AO3: Anxiety as a factor affecting EWT

• Research suggesting anxiety has a positive effect

  P: There is research from real eye-witnesses which suggests anxiety actually improves the accuracy of recall from an event.

  E: Christianson & Hubinette (1993) investigated effects of anxiety on eyewitness accuracy, following a real life event. They interviewed witnesses from an armed robbery in Sweden over a period of 4-5 months after the robbery. They found that the witnesses had generally good memories for details of the robbery itself (better than 75% accurate recall).
• Research suggesting anxiety has a positive effect (2)

  E: They also found that witnesses who were closest to the perpetrators of the crime were the most anxious and showed the best recall for the event.

  E: These results suggest that anxiety has a positive impact on eyewitness accuracy, whereby the accuracy of the event increases the more anxious an individual is.

  L: Therefore, perhaps lab-based studies do not create real levels of anxiety experienced by genuine eye-witnesses as studies conducted on real witnesses suggest high levels of anxiety do not have a negative impact on recall.
• Weapon focus may not be caused by anxiety

  P: There is research to suggest that the reduced accuracy of identification due to the weapon focus effect could actually be due to surprise and not anxiety.

  E: Pickel (1998) carried out an independent measures design whereby participants had to watch a thief enter a hairdressing salon, either carrying scissors (high threat, low surprise), a handgun (high threat, high surprise), a wallet (low threat, low surprise), or a whole raw chicken (low threat, high surprise).
• Weapon focus may not be caused by anxiety (2)

  E: She found that identification was least accurate in the high surprise conditions, rather than high threat conditions.

  E: These results suggest that the weapon focus effect is due to surprise rather than anxiety.

  L: Therefore, anxiety may not be a factor affecting the accuracy of EWT.
• Individual Differences

  P: It has been suggested that an individual’s level of emotional sensitivity has an impact on how they react when in stressful situations.

  E: Bothwell (1987) conducted a study whereby participants were assessed for neuroticism (a personality trait where individuals tend to become anxious quickly). Participants were tested and labelled as ‘neurotic’ or ‘stable’ (less emotionally sensitive).
• Individual Differences (2)

  E: It was found that the ‘stable’ participants showed rising levels of accuracy as stress levels increased, whereas ‘neurotic’ participants showed decreasing levels of accuracy as stress increased.

  E: These findings suggest that someone’s accuracy when recalling a stressful event is influenced by their personality traits.

  L: Therefore, it is difficult to simply conclude that anxiety as a factor alone, has a definite impact on the accuracy of eye-witness testimony.