Factors affecting EWT: anxiety

Negative effect:

Johnson and Scott (1976) pps heard an argument in the next room. Low anxiety condition = man walked out with a pen, high anxiety = a knife covered in blood

They found 49% in low anxiety could identify the man, whereas 33% were only able to identify him in high anxiety room.

Tunnel theory

A persons focus is only on the weapon as it is a source of anxiety

Negative effect:

Johnson and Scott (1976) pps heard an argument in the next room. Low anxiety condition = man walked out with a pen, high anxiety = a knife covered in blood

They found 49% in low anxiety could identify the man, whereas 33% were only able to identify him in high anxiety room.

Tunnel theory

A persons focus is only on the weapon as it is a source of anxiety

Positive effect:

Yuille and Cutshall (1986) study of an actual shooting, pps (witnesses) who were the most stressed produced the most accurate recall (88%)

Explanation of contradiction:

Yerkes-Dodson law - recall increases with anxiety but only up to a point, beyond which performance decreases

Yerkes-Dodson law too simplistic

Anxiety has many factors like emotional, behavioural, physical and cognitive. The inverted U assume only physical arousal is linked to poor performance

Methodological issues

In Yuille and Cutshall’s experiment it does not consider post event discussion and a third variable factor. As they were interview 5 months after the event happened, the researcher could not control what happened in that time. Giving this low validity

Research support (negative)

Valentine and Mesout (2009) pps did a horror labyrinth, they wore heart rate monitors and completed a questionnaire, then had to describe an actor.

They found the high anxiety group provided fewer correct details