Opening Skinner's Box

Opening Skinner's Box by Lauren Slater was at once entertaining, fascinating, horrifying, disorienting, and just plain weird.  It was refreshing to read a book that was packed with information rather than acidic complaints about design or software.  Slater dispenses history and commentary in an accessible narrative style that belies the profound observations about the human psyche made by the discussed researchers.  However, some of her more personal and colorful remarks (as well as her tendency to try and replicate some of the experiments from the book) undermined my confidence in her as a reliable narrator.  I found her thoughts about each experiment useful, though, as they often echoed or contrasted my own.

Slater gives a brief historical synopsis of each experiment (the full list of which I'll put below) and the responses or controversy generated by it; she often interweaves personal narrative or vivid analogies with facts which, while making the book more interesting as a whole, are sometimes off-putting or detrimental to the reader.

Slater discusses ten important psychological researchers and their experiments: B.F. Skinner and his work on behaviorism; Stanley Milgram's authority experiment; David Rosenhan's skewering of psychiatric diagnosis; Harry Harlow's brutal look at love; Bruce Alexander's Rat Park, Elizabeth Loftus' work with false memories; Antonio Moniz and his most famous creation, lobotomy; Latane and Darley's discovery of diffusion of responsibility; and Eric Kandel, whose work showed the brain chemistry behind learning.  Each of these experiments is fascinating in its own right, and having them all together in one place makes them that much easier to compare and discuss.

I enjoyed reading this book, though I was cautious to accept many of the things Slater said in it.  Several interviewees in the book later claimed to have been misquoted and Slater's own sanity is called into question several times by the things she says and does.  Personally, I thought that made the book more interesting - I would have enjoyed a dusty academic fact-roll far less than I enjoyed Opening Skinner's Box.