EWT: Anxiety Flashcards
What is anxiety?
state of emotional and physical arousal
- include worried thoughts and feelings of tension, increased heart rate and sweatiness.
What is Yerkes Dodson Law
moderate anxiety is associated with better recall than very high or very low anxiety
- very high levels of arousal reduce performance on all kinds of tasks
What is weapon focus
witnesses’ attention is typically focused on any weapon as a result of fear for their own safety.
So there is a lack of attention to the appearance of the perpetrator
What was the aim of Johnson and Scotts study
investigate if the presence of a weapon affects the accuracy of EWT
What was the method of Johnson and Scotts study
Ppts sat in a waiting room where they heard an argument in another room and then saw a man running through the room carrying either a pen covered in grease (low anxiety condition) or a knife covered in blood (high anxiety ‘weapon focus’ condition)
Participants were later asked to identify the man from a set of photographs.
What were the results of Johnson and Scotts study
Mean accuracy was 49% in identifying the man in the pen condition, compared with 33% accuracy in the knife condition.
The researcher monitored eye movements and found that the presence of a weapon caused attention towards the weapon taking It away from the persons face
What was the conclusion of Johnson and Scotts study
Weapon focus leads to less accurate recall of the person committing the crime because of the anxiety that the witness experiences
What are strengths of Johnson and Scotts study
Practical applications
High control
What is a limitation of Johnson and Scotts study
Individual differences
Evaluate high control as a strength of Johnson and Scotts study
P: Lab experiment and therefore establishes cause and effect.
E: High control over extraneous variables we can be confident that the IV (presence/absence of a weapon) affected the DV (the recall of the person committing the crime).
E: Strength because the results of this study are unlikely to be affected by confounding variables and we can therefore be confident that the conclusion about anxiety (weapon focus) reducing the accuracy of EWT has internal validity
Evaluate Practical applications as a strength of Johnson and Scotts study
P: Practical applications.
E: We now understand that anxiety can distort EWT and make it less accurate. Therefore police will need to be cautious when interviewing anxious witnesses and crimes that involve weapons.
E: This is a strength because it has made an important contribution to our understanding of issues using EWT in as evidence in criminal investigations in real life.
Evaluate Individual differences as a limitation of Johnson and Scotts study
P: Affected by extraneous variables.
E: For example it has been suggested that a key extraneous variable is emotional sensitivity. In a study by Bothwell et al (1987) participants were tested for personality characteristics and were labelled as either ‘neurotic’ (tend to become anxious quickly) or ‘stable’. Found that the ‘stable’ participants showed rising levels of accuracy as stress levels increased. Whereas the opposite was true for neurotics
E: Suggests that individual difference may indeed play a important role in the accuracy of EWT.
What was the aim of Yuille and Cutshalls study
investigate the effect of anxiety on the EWT in a real life shooting, in which one person was killed and another person seriously wounded
What was the method of Yuille and Cutshalls study
21 witnesses were originally interviewed by investigating police and 13 witnesses, aged 15-32 agreed to take part in Yuille and Cutshall’s follow-up research interview, 4-5 months later
In both sets of interviews (police and research), word for word accounts of the incident were obtained and follow-up questions were asked to clarify points of detail. The researchers in the follow-up study also asked two misleading questions
What were the results of Yuille and Cutshalls study
found that the 13 witnesses who took part were accurate in their eyewitness accounts 5 months later and little change was found in their testimonies.
The wording of the misleading questions had no effect
Those who were most deeply distressed by the incident (e.g. suffered nightmares) were the most accurate
88% compared to 75% for the less-stressed group
What was the conclusion of Yuille and Cutshalls study
In real life situations, recall is not necessarily inaccurate, or susceptible to misleading questions.
The level of stress experienced is not related to accuracy of recall
What are limitations of Yuille and Cutshalls study
- contradiction
- small sample size
Evaluate contradictions as a limitation of Yuille and Cutshalls study
P: Contradicts the theory that leading questions/ anxiety reduces the accuracy of EWT.
E: They interviewed 13 witnesses to a robbery. They included two misleading questions in their interviews and found that these questions had no effect on the accuracy of the EWT.
They also found that the most distressed witnesses gave the most accurate EWT.
E: Limitation of research into leading questions/ anxiety because the research demonstrates that it does not reduce the accuracy of EWT in real life and therefore the findings of other studies which contradict this finding may not be valid.
Evaluate small sample size as a limitation of Yuille and Cutshalls study
P: Uses a case study method and has low population validity.
E: Sample consists of 13 witnesses to a robbery – this is a small sample size and therefore the participants may not be representative of the rest of the population. It is a small amount of data to draw conclusions from.
E: Limitation of the research because it may be difficult to generalise the findings to the rest of the population. The study therefore is weak evidence to contradict the findings of other research – such as Loftus & Palmer (leading questions)
