Product Description

A century can be understood in many ways - in terms of its inventions, its crimes or its art. In Opening Skinner's Box, Lauren Slater sets out to investigate the twentieth century through a series of ten fascinating, witty and sometimes shocking accounts of its key psychological experiments. Starting with the founder of modern scientific experimentation, B.F. Skinner, Slater traces the evolution of the last hundred years' most pressing concerns - free will, authoritarianism, violence, conformity and morality. Previously buried in academic textbooks, these often daring experiments are now seen in their full context and told as stories, rich in plot, wit and character.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #33503 in Books
• Published on: 2005-02-21
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 288 pages

Review
'Remarkably stimulating ... Opening Skinner's Box is an endless delight' Mail on Sunday 'Makes for fascinating reading, helped along by Slater's charm and resourcefulness' Sunday Telegraph 'The experiments Slater describes are fascinating in their own right, but made more so by the rich social and personal context in which Slater places them' Daily Mail 'An unusual and compelling personal journey combining the emotional and the scientific ... a warm narrative flow achieved through a mixture of research, intuition, anecdote, reconstruction and engagingly haphazard interviews' Time Out

Time Out
‘An unusual and compelling personal journey combining the emotional and the scientific’

Scotsman
‘A spirited and engaging account ... both revealing and gripping’

Customer Reviews

A memorable read
I really enjoyed reading this book. It covers 10 psychology studies (including: goon park, skinners box, being sane in insane places, rat park) written in a way that I haven't seen often. Psychology textbooks can often focus too much on statistics and criticisms; even though Slater makes these clear she helps us form a relationship with the psychologist who conducted these studies. She also includes her experiences through recreating some of the studies and by including her personal/ professional relationships with the people in this book.
I would recommend this book for anyone who is learning about psychology (especially A level students) or interested, due to it being a very light and enjoyable read that still gets your brain thinking.
If you found this book enjoyable and wish to learn more about psychology studies I recommend this book: Forty Studies That Changed Psychology by Roger R. Hock. The writer has similar enthusiasm in his style to that of Slater.

A delightful read!!!!
As soon as i picked this book up i couldnt put it down. From studing psychology at A level i had an interest in the subject and Its been lovely to be able to found out about experiments which i studied in a much more readable format.
Her comments on the addiction and obedience studies are particularly interesting.
I definatly recommend this to people with either and general interest in the subject or to people that have already had an insight in the subject and want to know more about certain landmark experiments.

Overall, a very good and interesting read!!!

Stimulating introduction to some remarkable experiments
Here are the 10 great ones according to Slater:

1) Skinner's work, much of it: with an appreciation of his decency.
2) Milgram's experiment purported to demonstrate obedience but probably more about how to market an experiment: with several sharp experts cited questioning Milgram's conclusions.
3) Rosenham's efforts to discredit psychiatry: by deception that played upon doctors' wise carefulness.
4) Darley and Latane's "recreation" of the Kitty Genovese murder: by soundly creating conditions under which individual responsibility weakened.
5) Festinger's cognitive dissonance work: here comes the space ship. Slater's not afraid to present the implications for mainstream religion.
6) Harry Harlow's giving baby monkey's fake Mom's: sad use of animals.
7) Bruce Alexander's experiments to show rats can resist drugs when treated well: if this is so, the implications for public policy are huge.
8) Elizabeth Loftus' "Lost in the Mall" demonstrations of false memory: gathering facts needed to combat abusive manipulation to plant "memories".
9) Eric Kandel's study of sea slug's memory: be glad you remember well and be glad you forget well.
10) Psychosurgery beginning with Antonio Moniz: Apparently, for example, in California, psychosurgery can be refused and in Oregon it is banned altogether.

If, instead of reading some typically dry introductory psychology text, you read this and then followup by reading elsewhere about the experiments in this book that grabbed you, you can go deep into the study of modern psychology.