Opening Skinner's Box: Great Psychological Experiments of the Twentieth Century

Here’s a little experiment to try out on yourself. Go to a part of the bookshop you never visit and choose a book on a subject you’d never usually consider. Last week I tried it out by accident and I stumbled on this little gem. Actually, I wandered into the psychology rows, looking for a book, Musicophilia by Dr. Oliver Sachs. I’d heard his podcast and the book sounded interesting. Having located it, it struck me as rather dry. I changed my mind, chastised myself for wandering in where I didn’t belong and then I stumbled on Lauren Slater. Her book, that is.

This is a little book describing ten advances in research psychology, but from a very human angle. She talks about the experimenters and their subjects (animal and human) and show more herself. The experiments were often controversial, using methods on the ethical frontier, and the conclusions disputed. Slater herself is often present in the narrative, evaluating her own reactions, drawing examples bravely and even recklessly from her own life, and experimenting with herself as guinea pig. She meets many of the protagonists and is blunt (and sometimes indiscreet) in her judgement and reporting on them. She is balanced and open-minded about the experiments, setting out the pros and cons and letting the reader decide.

I found the whole a delightful and easy read for an utter novice in the field and I’ll be roaming unfamiliar aisles in my bookshop in search of more surprises. show less

Pure poetry. Laura uses the structure of foundational experiments in social psychology to raise deep questions about medicine, free will, obedience, and the ethics of experiments that involve conscious beings.
I've reconsidered long held ideas because of this book. I cannot recommend it highly enough for people who are unfamiliar with how brains work but don't want to wade through the dry details.
If Mary Roach wrote about psychology, but actually had something to say, she might write this book.

I must have a different definition of "great."

As the title says, book is about psychological experimentation -- and some of the experiments, such as B. F. Skinner's, are genuinely great. But some... aren't. They don't lead anywhere. Except, it seems to me, in Lauren Slater's mind.

That's my real problem with this book. There seems to be a disconnect between Slater and the science. She often doesn't want it to be true, and so she makes it come out as if the science didn't work. And then she keeps on piling on text that isn't about the experimentation.

I know that some experiments are cruel. I know that some produce surprising things. But the way to get around that isn't to criticize the experiment. It's to either find another (testable) show more explanation for the results, or to find a way to disconfirm them.

Psychology and psychiatry have made great strides in the last century -- and they still have a long way to go. But, for the most part, these are not the experiments that made the strides (e.g. where is the discussion of the causes of psychosis, and the treatments that do and don't work to deal with it?), and the discussion does not tell us where we have failed. Slater has studied psychology -- but, as a person with training in the hard sciences, this book felt like pure touchy-feely-ness. show less

Beautifully written book combining journalistic curiosity, psychological intelligence and a novelist's lyricism in telling the deeper stories behind some of the twentieth century's most incredible psychological experiments. From delving further into well-known studies, such as Milgram's obedience testing, to exploring lesser known but equally profound experiments, Slater opens our eyes to the ethics, the narratives, and the insights into humanity provided by these discoveries, and the amazing minds that drove them forward.

Many years ago, I wanted to be an educational psychologist. For various reasons, I didn't (and I'm now happy that I did what I did and became what I am), but it's experiments like this that drew me to the subject.

This describes great psychological experiments of the 20th century, told in a chatty, narrative style. Lots of fascinating food for thought, but the literary pretensions and irrelevant imaginings are an irritating distraction.

My uncle lent me this book to give me a brief bit of background in the field of psychology and I didn't expect to enjoy the prose quite so much. Slater's choice of structure is excellent, interweaving the narrative of the scientists with their story and her explanations of concepts are lucid. The only instances, mostly in the first couple essays, that were overwrought and her over amplification of herself in these pieces weakens them as it is not a consistent thread.

This was a quick read and I enjoyed it, but I wouldn't use it as my first reference source for information about any of the experiments described. The author has made some effort to interview the experimenters, subjects, or family members of participants in a set of well-known psychological experiments. Each chapter is a very subjective story of the experiment, and the impact it has had on our understanding of the human mind, and of the effect the experiment had on the author. While the author's emotional reaction to her research did make it easy to identify with the 'characters' in the story, this reads like a third hand memoir. I was also bothered by how people's religious beliefs were almost always identified, even when it had no show more bearing on the subject of the experiment.
So - an entertaining read, OK for getting an overview, might be good to hook someone looking at the subject for the first time, but I'd advise readers to also look at other sources. show less