy and may enhance it
contradictory findings
Yerkes and Dodson - relationship between emotional arousal and performance is an inverted U
Deffenbacher - reviewed 21 studies of EWT and noted contradictory findings on effects of anxiety - Yerkes-Dodson law explains
when we experience anxiety - lower levels produce lower levels of recall accuracy, more accurate as level of anxiety increases
optimum level of anxiety - maximum accuracy
unusualness not anxiety
P - limited - Johnson and Scott - may not have tested anxiety
E - reason why focused on weapon - surprised at what they saw rather than scared
E - Pickel - raw chicken, wallet, scissors and fun as handheld item - handgun and chicken had significantly poorer eyewitness accuracy
L - weapon focus effect due to unusualness rather than anxiety
support for negative effects
P - strength is evidence supporting view that anxiety has negative effect on accuracy of recall
E - Valentine and Mesout - supports research finding negative effects on recall
E - used objective measure - heart rate - to divide participants into high and low anxiety - anxiety clearly disrupted participants ability to recall details about an actor
L - suggests high level of anxiety does have negative effect on immediate eyewitness recall of stressful situation
support for positive effects
P - strength is evidence showing anxiety can have positive effects on accuracy
E - Christianson and Hubinette interviewed 58 witnesses to actual bank robberies in Sweden
E - witnesses directly and indirectly involved - those directly involved had most anxiety - 75% recall average - direct victims were more accurate
L - findings from actual crimes confirm that anxiety does not reduce accuracy of recall
P - Christianson and Hubinette interviewed participants several months after event
E - no control over what happened to participants in intervening time
E - effects of anxiety may have been overwhelmed by these other factors and impossible to assess by time the participants were interviewed
L - possible there’s lack of control over confounding variables that may be responsible for findings - invalidating support
