Anxiety

Question 1

Key study?

Answer 1

Johnson and Scott 1976

Question 2

What is the weapon focus effect?

Answer 2

Weapon held in a criminals hand distracts attention because of the anxiety it creates. Thus reduces accuracy of identification

Question 3

Procedure?

Answer 3

• participants in waiting room
• man runs through room holding either a greasy pen (low anxiety condition) or a bloody knife (weapon focus condition)
• participants later asked to identify man from set of photos

Question 4

Findings?

Answer 4

• mean accuracy = 49% in identifying man in pen condition
• 33% in knife condition
• showed anxiety does focus attention on central features of a crime

Question 5

What is the alternative argument and who identified it?

Answer 5

Anxiety has a positive effect on accuracy - high anxiety/arousal creates more enduring/accurate memories
Christianson and Hubinette 1993

Question 6

Procedures?

Answer 6

• 58 real witnesses to bank robberies in Sweden
• witnesses either bystanders or victims
• interviews 4-15 months after robberies
• better than 75% accurate recall for details of robbery
• most anxious witnesses/victims had the best recall
• concluded that memory for negative emotional event is better than for neutral events

Question 7

What is the Yerkes-Dodson effect?

Answer 7

There’s occasions when anxiety/arousal is only moderate then eyewitness accuracy will be enhanced
When anxiety/arousal is too extreme then accuracy will be reduced

Question 8

Evaluation? ❌

Answer 8

• Pickel 1998
• Thief entered hairdressing salon with scissors, handgun, wallet or a raw chicken
• identification least accurate in high surprise conditions rather than high threat
• supports view that weapon focus effect is related to surprise rather than anxiety

Question 9

Evaluation? ❌

Answer 9

• Bothwell et al 1987: participants tested for personality characteristics
• labelled as “neurotic” (tend to become anxious quickly) or “stable” (less emotionally sensitive)
• stable participants showed rising levels of accuracy as stress levels increased
• opposite occurred for neurotics
• suggests individual differences play an important role in the accuracy of EWT

Question 10

Evaluation? ❌

Answer 10

• Fazey and Hardy 1988
• suggested more complex relationship between anxiety and performance compared to Yerkes-Dodson model
• catastrophe theory: when physiological arousal increases beyond optimum level, inverted U hypothesis predicts gradual decrease in performance
• sometimes a catastrophic decline due to increased anxiety
• suggests an alternative model that arguably fits better with research findings