Full Blog Opening Skinner's Box

Reference Information

Title - Opening Skinner's Box

Author - Lauren Slater

Publisher - W.W. Norton & Company (2008)

Summary

For the most part, Lauren Slater does not have relation between chapters. They seem to be scattered discussions, mostly about psycological experiments. Chapter one talks about B.F. Sinner and reinformcement schedules. He talked about training dogs for hide-and-seek as well as reflexes of frogs. The idea was that there is no such thing as free will.

In the 2nd chapter, Milgram's experiments involving shock are discussed by Slater. The concept was to see how many people would hurt someone if an authority told them to. More than 60% of people would do so. The experiment was very controversial because of it being slightly after WWII.


Slater discusses David Rosenhan's psych hospital experiment in chapter 3. Several doctors said they were hearing "thud" noises in order to get admitted to the hospital. Once admitted, the doctors made no attempt to seem mentally challenged. They were still diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia.


In the 4th chapter, the bystander effect was discussed. In the murder of Kitty Genovese, several people refused to help the girl who was being stabbed repeatedly on the street. 


The 5th chapter talked about cognitive dissonance, a lot of this chapter focussed around Linda Santo and her claim to be a saint sent from God.


Harry Harlow was discussed by Slater here in the 6th chapter. This experiment dealt with the attachment of young monkeys. The study concluded with the finding that monkeys became more attached to fake monkey rags than something that wasn't soft.


The 7th chapter talked about the rat park study by Bruce Alexander. The study found that rats placed in a very cramped cage tended to favor the morphine water far more than those places in a better, almost utopian setting. 


Chapter 8 discusses the study done by Elizabeth Loftus on false memory creation. The study found that false memories were able to be implanted into the mind of her subjects. This was very closely related to chapter 10 in which psychosugery was performed by Antonio Moniz


Chapter 9 talks about Kandel's research on memory. The study resulted in the finding of CREB which is an electrochemical signal reinforcement. This molecule produces proteins to help make memories. 

Discussion

Overall, this has been my favorite reading for the semester. I enjoyed reading all the psycological experiments done in this book. I have always been interested in psycology and the human brain so this is probably why I enjoyed this book so much.