In the Stanford Prison Experiment (Haney et al., 1973), participants who were pre-screened as psychologically healthy and stable rapidly adopted abusive, hostile behaviours after being randomly assigned to the role of prison guards.
With reference to the individual/situational debate, explain how Haney et al. accounted for this sudden shift in the guards' behaviour.
276 exam-style questions on OCR A Level Psychology Debates, covering Nature/nurture, Freewill/determinism, Reductionism/holism, Individual/situational explanations, Usefulness of research, Ethical considerations, Conducting socially sensitive research, and Psychology as a science. Each one has a worked solution and a mark scheme showing where the marks go.