anxiety & EWT

• define anxiety

  state of emotional and physical arousal
• what are some positive effects of anxiety?

  • increased alertness
  • fight or flight response makes us aware
• what are some negative effects of anxiety?

  • tunnel theory
  • weapon-focus effect
• outline Johnson & Scott's study

  condition 1 - low anxiety (equipment failure)

  condition 2 - high anxiety (breaking glass)

  • identify man from a set of 50 photos
  • 49% said man had a pen
  • 33% said man had a knife
• outline Yuille & Cutshall's study

  real life shooting in a gun shop

  • 21 witnesses interviewed 4 to 5 months after
  • rate stress levels on a 7 point scale
  • 88% accuracy if had higher stress
  • 75% accuracy if had lower stress
• outline Christianson & Hubinette's study

  58 witnesses off 22 real life bank robberies

  • low anxiety - onlookers or customers
  • high anxiety - employees

  everyone had better than 75% accuracy

  • higher anxiety had better recall
• what was Yerkes-Dodson law?

  1. performance improves with arousal increase
  2. increased anxiety heightens alertness, improving memory
  3. anxiety causes loss of focus
• outline evaluation point one for research into anxiety and EWT

  weapon focus effect is irrelevant

  • Pickel - accuracy was lower in high unusualness conditions
  • weapon focus effect is due to surprise
  • lacks explanation
• outline evaluation point two for research into anxiety and EWT

  lacks control

  • field studies
  • post-event discussions and extraneous variables
  • lacks internal validity
• outline evaluation point three for research into anxiety and EWT

  ethical issues

  • creating anxiety
  • psychological harm
  • questions need for research