EWT: anxiety

Question 1

recall the negative impact anxiety has on recall : johnson and scott study

Answer 1

Anxiety has a negative impact on recall:
Johnson and scott (1976) anxiety creates physiological awakeness in the body which prevents us from paying attention to normalities recall is worse
Low anxiety condition man walked in with men and grease on hands
High anxiety condition man walked in with bloody knife

Question 2

what were the findings of johnson and scott study of the knife and greasy fingers

Answer 2

Participants were told to pick out man they saw
Low anxiety 49% correct
High anxiety 33% correct

Question 3

recall john and judith cutshalls study of the positive impact of anxiety on recall

Answer 3

John wille and judith cutshall anxiety of witnessing a crime or accident creates anxiety fight or flights response triggers alertness and improves memory
Shooting in a gun shop in Canada witnesses asked to recall info 4-5 months after the incident.
Witnesses were very accurate in their accounts and little change in accuracy after 5 months.
The participants who reported the highest levels of stress were moist accurate

Question 4

explanations of contradictory findings
U

Answer 4

Robert yerkes and john dodson - relationship between emotional arousal and performance looks like a U
Lower anxiety = lower levels of recall accuracy
High anxiety= high levels of recall accuracy

Question 5

evaluation: there is support for the negative effects

Answer 5

Valentine and Mesout support weapons focus. They measured heart rate when groups were exposed to an actor in the London Dungeons. The high heart rate group had a poorer recall of details, suggesting that anxiety has an effect on EWT.

Question 6

evaluation: support for positive effects

Answer 6

Christianson and Hübinette interviewed witnesses to a crime in Sweden, including bystanders and those directly involved. They found that those who were directly involved in the crime (such as the bank clerk) had higher EWT. Accuracy of recall was 70% on average across all witnesses. This suggests that anxiety does not have a negative effect on EWT and instead may benefit it.

Question 7

evaluation: failure to test for anxiety

Answer 7

Johnson and Scott may have measured surprise rather than anxiety. Argued that the weapons focus effect may be due to unusualness of circumstances rather than anxiety.

Question 8

evaluation: counterarguing support for positive effects

Answer 8

interviews took place months after the event, which lowers validity due to the inability to prevent exposure to confounding variables between the event and interview.