Opening Skinner's Box
Lauren Slater
Summary:
Opening Skinner's Box is a recompilation of some of the most famous and controversial psychological experiments done during the twentieth century. In each chapter, Slater gives a short description about the life of the psychologist (s) who developed the experiment, a description of the experiment and how it affected the Psychology field and any other related fields.
In chapter one, B.F. Skinner's Rat Race, Slater discusses much of the work and life of B.F. Skinner. Lauren emphasizes the areas where he had most recognition in, but also those that even though not recognized, he did influenced greatly. Even though she starts the chapter by describing what many people think of him, and how they describe him, she gives a turn and starts describing his work and life from her own point of view, and the information she gathers from his daughter Julie.
In the second chapter of her book, Obscura, Slater relates the story about Stanley Milgram, and more specifically on the experiment of obedience to authority. Milgram wanted to study the reaction of people and how obedient they would be even if they were being asked something that was against their morals. The results of the study: 65% of the subjects followed the experiment through. However, Slater researches more about some of the people who participated in the experiment, and finds a very ironic result when she finds out that the experiment not only had negative, but also positive results in some people who were expected to react differently.
In the third chapter, On Being Sane in Insane Places, Slater talks about the experiment done by David Rosenhan during the early 1970s. He and eight of his friends went to different psychiatric facilities all across the country, and admitted to have heard a voice, then be honest about the rest of their "symptoms", be normal. Their objective was to see how many of them would be admitted to the hospital and given a diagnose, based on the context of the patient instead of an analysis of their symptoms. The results, all of them were admitted and stayed there up to fifty-two days. Slater discusses the reactions that this experiment had over the psychiatry field, and how much psychiatrists tried to refute Rosenhan's claims.
In the Unlikely Event of a Water Landing is the fourth chapter of the book. Slater describes the five-stage helping behavior developed by Darely and Latane: 1) notice an event is occurring; 2) interpret the event as one in which help is needed; 3) assume personal responsibility; 4) decide what action to take; 5) take the action. Darley and Latane performed two experiments that wished to study the behavior of individuals witnessing an event where help was needed, the seizure and the smoke experiment. They concluded that much of the results were dependent of whether the subject believed he was the only helpful resource, or if there were others that could be helping instead of them - "diffusion of responsibility."
In chapter five, Quieting the Mind, Slater presents some of the experiments and main concepts introduced by Leon Festinger. She focuses on his experiments about Cognitive Dissonance, and how individuals are willing to adjust their own beliefs for those that better fit or justify one's behavior. In a major part of the essay, Slater discusses her own interactions with a woman that fits the characteristics studied by Festinger and tries to understand if in reality she was interacting with a person reacting to cognitive dissonance.
The sixth chapter of the book is Monkey Love. Slater discusses the life and experiments of Harry Harlow. Her main topic is the experiments involving primates and the effects they had in the psychology field. According to Slater, Harlow was the first scientist who would make experiments about love (attachment, proximity, etc. were the words other scientists preferred). Harlow is described as someone cold, since his experiments could be seen as crude; however, his son describes him as someone who loved his family very much. The idea of animal cruelty is discussed, bringing the question of giving value or preference of human lives of animal lives.
In the seventh chapter, Rat Park, Slater relates research done in the area of addiction. She first describes research where animals where caged and with doses of drugs at their reach where they on their own would press a button when they wanted to receive a doses. Alexander claimed the behavior of the animals was not due to a physical addiction, but that is more psychological since they were caged. With the help of other researchers, Alexander created a Rat Park, a "normal" environment to prove his point. In fact, the addiction of the rats decreased compared to those in the cages (even to a minimum). However, towards the end of the chapter Slater claims the Rat Park was not a "normal" environment, but a perfect one; one that humans will never be able to obtain on earth.
In chapter eight, Lost in the Mall, Slater discusses experiments regarding memory. She presents part of the life of psychologist Elizabeth Loftus, how spent much of her career trying to demonstrate that fake memories can be created by suggestion. She wanted to prove this idea scientifically in order to help individuals she thought may be innocent about crimes that were supposedly committed years ago, and their accusations insisted they had just remembered about the event.
Memory Inc. is the ninth chapter of the book. In this chapter Slater relates the life of Eric Kandel and his work in the neurology field. The idea that memory is dispersed throughout the brain was proved incorrect when the case of HM proved that the removal of his hippocampus. Slater discussed CREB, a protein that can aid in memory loss.
The final chapter of the book is Chipped. In this chapter, Slater relates the history of psycho-surgery and in specific lobotomies. She relates the life and work of Anonio Egas Moniz, the father of lobotomy. His experiments and his contributions to this field. Slater discusses some of the experimental cases, and later cases when psycho-surgery was already recognized as a procedure. She discusses the positive and negative effects that such a procedure can have in people's lives, but noting that many of this people rather face the negative effects than continue living with depression, anxiety and the related issues.
Discussion:
Majority of the experiments covered were unknown for me until I read about them in this book. Slater had a very peculiar way to present them to the reader, they were not only easy to read, but also interesting. Her writing was able to catch my attention from the beginning of each chapter until the end. Her narrative style and her interaction to people close to the psychologists allowed me to picture and put faces to the stories.
However, when it was time to relate the chapter to technology and in specific to CHI, it was difficult for me for some of the chapter to see how it was related. But throughout our discussions in class I realized that there are more than one way to relate CHI into scenarios related to the experiments. There is no right or wrong answers, technology can help in many ways, but in some of them it was still difficult to see it at first.
