Anxiety + EWT

Question 1

ad of anxiety

Answer 1

• study has research support w/ study
• psychs allocated parts into one of two conditions
• one group watched a non-violent short film of a crime
• the other group watched a violent short film where a boy was shot in the head
  = parts were less accurate in recall about violent short film W/ GUN than those who watched non-violent short film

Question 2

disads of anxiety

Answer 2

• ecological validity
• unethical
• real life
• individual differences

Question 3

ecological validity - disads of anxiety

Answer 3

• study lacks ecological validity
• although parts were waiting in reception area outside the lab
• could’ve anticipated that something was going to happen
  = could’ve affected their accuracy of their judgment
  = affect the validity of the study

Question 4

unethical - disads of anxiety

Answer 4

• study violated numerous ethical guidelines
• parts were deceived about the true nature of the experiment
• weren’t protected from psychological harm
• parts were exposed to a man who they were led to believe had killed someone, holding a bloodied knife
  = caused them extreme distress

Question 5

real life - disads of anxiety

Answer 5

• psychs investigated the effect of anxiety in a real life shooting
• 21 witnesses were originally interviewed + 13 of these agreed to take part in a follow u interview 5 months later
• witnesses were accurate in their eyewitness accounts 5 months later + little change found in testimony
• witnesses avoided leading questions
• those who were most distressed at the time gave the most accurate account
  = shows in real life cases, leading questions + anxiety don’t affect accuracy of EWT the same way they do in the lab

Question 6

individual differences - disads of anxiety

Answer 6

• there are individual differences in how anxiety affects memory
• some people have better recall when they’re anxious
• psychs conducted a study using 110 real life EW who had witnesses some bank robberies
• found that victims were more accurate than onlookers in their description of bank robbers

Question 7

anxiety

Answer 7

• state of apprehension, uncertainty + fear resulting from a threatening situation
• anxiety can impair both physical + psychological functioning
  = when witnessing a crime, accuracy + detail decreases
• weapon focus effect = presence of a weapon increases anxiety, so people will pay more attention to the weapon (most threatening aspect) + can describe it in lots more detail than the criminal themselves

Question 8

procedure - study about anxiety + weapon focus effect

Answer 8

• Loftus wanted to see whether anxiety affected a person’s ability to recognise the perpetrator of a crime
• experimental condition:
• parts overheard a heated argument between two people, broken glass + furniture being overturned sounds
• man emerged holding a bloody letter opener
• control condition:
• parts overheard a convo between two people about lab equipment failure
• a man covered in grease holding a pen
• parts were then asked to identify who they’d just seen from 50 photos

Question 9

findings - study about anxiety + weapon focus effect

Answer 9

• only 33% of parts in the bloody letter opener condition recognised the photo of the perpetrator
• whereas 49% recognised in the pen condition
  = Loftus argued cus people in experimental condition focused on the bloody letter opener (weapon that would pose a threat to them) rather than the person