Opening Skinners Box Paperback by Lauren Slater

Product Details

• Publisher: WW Norton (2005-02-22)
• Language: English
• Paperback: 288 pages
• ISBN-13: 9780393326550
• Item Weight: 260.82 grams
• Dimensions: 20.93 x 13.89 x 1.75 cm

Through ten examples of ingenious experiments by some of psychology's most innovative thinkers, Lauren Slater traces the evolution of the century's most pressing concerns—free will, authoritarianism, conformity, and morality.

Beginning with B. F. Skinner and the legend of a child raised in a box, Slater takes us from a deep empathy with Stanley Milgram's obedience subjects to a funny and disturbing re-creation of an experiment questioning the validity of psychiatric diagnosis. Previously described only in academic journals and textbooks, these often daring experiments have never before been narrated as stories, chock-full of plot, wit, personality, and theme.

About the Author

Lauren Slater is the author of five books of nonfiction and two memoirs, as well as a collection of short stories. She has received numerous awards, including a 2004 National Endowment for the Arts award, multiple inclusions in Best American volumes, and a Knight Science Journalism Fellowship at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.