Anxiety

• What is anxiety?

  Anxiety is a state of emotional and physical arousal in response to stress, involving worry, tension, increased heart rate, etc.

  It can have both a positive and negative effect on eyewitness testimony.
• How can anxiety have a negative effect on recall?

  • Anxiety creates physiological arousal in the body which prevents us paying attention to important cues, so recall is worse.
  • One approach to studying anxiety and eyewitness testimony is to look at the effect of the presence of a weapon which creates anxiety, leading to weapon focus, consequently reducing a witness’s recall for other details of the event.
• Explain a study carried out to investigate the negative effect anxiety has on eyewitness testimony

  • Johnson and Scott investigated using 2 conditions: a low anxiety condition - participants overheard a low-key discussion in a lab about an equipment failure, then a person emerged from the lab holding a pen and had grease on his hand. They also used a high anxiety condition - participants overheard a heated exchange between people in the lab, then a man emerged from the lab holding a paper knife covered in blood.
  • The participants later picked out the man from a set of 50 photos.
• Explain the findings of a study carried out to investigate the negative effect anxiety has on eyewitness testimony

  • The participants later picked out the man from a set of 50 photos, 49% who had seen the man carrying the pen could identify him.
  • As for the man carrying the knife, only 33% could identify him.
  • The tunnel theory of memory argues that people have enhanced memory for central events - weapon focus as a result of anxiety can have this effect.
• How can anxiety have a positive effect on recall?

  • Witnessing a stressful event creates anxiety through physiological arousal within the body.
  • The fight or flight response is triggered, increasing alertness.
  • This may improve memory for the event as we become more aware of cues in the situation.
• Explain a study carried out (and findings) to investigate the positive effect anxiety has on eyewitness testimony

  • Yuille and Cutshall interviewed 13 witnesses to an attempted theft from a gun shop, during which the shopkeeper shot and killed the thief.
  • 4 months later, the witness accounts remained highly accurate and were not affected by misleading information.
  • This suggests that anxiety doesn't have a detrimental effect on the accuracy of eyewitness testimony in a real-world context and may even enhance it.
• What is the Yerkes-Dodson law?

  • The inverted U theory - this law suggests that the relationship between anxiety and accuracy of eyewitness testimony is like an inverted U.
  • This means that medium arousal improves accuracy of eyewitness testimony, but high arousal makes it worse.

  
• Evaluate one strength of research on anxiety’s effect on the accuracy of recall

  • Evidence supporting the view that anxiety has a negative effect on the accuracy of recall: study by Valentine and Mesout (where participants had levels of anxiety recorded, & were then asked to describe a person they encountered) supports the research on weapon focus, finding negative effects on recall.
  • Researchers used an objective measure (heart rate) to divide participants into high & low anxiety groups. This study shows that anxiety clearly disrupts the participants’ ability to recall details.
• Evaluate one strength of research on anxiety’s effect on the accuracy of recall

  • Evidence supporting the view that anxiety can have positive effects on the accuracy of recall: Christianson and Hübinette interviewed 58 witnesses to actual bank robberies - some were directly involved (bank workers) and some indirectly involved (bystanders).
  • The researchers assumed that those directly involved would experience most anxiety - it was found that recall was more than 75% accurate across all witnesses, most accurate with the direct victims (most anxious).
• Evaluate one limitation of research on anxiety’s effect on the accuracy of recall

  • Johnson & Scott’s study may’ve not tested anxiety - participants could’ve focused on the weapon because they were surprised rather than scared.
  • Pickel conducted a study in a hair salon where someone‘d come out holding items e.g. scissors, raw chicken - eyewitness accuracy of participants seeing this was significantly poorer in the high unusualness conditions (chicken) —> suggests the weapon focus effect is due to unusualness rather than anxiety, so says nothing specifically about the effects of anxiety on EWT.
• Evaluate one limitation of research on anxiety’s effect on the accuracy of recall

  • Yuille and Cutshall’s study - researchers interviewed their participants months after the event, researchers therefore had no control over what happened to participants in the intervening time (e.g. post-event discussion)
  • —> it’s possible that a lack of control over confounding variables may be responsible for these findings, invalidating their support.