Opening Skinner's Box
Great Psychological Experiments of the Twentieth Century
18 March 2005
Territory Rights — Worldwide including Canada, but excluding the British Commonwealth.
Description
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.
Reviews
"I've been riveted by her witty explorations of everything from lying to Prozac." — David Sedaris, Entertainment Weekly
"Worth reading for the provocative questions it asks and for the way it lingers over the fragile, human side of psychology." — Joy Press, Village Voice
"Astonishing stories full of quirky personalities, told with wit and warmth." — Kirkus Reviews
"Slater creates for the reader a sense of intimacy with scientists and their subjects." — Erik Strand, Psychology Today
"It is precisely [Slater's] intimate confessional approach that is able to reveal the poetry latent in the sterile laboratory…A powerful and even inspiring meditation on the strengths and weaknesses hidden in our nature." — Eric Wargo, Washington Times
Also By: Lauren Slater 
Blue Beyond Blue: Extraordinary Tales for Ordinary Dilemmas
Paperback, 2006
An exploration of contemporary family dynamics, moral conundrums, and romantic love through one of our oldest literary forms the fairy tale. "Inspired and barbed, Slater's fairy tales are...
