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Opening Skinner's BoxLauren Slater New York: W. W. Norton 2004, x + 274 p., CAN$22.00I had only skipped through Opening Skinner's Box, when I decided I really liked it.I would begin my review with some bold statement like "Read this book!"Opening Skinner's Box fit with my view that good psychological science is not done by boring scientists but by engaged and larger-than-life individuals.I thought that the readers of the Canadian Bulletin of Medical History would enjoy the lucidity of the storytelling and the characters that Slater develops.I thought that you might dismiss psychology as the unethical product of quirky, wonky, minds but that, more likely, you would embrace the richness of the stories behind the 10 famous and provocative research programs that Slater tells in her fascinating and fast-paced storytelling.Slater covers the real classics including Milgram's obedience experiment in which he demanded that research participants use high levels of electric shock to "teach" others; Rosenhan's faked mental illness classic in which he and colleagues faked their way into mental hospitals by describing very improbable hallucinations and then found they could not get out; Harlow's studies on cloth and wire versus real monkey mothers; the studies by Latane and Darley on the unresponsive bystander that were prompted by the Kitty Genovese murder in New York and Elizabelth Loftus's studies showing how "recovered" memories could be created memories.I knew that Slater was not objective.Throughout Slater used her personality to move the story forward.It made the science less dry and pedantic.It was intrusive at times but it enlivened her accounts.I thought that historians would learn from and enjoy Slater 's book.I am a clinical academic psychologist with over 25 years experience.I had read all but two of the original studies that Slater discusses.However, I had not understood or appreciated the context of these experiments before I read Slater.Slater, herself a psychologist, presents these classic studies in context.Each experiment is embellished with a review of other sources and interviews with many of the principal authors and their critics.She also inserts her personal issues: the daughter who is enchanted with bandaids, the dog phobia she developed as a child.I loved the stories even though they seemed a bit over the top.I could almost see Jerome Kagan suddenly jumping under his desk to demonstrate that Skinner was wrong about free will.I was disturbed by her account of Robert Spitzer lacking any compassion for David Rosenhan, his academic competitor, having a series of personal tragedies including the death of his wife and daughter and an unknown and debilitating illness.I was not surprised that Elizabeth Loftus would see Steve Porter (a Dalhousie University faculty member) as a splendid researcher but was surprised she would discuss her bra size in an interview.
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