EWT: ANXIETY

Question 1

define anxiety

Answer 1

• Anxiety is an unpleasant emotional state where we fear that something bad is about to happen.
• There are two different arguments that have been proposed about the effect of anxiety on EWT:
• high levels of anxiety makes EWT inaccurate.
• high levels of anxiety makes EWT more accurate.

Question 2

WHAT WAS THE PROCEDURE OF JOHNSON AND SCOTT’S 1976 STUDY ON THE WEAPON FOCUS EFFECT

Answer 2

• they led participants to believe they were taking part in a lab study, while an argument was taking place
• low anxiety condition: A man walks in carrying a pen with grease on his hands.
• high anxiety condition: participants heard glass breaking and a man walking holding a paper knife covered in blood.

Question 3

findings of johnson and scott

Answer 3

• They found that in the low anxiety condition, participants accuracy at identifying the man from 50 photos was 49%, only 33% in the high anxiety condition

Question 4

ANXIETY HAS A POSITIVE EFFECT ON ACCURACY - CUTSHAW

Answer 4

• Yuille and Cutshall shows that anxiety has a positive effect on recall.
• In Yuille and Cutshall’s study they conducted a study of a real life shooting in a gun shop.
• The shop owner shot a thief dead,13 of the witnesses agreed to take part in the study.

Question 5

CUTSHALL FINDINGS

Answer 5

• They found that participants gave accurate details of the events, even 4 months later, and those who reported the highest level of stress were more accurate.
• (88%>75%).

Question 6

the yerkes dodson

Answer 6

• state that anxiety has a negative effect on accuracy of ewt when it is very high or very low.

Question 7

One strength of the theory is that there is supporting research to show that anxiety worsens recall.

Answer 7

• For example, johnson and Scott found that anxiety creates physiological arousal in the body which preventsus paying attention to important cues, so recall is worse- showing that anxiety impacts the recall of events negatively.
• In addition, their study was conducted in a lab setting- which allows us to eliminate extraneous variables and therefore allows us to identify a cause and effect relationship.
• However, a disadvantage is that it lacks internal validity as the behaviour we see may change as participants are likely to show demand characteristics.
• Therefore the results aren’t applicable to real life situations, and therefore casting doubt on the validity of the study.

Question 8

CHALLENGED BY PICKEL

Answer 8

• potential limitation of johnson and scott’s study is that it is challenged by pickel (1998)
• pickel (1998) suggested that the weapon focus effect and inaccuracy in ewt may be caused by high surprise rather than high anxiety, therefore it’s not anxiety that results in ewt inaccuracy
• he arranged for participants to witness a thief enter a hairdressing salon either carrying scissors (high threat, low surprise), a handgun (high threat, high surprise), a wallet (low threat, low surprise) or a raw chicken (low threat, high surprise)
• found that identification of the thief (ewt) was least accurate in high surprise conditions rather than in high threat conditions
• this suggests that it is actually high surprise that causes inaccuracy in ewt rather than anxiety, which challenges the findings of johnson and scott’s study
• therefore, johnson and scott’s study may be limited in its ability to explain inaccuracy of ewt and should be viewed with caution when doing so as it cannot claim reliability

Question 9

ETHICALLY DUBIOUS

Answer 9

• johnson and scott’s study into the effects of anxiety on eyewitness testimony can be criticised for being ethically dubious because numerous ethical guidelines were broken
• for example, participants could not give fully informed consent because they were not told the true nature of the experiment
• furthermore, they were not adequately protected from harm — some were exposed to a man holding a knife covered in blood which could’ve created feelings of extreme stress and anxiety, especially if they or someone they know has been involved in a knife crime
• johnson and scott do not seem to consider the implications of exposing their participants to such high stress situations and manipulating anxiety in this way is arguably unethical
• therefore, the study may not be the most acceptable study to use when explaining the effects of anxiety on ewt because it contains multiple ethical issues

Question 10

ANXIETY IS VERY DIFFICULT TO DEFINE AND MEASURE ACCURATELY

Answer 10

• it has many elements; cognitive, behavioural, physical and emotional.
• the inverted-u explanation only focuses one on these elements and suggests that only physical arousal is linked to performance.
• it says that it is the physical changes to the body and brain during stressful incidents that affect the accuracy of ewt and ignores the rest of the components of anxiety.
• therefore, anxiety might have a different effect on ewt than the one predicted by the theory.