Opening Skinner's Box
Nominated for a Los Angeles Times Kirsch award for science and technology writing, and named as a 2005 Bild Der Wissenschaft book of the year in Germany, Opening Skinner's Box has been described as "one of the first major books to bridge the gap between academic and popular psychology." In a 2004 literary review, Farhad Manjoo, a writer for Salon.com, observed that it was 'a genuinely compelling read'.
It describes — in the form of stories, complete with characters, plot, and emotional insights — the 10 psychology experiments Slater regards as the most significant or interesting of the 20th century. These include B.F. Skinner's work on behaviorism; Stanley Milgram's demonstration of how ordinary people can be influenced to obey authority; David Rosenhan's 1972 experiment in which eight people feigned mental illness then gained admittance to psychiatric hospitals; Harry Harlow's experiments with monkeys and motherhood; and Bruce K. Alexander's Rat Park, where laboratory rats addicted to morphine turned the drug down when given a better life.
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“Mrs. Skinner told Jones that Mrs. N. was a very fascinating woman, and that Mr. W. was very fond of fascinating with her.”
—Samuel Butler (1835–1902)