Lesson 11 Flashcards
WhT is anxiety?
A state of apprehension, uncertainty and fear from a threatening situation. When anxiety is high, It can often impair both physical and psychological functioning. Such as that when anxiety that happens during a crime can prevent an accurate and detailed recall of that crime. If there is a weapon present during a crime then anxiety increases and could therefore impair the witnesses accurate recall of the crime. This is because people who witness a violent crime will often pay close attention to the aspect of the situation that poses the most threat, due to the anxiety that these weapons cause. Meaning that witnesses who see a violent crime that involves a weapon can often describe the weapon in great detail, but not the actual crime or criminal itself. This is the weapon focus effect.
What was the proceedure?
Loftus wanted to see if anxiety would affect recall of a perpetrator in a crime. In experimental condition, Loftus arranged for participants to overhear heated and hostile argument between two people. They also heard sounds of furniture being overturned and glass shattering. A man then emerged with a bloody letter opener. In the control condition participants overheard a conversation between two people about lab equipment failure before a man with grease on his hands emerged carrying a pen. Participants were then asked to correctly identify the person they had seen from 50 fotos
What are the findings?
33% of participants in experimental condition recognised the phot of the person carrying the bloody letter opener, compared to 49% in the control condition. Loftus argued that this occurred because people in the experimental condition focused on the bloody letter opener rather than the person holding it as the letter opener was the most threatening aspect of the situstion
Evaluation: loftus and Bruns
Loftus and burns allocated participants into 1 of 2 conditions. One group watched a violent short film about crime where a boy was shot in the head. The other condition diplsyed a non violent short fim about crime. Participants who saw the violent short film were less accurate in recall of what happened than those who saw the non violent film
Evaluation: Ecological Validity
This study lacks ecological validity. Although they were waiting in the reception area outside of the laboratory, they may have anticipated that something was going to happen, which could have affected the accuracy of their judgements and the validity of the study.
Evaluation: Ethics
This study violated numerous ethical guidelines. The participants were deceived about the nature of the experiment and were not protected from psychological harm. The participants were exposed to a man who they were led to believe had just killed someone, holding a bloodied knife, which could have caused them extreme distress. Participants may have left the experiment feeling exceptionally stressed, especially if they, or someone they knew, had been involved in knife crime.
Evaluation: Yuile and cutshall
) investigated the effect of anxiety in a real life shooting, in which one person was killed and another person seriously wounded. 21 witnesses were originally interviewed by investigating police and 13 of these witnesses, aged between 15 and 32, agreed to take part in Yuille and Cutshall’sfollow-upinterview fivemonths later. The witnesses were accurate in their eyewitness accountsfivemonths later and little change was found in their testimony. Furthermore, the witnesses avoided leading questions and those who had been most distressed at the time of the shooting gave the most accurate account. In real life cases leading questionsandanxietydo not affect the accuracy of eyewitness testimonythe same way they do in the laboratory.
Evaluation: Christianson & Hubinette
There are individual differencesin how anxietyaffects memory.Some people actually have better recall when they are anxious.Christianson and Hubinette (1983) conducted a research study using 110 real life eyewitnesses who had witnessed one of 22 bank robberies. Some were onlookers and some were bank clerks who had been directly threatened by the robbers. It was found that victims were more accurate than onlookers in their description of the bank robbers.
