evaluation for anxiety

Question 1

Evaluation

there are ethical issues?

Answer 1

-creating anxiety in pps = very risky it is potentially unethical because it may subject people to psychological HARM.
^^^reason why real life studies are so beneficial as psychologists interview people who have already witnessed a real life event=so there is no need to create one
-^^^ questions the need for research

Question 2

Evaluation

weapon focus effect may not be relevant?

Answer 2

• pickel (1998) = conducted an experiment where he used scissors/a handgun/a wallet/ and a raw chicken as the hand held item in a hairdressing salon video
• scissors=low anxiety because it was not unusual
• EWT accuracy = significantly poorer in high unusualness conditions.

^^^ suggests that the weapon focus effect = is due to unusualness rather than anxiety/threat = therefore means it tells us nothing specifically about the effects of anxiety on EWT

Question 3

Evaluation

Field Studies sometimes lack control?

Answer 3

• researcher= interview real life witnesses sometime after the event
• all sort of things will have happened to the pps that the researchers have no control over
• LIMITATION= as it is possible that these extraneous variables may be responsible for the accuracy of recall
• the effects of anxiety = may be overwhelmed by these other factors and it is impossible to assess by the time the pps are interviewed