Microblogs for Opening Skinner's Box

Reference Information:
                 Title: Opening Skinner's Box
                 Author:  Lauren Slater
                 Publisher: 2005, W.W. Norton                            & Company, Inc.

Chapter 1: Opening Skinner's Box

Summary:
This chapter introduces the idea of Skinner and his reputation. People think he is scary and the name is startling. Skinner's ideas are explained through a series of ideas involving animals and making them do things for food. The ideas have to do with free will and why we do certain things. 

The author begins studying Skinner by going to Harvard to get more information about him. She also finds one of his daughters who lets the author view Skinner's old house. The daughter compares Skinner to Darwin and says people are just threatened by his great ideas. 

Discussion: 
I thought the experiments with the animals was interesting. Especially how Skinner used the Pavlov experiment to further his experiments. His ideas are interesting and I'm looking forward to reading some more. 

Chapter 2:  Obscura 

Summary:
This chapter was about an experiment done by Stanley Milgram that was about obedience to authority. He wanted to see how many people would continously shock another person even if they got the impression that the shock could be lethal. People were interviewed that participated in the experiment to see the effects that it had on them.
 

Discussion:
This chapter gave me the chills kind of. It was very interesting to read and I just couldn't believe how many people were recorded that actually kept shocking people (65%?). 

Chapter 3: On Being Sane in Insane Places

Summary: 
David Rosenhan conducted a clever experiment which was to basically test the idea of physicatrics in medicine. He got some people including himself to go to the hospital and get admitted and then acted completely normal to see how long it took for them to recognized as normal. The same idea for this experiment was used by the author who goes to hospitals to see how things have changed. She is not admitted to any hospitals but is usually diagnosed and given pills. Later, in a conversation with Robert Spitzer, Spitzer says that he thinks that doctors just don't know when to say "I don't Know".

Discussion:
I enjoyed this chapter more than the others so far. I thought it was funny how the author says that the Rosenhan experiment is really hated in the field even after 40 years because of how it tries to discredit the idea. I thought it was interesting how the author tried to mimic the experiment and nobody had ever heard of this story before and the "thud" voice. The results were interesting to how many doctors prescribed medicine with nothing more than a 10 minute examination even if they were just "light" medical pills.