Effects of anxiety

• Two studies

  • +ve effect = Yuille and Cutshalll
  • -ve effect = Johnson and Scott
• Yuille + Cutshall (1986) +ve effect of recall

  Procedure:

  • Study of a real life shooting in a gun shop in Vancover, Canada
  • Shop owner shot a thief dead
  • 21 witnesses - 13 agreed to take part in study.
  • Interviews were held 4-5 months after incident
  • were compared with the original police interviews made at time of shooting.
  • Accuracy was determined by the number of details reported in each account.
  • Ps asked to rate how stressed they felt at time of incident, using a 7-point scale
• Y + C (1986) +ve effect of recall

  FIndings

  • Ps = very accurate in their accounts
  • Showed little change in amount or accuracy after 5 months
  • HOWEVER Ps who reported highest levels of stress were MOST accurate:
  • 88% compared to
  • 75% for less stressed group.
  • THEREFORE this supports theory that high anxiety = high accuracy.
• Explanation of findings:

  • Stress of witnessing a crime/accident
  • creates anxiety through physiological arousal within the body.
  • The fight or flight response is triggered= increases our alertness and improves our memory
  • because we become more aware of cues in the situation