lesson 14 - Valentine & Mesout (2009) Contemporary Study GRAVE

Question 1

Aim

Answer 1

To test the predictions from the catastrophe/ high arousal phase (Yerkes-Dodson inverted-U)… whether that in high anxiety situations if eye witness recall and identification is impaired.

Question 2

Procedure

Answer 2

naturalistic, field experiment, volunteer sampling
Sample: 56 ppts, 29 female, 27 male with a mean age of 31 years- offered a reduction in the admission price to the London Dungeons to complete some questionnaires
- Each participant walked around labyrinth for 7 minutes and encountered a scary person during that.
- then completed 3 questionnaires
- IV: gender, trait anxiety, state anxiety
- questionnaire, 20 questions, 1-4 likert scale e.g ‘I was tense’
- median score was taken. divided sample into high and low state anxiety groups
- DV: memory of dungeon –> asked to identify the scary person from a 9 person photo line up
- Also reported confidence in their decision (0-100)

Question 3

Results

Answer 3

IV1: gender - females had statistically significant higher state anxiety in the dungeon (52.8 vs 45.3)

IV2: trait anxiety –> no difference between males (36.3) and females (37.3), the mean being 36.8.

IV3: state anxiety –> reliably of reported feeling of high anxiety was higher for females (52.8) than for males (45.3)

memory for ‘scary person’ –> participants who reported lower state anxiety recalled more correct information about scary person.
Only 17% of those who scored above medium on the state anxiety scale (52 or above) correctly identified person they saw from 9 person line up. 75% of eyewitness who scored below medium correctly identified ‘culprit’.
Males made more correct identifications than females.
Those correct showed high level of confidence on scale of 0-100.

Question 4

Generalisability (strength)

Answer 4

P: generalisability high
E: out of 56 participants, both genders used as there were 29 females and 27 males through volunteer sampling
E: can represent both genders

Question 5

Reliability (strength)

Answer 5

P: high reliability
E: provided 56 pps with same questionnaires that shows standardized procedure and objectivity through using likert scale 1-4.
E: means it can be replicated and test for similar results

Question 6

Application (weakness)

Answer 6

P: weakness is it can be used as form of social control
E: lawyers in court against a witness of stressful crime can use findings of this study to label a testimony as false or inaccurate to defend a criminal
E: this has social implications as a criminal may go free and commit more crimes

Question 7

Validity - internal (weakness)

Answer 7

P: lacked internal validity
E: volunteers for study were likely to be people who seek the thrill as they willingly went to the London Dungeons.
E: this shows lack of validity due to participant variable as thrill seekers may have higher state anxiety inventory score. so cause and effect of anxiety and memory cant be established

Question 8

Validity - ecological (weakness)

Answer 8

P: low ecological
E: at London Dungeons which doesn’t represent a real environment where the crime could take place
E: this takes away a lot of the stress a participant may feel so can’t represent real life crime scenes

Question 9

Ethics (strength)

Answer 9

P: strength was ethics
E: volunteers given reduced admission with knowledge of the questionnaires on state and trait anxiety and HR would be measured. also given right to withdraw and debrief at the end
E: meant study did not violate protection from harm as volunteers knew what the experience would be like, giving consent