anxiety and effect of in eye witness testimony

Question 1

what is anxiety

Answer 1

Anxiety in unpleasant arousal which causes discomfort it can affect eye witness testimony

Question 2

what is the research for anxeity

Answer 2

Loftus et al did an experiment to see how anxiety effects eye witness testimony she set up two groups a high anxiety group and a low anxiety group both groups sat outside an office in the low anxiety group there was a quiet argument in the office and a man emerged with pen and grease in his hand in the high anxiety group there was a heated discussion and a man emerged with a knife and blood on is hands the partcipants were then asked to identify the man who had emerged form the office

Question 3

what were the findings

Answer 3

the low anxiety goup were able to recall 50% correctly wheras as the high anxiety group only recalled 33% correctly this shows how the high anxiety groups anxiety level was heightened and the weapon distorted their focus called the weapon effect.

Question 4

what is the strenghth of loftus research

Answer 4

One strength of the research into anxiety affecting eye witness testimony is that it is artificial in a lab environment with high control over variable this had decreased the effects of extraneous variables which may affect the dependent variable thus increasing the validity of the cause and effect relationship futher mor loftus used standerdised procedure so the experiment can be repeated an can be checked to see if findings are reliable thus increasing validity of conclusion made

Question 5

what is a weakness of the research

Answer 5

One weakness is the research carried out by hubernett they asked witness and hostages of a bank robbery about what they witnessed he found that those who were personally threatened had better memory of the event as they were personally affected these peole had better accuracy of recall of the event compared to thos who were onlooking the event this refutes the idea of anxiety leading to poorer recall and accuracy as those with the heightened anxiety had the better recall thus decreasing the validity of anxiety affecting ewt

Question 6

what is the weakness

Answer 6

Another weakness is that it lacks ethical guidelines lotus experiment induced anxiety within the high anxiety group as a man emerged from the room this goes against ethical guidelines as there should be no emotional or psychological harm as the anxiety caused psychological harm it breaks the ethical guidelines so decreases the experiment credibility

Question 7

what is the second study

Answer 7

Loftus and burns did a futher experiment they asked participants to watch a violent video vs a non violent video it was an individual group design the violent video had a boy being shot in the head they were then later asked to identify the boy in the vide

Question 8

what is the second study finsings

Answer 8

in the goup where boy was shot in the head the ability to recall the boys face was significantly lower this shows how anxiety causes distraction and lack of attention to detail due to extreme arousal