Opening Skinner's Box Analysis

Opening Skinner’s Box by Lauren Slater tells of experiments conducted by a physiologist named B.F. Skinner and controversies that surrounded them. Since some people did not agree with Skinner and his experiments, legends were created regarding him. One of these legends being that, “He built a baby box in which he kept his daughter Deborah for two full years in order to train her, tracking her progress on a grid.” (Slater 7) Skinner strived to shape the behavior of people, so while he did build his daughter, Deborah, a baby box to test out theories and experiments, she did not spend a full 2 years of her life in this “baby box” as the legend says. However, since there was some controversies surrounding Skinner’s experiments legends such as these

Slater was able to get a hold of Skinner’s other daughter, Julie Vargas, and find out her opinion on her father, Skinner, and his experiments. Julie went on to tell Slater that, “If my father made one mistake, it was in the words he chose. People hear the word control and they think fascist. If my father had said people were informed by their environments, or inspired by their environments, no on would’ve had a problem.” In other words, Julie was a fan of her father, and she thinks that if he had approached people differently, then people would have taken to him in a more positive way. So, while there is and always will be controversy surrounding Skinner and his experiments, Skinner contributed a great quantity to the field of psychology.
`Opening Skinner’s Box by, Lauren Slater tells of may different events, one of those being an experiment by David Rosenhan trying to determine how well psychiatrists can tell apart sane and insane people. David Rosenhan called up a group of eight of his friends to ask an outrageous question. David Rosenhan asked his friends, “Are you busy next month? Would you have time to fake your way into a mental hospital and see what happens, see if they can tell you’re really sane?” (Slater 65) Strangely enough all eight of his friends agreed, and in they went to the mental hospital where they were falsely