Anxiety + EWT Flashcards
Theory - Anxiety Reduces accuracy of EWT - The Weapons Effect Theory
-This theory suggests that if a potential weapon is present during an event, the weapon would attract the attention of witnesses.
- This would reduce the witness’ accuracy of recall of the whole event as they would be concentrating on the weapon rather than the events.
Theory - Johnson and Scott - Support Weapons Theory
- Ps were left in a waiting area outside a laboratory whilst waiting for a “real” study to start.
-While they were waiting one of two situations occurred.
-In the first situation they overheard an argument, followed by a man leaving the laboratory holding a pen and with grease on his hands.
- In the second situation participants overheard the same argument, followed by a man leaving the laboratory carrying a knife covered in blood.
- The Ps were later asked to identify the man from a set of 50 photographs with the result that 49% correctly
identified the man holding the pen, but only 33% could identify the man with the bloodstained knife. - This study supports weapons theory in that the higher anxiety
condition drew the attention of the person and consequently reduced accuracy of EWT.
Theory - Christianson and Hubinette - Doesn’t support Weapons Theory
-Found that increased anxiety increased accuracy of EWT.
-110 real witnesses to real bank robberies were interviewed.
- Those witnesses who had been threatened were more accurate in their recall and remembered more details than those who had been onlookers and less emotionally aroused.
-This continued to be the case even 15 months later.
-This suggests that the greater arousal elicited from participation, rather than mere observation, increases recall accuracy.
- A strength of this study is that they investigated people who had experienced real life crimes.
-Hence, the findings are more likely to reflect that of real and have high ecological validity.
A03 - Lab Studies
Research findings into EWT and anxiety are contradictory.
- Whilst Johnson and Scott found a decrease in the accuracy of EWT when a weapon was present, we must be cautious an
applying those findings to a real-life scenario, as the experiment took place in a laboratory setting which had tight control over extraneous variables, so therefore the findings may not have high ecological validity as they may not represent real life situations.
- Whilst the findings were robust, objective and empirical, it is difficult to recreate the anxiety and emotion that impacts on an individual in a real-life scenario where threat, protection of loved ones and
previous experience all impact to create a response,
- therefore one generalised, nomothetic theory about anxiety and EWT may not be appropriate and a more holistic and idiographic
approach to how people respond to events which elicit a high level of anxiety may be more appropriate.
A03 - Field Studies
-Contrastingly, the findings from the field study by Christiansen and Hubinette indicate that anxiety increases accuracy of recall.
- However, we must also be cautious in applying these
findings, as the witnesses had 15 months between the bank robbery and their interviews for the study.
-During this time, they may have repeatedly recounted the events, watched news bulletins and read articles about the robbers.
- Those victims who may have been directlythreatened may have been more motivated to relive their experiences in this way, therefore we cannot generalise these findings to all incidences of anxiety and EWT.
