Opening Skinner's Box: Great Psychological Experiments of the Twentieth Century

Through ten examples of ingenious experiments by some of psychology's most innovative thinkers, Lauren Slater traces the evolution of the century's most pressing concerns—free will, authoritarianism, conformity, morality. Beginning with B. F. Skinner and the legend of a child raised in a box, she takes us from a deep empathy with Stanley Milgram's obedience subjects to a funny and disturbing re-creation of an experiment questioning the validity of psychiatric diagnosis. Previously described only in academic journals and textbooks, these often daring experiments have never before been narrated as stories, full of plot, wit, personality, and theme.

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All Customer Reviews
Average Customer Review:
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:

A good read for everyone, 2008-04-17
As a junior student of psychology, I read a lot of technical literature. I found this book to be a "fun" read, as it was less technical and more entertaining. The author injects her own perspective on each of the scientist's personality and motives, which at first bothered me, but ultimately made the reading more "human." You just have be aware that this is her own opinion. Herself being a psychologist, I think she was doing what she does naturally, analyzing the subject... And trying to make the book more interesting.

The best thing about the book, is that although I read about the experiments and their outcomes in textbooks, I never knew anything about the researcher himself/herself. The book filled in a lot of blanks as to the background and motives, as well as the history behind those textbook citations.

The only thing I didn't like was the way the book was printed. It seems as if the person who did the electronic manuscript for print forgot to add two spaces before the next sentence, so it seemed they all ran into each other! It drove me bonkers!




1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

Provocative and Deeply Unhinged, 2007-12-01
Slater kept me reading. She is clearly a master personal essayist, and a first-class nut of the intellectual/neurotic variety.

I am not a psychologist, but had some familiarity with most of the experiments she recounts, and had read the original work for several (Millgram, Skinner, Harlow). The most distressing insight of this book is in the final pages, where Slater claims that practicing therapists not only do not use the insights provided by the experimentalists, they are unfamiliar with much of it. Did these folks not attend A College Of Their Choice?

Ironically, Slater misses the point profoundly in her title chapter. While Skinner's personality (or lack thereof) and radical behaviorist ideology was behind the persistent cartoonish rumors about the way he raised his own child, and her alleged bad end, *that is not the point of serious criticism of Skinner's work,* and never has been.

Stories of the baby in the box are a distraction from the essential critique of radical behaviorism as lacking in explanatory power, non-predictive, inadequate, morally bankrupt -- or whatever other angle thoughtful psychologists and philosophers have come at it. Debunking the silly stuff is more misdirection. What about the man's actual experiments, what they showed and failed to show, and his claims about them?

Subsequent chapters are far more interesting and relevant, but remain highly personal as Slater injects herself into the narrative and frequently bathes in the personal details of the experimenters themselves.

In the end, I still cannot decide whether *Opening Skinner's Box* is a good book, true, fair, accurate. But I can't deny that it is a great *read,* and that it has kept my own wheels turning. It is meant to provoke, and that it does.


0 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

Personalizing Psychology, 2007-04-11
This book provided insights into what was on the minds of those who both designed these experiments and those who participated in them. Karen Slater writes from a wealth of experience and a fresh outlook on the development of psychology and those who participated it.


2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

Opening Skinner's Box, 2007-04-11
Very well written. A page turner. Great experiments disected to be relevant for everyday experiences. Makes one think about today's society in a different light and rethink one's belief system.



12 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

if this was marketed as fiction, 2006-11-08
I'd give it five stars. Slater is an outstanding writer. Unfortunately, you can't believe a word she says. She's confessed to being a pathological liar, which may be a lie or just may be the truth. In any case, it shouldn't be the task of the reader to have to keep teasing out which is which. Writers should strive to tell the truth, at least when it comes to a nonfiction psychology book. But the line between fiction and nonfiction has gotten blurry, and books are marketed wherever their editors believe they will sell.

I noticed this tendency while reading "Prozac Diary." An account of seeing seven swans in an early draft (published in Survival Stories) had morphed into an encounter with a dust devil and the swans were nary to be found anywhere. So what really happened? Other accounts - jumping a black stallion without reins or stirrups at a camp struck me as fantasy - what reputable camp would put inexperienced preteen girls on a stallion? This is a scenario more suitable for a Walter Farley book.

When more than a few sources in a book like "Opening Skinner's Box," rise up and complain that they have been misquoted and misrepresented, it is hard not to believe them. However, much of what Slater discovers about the psychologists and their experiments is fascinating. She does draw astute conclusions about human nature. However, she has a tendency to approach her interview subjects with the impudence of a child and the insolence of a teenager. Had she maintained a more professional attitude, it would have been easier to take what she said at face value, rather than feeling sorry for how the subjects were portrayed.

However, at times, her conclusions weren't personal enough, at least when it came to disclosing key information. Knowing that she takes Prozac (something she does not mention in this book), it was awfully hard not to see her conclusions about the drug as simply personal fears writ large.
Also, her interview with Bruce Alexander neglected to mention that he is her father-in-law. Such knowledge puts a different complexion on the entire chapter. It also explains why he gets described as good looking, while other psychologists wind up being depicted unstable and unattractive. For example, she mentions over and over that Harry Harlow had a lisp, though his speech defect turns out to explain nothing about his personal or professional behavior. So why focus on it at all?

But if you enjoy her writing style, I'd recommend reading the book, few psychologists write so well for a general audience.

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