EWT anxiety eval

• EWT anxiety eval limitation ethical issues

  Ethical issues- Creating anxiety in participants is very risky

  It's potentially unethical bc it may subject ppl to psychological harm purely for the purpose of research

  This is why real-life studies are so beneficial- psychologists interview people who have already witnessed a real-life event, so there is no need to create it
• EWT anxiety eval strength support for positive effects

  Support for positive effects- Christianson and Hubinette interviewed 58 real witnesses to bank robberies in Sweden

  The witnesses were either victims or bystanders i.e high and low anxiety

  The researchers found that all witnesses showed generally good memories for details of the robbery itself (better than 75% accurate detail)

  Those witnesses who were most anxious (the victims) had the best recall of all

  These findings from actual crimes confirm that anxiety doesnt reduce the accuracy of recall for EW and may even enhance it
• counterpoint for Christianson and Hubinette eval

  Christianson and Hubinette interviewed their participants several months after the event (4 to 15 months)

  The researchers therefore had no control over what happened to their participants in the interviewing time

  All sorts of things will have happened including discussions with other people about the event, accounts they may have read or seen in the media, the effects of being interviewed by the police, and so on (i.e post-event discussions).

  Therefore, it's possible that a lack of control over confounding variables may be responsible for these findings, invalidating their support
• EWT anxiety eval limitation weapon focus may not be caused by anxiety

  Pickel proposed that the reduced accuracy of identification due to the weapon focus effect could be due to surprise rather than anxiety

  To test this she arranged for participants to watch a thief enter a hairdressing salon carrying scissors (high threat, low surprise, hand gun (high threat, high surprise), wallet (low threat, low surprise) and a whole raw chicken (low threat, high surprise)

  Identification was least accurate in the high surprise conditions rather than the high threat

  This supports the view that weapon focus effect is related to surprise rather than anxiety