Opening Skinner's Box - A Review (Chapters 1-10)

Chapter 1: Opening Skinner’s Box

Lauren Slater opens her book Opening Skinner’s Box with a chapter with the same title. She takes an intimate look at B.F. Skinner. She starts by discussing how infamous he is. Personally, I had heard about his experiments before, and I do not think I would consider him “infamous.” I think I would prefer the term “eccentric.” His experiments reflect a very different train of thought compared his peers and even among many psychologists today. He looked at the state of psychology at the time and how it was based mostly on anecdotes or observations. He applied principles derived from the scientific method and applied it to this “soft” psychology. He revolutionized the world not just with his experiments but also with his methods.  He thought out of the box (pun intended). He was a very analytical person, but at the same time he was very philosophical—a perfect fit for behavioral psychology.

A significant part of this chapter is Slater’s discussion of Skinnerizing her daughter to stop crying and demanding to be held at night. This anecdote lets the reader see how the application of operant conditioning is still relevant in everyday life. Most people also realize that we employ operant conditioning in training domesticated animals. It is almost disturbing how easy it is to condition someone to do what you want them to. Finally, when Slater meets Julie, one of Skinner’s daughters, I cannot help but think that she has been conditioned to adore her father. When she speaks of him, tears of love and memory swell up in her eyes and voice. She is also very defensive of him whenever anyone starts to criticize any aspect of his work or personality. It would not be too far-fetched to think that Skinner used his operant conditioning techniques to, perhaps unintentionally, condition his children to love him and to abhor any negative comments about him.

Chapter 2: Obscura

Because we, as a class, already had the opportunity to read Stanley Milgram’s Obedience to Authority, we had very good background knowledge about Milgram’s experiments. Nonetheless, Slater allows us to get a different perspective on Milgram and his experiments—one that is a little more subjective and humanistic. Slater begins this chapter with a hypothetical personal experience about participating in the experiment as the subject. I would have to admit that most of those thoughts would have reflected by own. However, I am still convinced that I would not go all the way to the end. I know that I would have gone most of the way though—even with a basic knowledge of lethal levels of electrocution. When I think about how obedient I am to any authoritative figure, I try to pick out the little things that I do to defy authority. Overall though, I obey without questioning. That is disturbing.

Milgram himself seemed to have a strange curiosity about people’s behaviors. He seemed especially interested in the nonobvious. He wanted to point out the counter-intuitive things that people do. For example, he experimented with people looking up at the sky solely because someone else was doing so. I wonder if his acute awareness of his mortality was a contributing factor to this personality trait. Furthermore, I wonder if he knew beforehand about the impact that he would have on the subjects that he experimented on. Whether they obeyed until the end or disobeyed at 150 volts, many of these people still feel the effects of the experiment as if it happened yesterday, not fifty years ago. Perhaps the biggest impact of Milgram’s experiments does not come from the results themselves, but, as Slater alluded to, it is the questions that people ask about obedience to authority.

Chapter 3: On Being Sane in Insane Places

I have always had a slight disdain for psychiatry. Maybe it was the images of the horrible insane asylums. Maybe it was the possibility of me being slightly crazy. Maybe it was Rosenham’s little experiment. Nonetheless, I find it hard to feel confident about psychiatrists telling me what is wrong with me. Rosenham’s experiment, although not perfectly scientific, exposed a lot of the troubles with psychiatry in the 1970s. It was so easy to diagnose someone with schizophrenia and throw them into an asylum. One voice that said only “thud” and that’s it! When people like Spritzer retorted with everything they had and even challenged Rosenham, they were humiliated again. Rosenham said that he would send pseudopatients to psychiatrists. They were convinced that they found forty-one such patients. He didn’t send anyone. Slater’s modern day version of the experiment reflected a shift in psychiatry. Now the doctors were more humanistic to their patients, but they were very quick to write prescriptions for drugs. This practice is also seen in the medical sciences. They all seem to be following the motto “when in doubt, medicate.” That is just as concerning for me as being called crazy.

It is ridiculous how context shapes our expectations, especially in a field such as psychiatry or even the medical sciences. If your profession is diagnosing sick people, you are going to expect that everyone you see has some sort of illness. These diagnoses can affect people in the worst ways. These doctors are affecting peoples’ wellbeing. Even when the intention is to keep someone alive or improve their health, they may at the same time be putting these people closer to death. These kinds of professions should critically analyze what is happening as a whole to these individuals who are adversely affected by their practices.

Chapter 4: In the Unlikely Event of a Water Landing

I have heard of the concept of the diffusion of responsibility before in a sociology class that I took. I believe we also looked at the Catherine “Kitty” Genovese case. I still cannot believe what happened to that poor lady. It is the worst feeling, both physically and emotionally, to be stabbed repeatedly three separate times, know that people were around, but not getting any help. However, when I put myself in that situation, what would have I done? Would I have stood by listening to those screams? Would I have immediately called the police? I honestly think I would have done nothing. Darley and Latane’s experiments confirmed this. If you do not respond to an emergency within three minutes, you are ill-likely going to respond at all. There are multiple times when I could have helped someone who dropped their papers or was juggling books and a hurt appendage, but I did not. I thought to myself, “Someone else will probably help him.” No one else did.

We can make some connections from Darley and Latane’s experiments to Milgram’s experiments. When there’s an authority figure there, we rely on them to tell us what to do. When there is no authority figure, who is going to accept responsibility? Groupthink, peer pressure, and conformity also affect the outcomes of obedience and reaction to emergencies. Where is the independent thinking that Americans are so proud of? It seems to be there when the pressure is on you, the only person around. However, when there are other people involved, we appear apathetic and immoral. Maybe one day, everyone can understand these studies and experiments and be more conscious about their actions. The Kitty Genovese case should never happen again.

Chapter 5: Quieting the Mind

A staple in most psychology classes is cognitive dissonance, so its meaning is relatively well-known. Cognitive dissonance explains what happens when there is a conflict between one’s beliefs. Someone is more likely to modify their beliefs to fit the behavior rather than change their behavior to fit the belief. Essentially, this is the rationalization of incompatible beliefs and actions. Slater’s opening with the cult appears to be a clear-cut case of this. Arguably, religion in general contains many forms of cognitive dissonance. For example, there are religious texts that declare that women are lesser beings than men and those that dictate that people cannot eat meat. However, many of the people who follow these religious texts are feminists and/or love to eat meat. When people—especially the devout—are asked about these inconsistencies, they usually have some strange rationalization or perception about it that makes the belief and the behavior somehow compatible.

When I read about Linda and Audrey Santo’s story, it really made me sad. A young girl almost drowned to death, is now a vegetable, and has become, her mother claims, a direct line to God.  However, the different events that have occurred around Audrey are strange. How does one explain or rationalize the “hemorrhaging” oils? How does one explain the claims of being healed by these oils? Now Linda has breast cancer, and she refuses to be helped by her daughter. I wonder if this is a form of cognitive dissonance; Linda says that she refuses to be healed by her daughter because she does not want to make her suffer on her behalf. There is no way for us to know if she had tried already to be healed and just failed though.

Cognitive dissonance, like operant conditioning, does not explain everything about the individual person. It is only one piece of the extremely complex human being. It is impossible to claim that one theory explains everything about people and how they act. It is the intense mixing of all of these theories that piece together the human being. I think that Slater is not trying to make us focus on these different theories and people because she wants us to choose the one we like best. She wants us to understand the different pieces that make us whole.

Chapter 6: Monkey Love

Harry Harlow is a very interesting man. I do not think I would have been friends with him, but no one can deny the amount of contributions that he has made to our world. He was so obsessed with love that I could imagine him being a very clingy person. Slater also portrayed him as a very emotionally-dependent person. He looked for physical attention through affairs, he was always seeking to outdo himself to impress his colleagues, and his extreme focus on the mother and the child all reflect this desperation of outward emotional reconciliation.

Harlow’s experiments were merciless. Harlow did not care about the separation of the rhesus macaque monkeys from their mothers, nor did he seem to think about the implications his experiments would have on the monkeys once they were grown and ready to mate. I think we are starting to see some of the same disturbing results more and more with people these days. In a more highly technological world, there is an increasing need for quick and easy methods to raise children. Women are choosing to work after they give birth, whether by choice or by necessity. Culture also plays a large role in influencing parenting styles. I think there is a lack of touch, play, and motion—apparently the necessary ingredients for love—which are creating children who are increasingly antisocial. I wonder what implications this will have in future generations. Also, is this something that is happening solely to Americans? Or is this a worldwide phenomenon that we need to be concerned with?

Chapter 7: Rat Park

Television shows like Intervention and Dr. Drew highlight the tragedies that follow drug addiction. We see it glorified with celebrities’ constant visits to high-profile treatment centers. It does not affect just the user; it also hurts the user’s family and friends. It is not until that person is willing to get help that they can begin the process of recovery. These shows reflect the predominant belief that drugs “cause” addiction. It is something that cannot be avoided, no matter how disciplined a person is. Everyone argues that addiction is a disease, which needs to be clinically treated. Addicts go through programs in order to get themselves to heal themselves. But it does not always work.

Bruce Alexander argues that drugs do not cause addiction—it is a “life-style strategy.” He conducted the Seduction experiment and compared rats in the rat park, a luxurious environment, and rats in a typical lab setting, a miserable environment. Predictably, the rats in the dismal environment chose to become intoxicated by drinking morphine-laced water. However, the rats in the luxurious environment did not care for the sugary morphine water. This experiment is especially interesting because it is a stark contrast what popular belief about addiction dictates. I never really heard about Alexander’s experiments, but now that I have, I have a completely new take on drug addiction. I still cannot let go of my intense need for medical and scientific evidence of addiction. At the same time, though, I can now look at these arguments with a grain of salt. Alexander’s arguments help explain how I have no interest in getting intoxicated myself, even with access to intoxicants. I oftentimes do not even want to drink alcoholic beverages. To me, intoxication is not a “life-style strategy” for me.

Chapter 8: Lost in the Mall

I am very aware of Plato’s and Freud’s concepts of memory. I personally like to imagine that my memories are stuffed away in unorganized filing cabinets in my brain. These memories, like paper, become more fragile with time and can even fall completely apart. Also, there are some memories that I lock away so that no one, not even me, can ever see them again. Those are my “repressed” memories—memories that should not see the light of day ever again. Sometimes I get some of these files get really dusty so I have to brush them off to read its contents. This is the process of remembering. After reading this chapter, I wonder if these dusty files are really my own or counterfeits.

Elizabeth Loftus is an interesting person. Her curiosity about memories and her drive to protect those who are accused of terrible things based on the “repressed” memories of others is compounded by bravery. Who has the courage to fight against someone who claims was raped? Who has the courage to defend the person who is being accused of the rape? Loftus shows us how easy it is to implant a memory of being lost in a mall and how elaborate these fake memories can become. This work needs to be publicized more. People’s lives are being vastly affected by these “repressed memories,” which may or may not be fabricated. As Loftus says, we must have corroboration to be more certain that events occurred. The memories of one person are not reliable enough to depend on. That is the reason why people keep diaries, journals, and (of course) blogs—to keep record of what has occurred.

Chapter 9: Memory Inc.

The last two chapters of the book took an extremely close look at the physical brain. In this chapter, Slater analyzed memory.  Her first story was about a boy Henry, now only known as H.M., who had his hippocampus removed by Dr. Scoville to stop intense seizures. Scoville was successful in stopping H.M.’s seizures, but he also stopped H.M. from being able to create new memories. I wonder if the benefit was worth the cost. In his old age, H.M. is able to control his movements, but he cannot record events in memory. I wonder if he even realizes this. I cannot fathom what it would be like to live for as long as he had and not have fond memories of my life. Brenda Milner was able to record H.M. and observed that the hippocampus somehow converted short-term memory into long-term memory. Eric Kandel, who broke memory down to the few neurons of slugs, was able to discover cAMP-response element binding protein (CREB), which was what made short-term memory into long-term memory—in other words, memory glue. He also discovered its repressor, which would cause one to forget.

Slater spent a large part of the chapter analyzing the possible implications of Kandel’s company Memory Pharmaceuticals. They could produce pills that make one forget, or they could produce pills that make one remember everything. If these kinds of pills were made available to the general public, I think it would create controversy as intense as those of abortion or cloning. There would be fervent supporters and opponents who would be willing to fight over these pills. I personally would find some benefit in being able to select what I want to forget and what I want to remember, but I worry about the abuse of such pills.

Slater said that Elizabeth Loftus and Eric Kandel offered conflicting arguments. I think theirs are actually complimentary. Kandel looks at how short-term memory becomes long-term memory. Loftus looks at how fabricated stories can become short-term memory and, in turn, long-term memory. Repression itself is a different issue altogether. Like Loftus said, corroboration is probably the best way to verify an event actually occurred. However, there are even flaws with corroboration if memory is involved.

Chapter 10: Chipped

This chapter looks how physical modifications to the brain can help heal people. Antonio Egas Moniz, who won the Nobel Prize for 1949 for the discovery of psychosurgery, started this long, dangerous, and beneficial journey into psychosurgery. To this day, there are debates over the costs and benefits of psychosurgery. In the United States, Walter Freeman and James Watt promoted psychosurgery as the means to fix any mental illness. This is one of the reasons why psychosurgery has such a bad reputation. The early pioneers of psychosurgery were willing to work on anyone for any reason. I am still affected by this reputation. I get anxious at the thought of someone poking around in my brain. I would rather take pills no matter what.

Slater’s story about Charlie Newitz provides a present-day example of the role of psychosurgery. Lobotomies are only allowed as a last resort for patients. However, the surgery on Charlie shows how far psychosurgeries have come since the 1950s. At the end of the chapter, Charlie says that he would be willing to have another surgery in order to stop his depression. This begs the question of whether or not someone could get addicted to psychosurgeries. Another question that arises is whether psychosurgery is better than prescription pills or vice versa. We live in a culture where, if anything is “wrong” with you, you can fix it with a little chemical modification here or a little physical modification there. Everyone is striving to live a “normal” life or be a “better” person. Unfortunately, this is causing people to become overdependent on drugs and surgeries to fix everything. Where will this lead us in the future? As more is discovered about the brain, many people may want to remember everything that is good, forget everything that is bad, dissolve anxiety or depression, and improve productivity. Is this a good thing?

Obedience to Authority - A Review

Obedience to Authority – Overall

Stanley Milgram’s book Obedience to Authority analyzes the series of experiments that he performed concerning the power of authority. While humans are generally moral, independently thinking beings, they are easily swayed by authority to do things that are against their personal virtues. There are multiple factors at work, but the two biggest factors are morality or obedience.

I had already known about Milgram’s experiments before I read the book, but it was merely a superficial summary of it. There was no reason provided as to why people obeyed or, more significantly, why they did not disobey. I had the same initial reaction as many other people to the results of the experiment; there was no way that almost everyone would shock an innocent person to death. Unfortunately, the data speaks for itself. When it comes to morality versus obedience, obedience often prevails.

After reading the book in its entirety, I think I understand the experiment a little more. Although the reasoning and procedure of the experiments are sound, I wonder if it was too narrow-minded in how different variables affected obedience. I think he should have explored more possible variables with more people involved. Variables such as age, socioeconomic status, and occupation should have been more closely analyzed. A person’s disposition has a lot to do with his or her tendency to obey. Statisticians say that having a sample size of at least forty-five is a good size, but many of his experiments included only twenty people. That is not nearly enough to get reliable data and draw conclusions from. Honestly, I would have been more satisfied with his results if he had several hundred subjects.

I was a little put off on how black and white Milgram was about the obedience. He said that all he focused on was whether the subject obeyed or disobeyed. There was a lot of stress and strain involved for many of the subjects. There are a multitude of factors at work when obedience and morality conflict. Milgram pointed out that the presence of an authority figure was sufficient to get compliance. However, when the authority figure is gone, or there is a precedence of disobedience, it is easier to follow one’s morality.

Milgram’s conclusions should be taken with a grain of salt. While it is surprising how many people will defy their own personal moral convictions to follow authority, there are those who would not allow it. After reading the book, the results are not as surprising as I originally thought because of the conditions that were used in the experiments.

In conclusion, Milgram offers us a very interesting study on the obedience to authority. When discussed, though, there should be discussion on the environment these subjects were in. The environment and other conditions greatly affected people’s tendency to obey, and oftentimes this was neglected when summarized. I think this sort of discussion should continue so that people are more conscious about not always blindly obeying authority when the situations arise.

Obedience to Authority - Chapter by Chapter

Chapter 1: The Dilemma of Obedience

I feel that this introductory chapter attempts to say too much before finding the results of the experiment. I appreciate Stanley Milgram’s brief discussion on the issue of morality versus obedience, but he delves too quickly into the conclusions of his series of obedience experiments before really describing them in detail. This first chapter left me with a bad first taste in my brain.

Chapter 2: Method of Inquiry

This chapter was a very straightforward chapter. Milgram outlines the procedures of the experiment and makes sure that the reader is sure that every step in the experiment was deliberate and well-thought out. Nothing special can be said about this chapter.

Chapter 3: Expected Behavior

The predictions on the results on the experiments were very clear: most everyone would not shock the learner after he protests. Of course, I would have said the same thing. On the surface, it is easy to see the moral issue of shocking someone against their will. Many of us would be quick to shout, “Stop the experiment! That poor man is in pain!” hypothetically. However, once we scratch deeper past the surface, we will find out that there is more there than the moral issue of hurting someone.

Chapter 4: Closeness of the Victim

Finally, we start seeing actual data from the first experiments on obedience. Of course, the results are extremely different from the predictions from the previous chapter. The data clearly shows that many people obeyed authority and shocked the learner all the way to the 450 volts. However, I believe that Milgram goes too far in overemphasizing the results in obedience. In the first experiment, where the learner was in a different room, even I would be able to say that there is a sense of detachment on the subject’s part to the learner. In experiments 2-4, there is a marked decrease in obedience because of the mere presence of the learner. A significant amount of people disobeyed when the learner began to protest. These are some results that, although possibly less significant than that which shows how many people went all the way, still need to be noted.

Chapter 5: Individuals Confront Authority

The personal stories from specific participants really interested me because it allowed me to find out about the people’s thoughts during the experiment and their reactions afterwards. However, I feel that Milgram was a little quick to make some of the judgments on how and why the people acted as they did. I wish he had just told us what they said and left it to the reader to analyze and deconstruct.

Chapter 6: Further Variations and Controls

The variations on the original versions of the experiment left me with a question that Milgram did not directly address: Where is the learner relative to the teacher? We already learned that proximity makes a huge difference on how people obey the experimenter, so I wonder where Milgram decided to place the two of them. It would have helped better analyze the results from these variations. Nonetheless, the variations allowed us to look at different factors affecting the subject’s obedience or disobedience in the experiment.

Chapter 7: Individuals Confront Authority II

This series of interviews included women this time. It still surprises me that women were not included in the original experiments. I also wonder if women are included in any experiments other than the one completely dedicated to the gender. This marked distinction between men and women concerns me a little because in the interviews that he chooses to share, Milgram invariably exposes some prejudice about women.

Chapter 8: Role Permutations

Now that I know the results of the previous experiments, the results of these role permutation experiments do not surprise at me at all. In Experiment 13, where an ordinary man gives orders, I find it the least believable for the subject, which could have partially compromised the premise of the experiment. I think that this experiment might be a little more complex than what Milgram describes.

Chapter 9: Group Effects

Milgram introduces a new factor to his experiments in this chapter: conformity. Peer pressure has just as strong an effect that obedience does, so this was interesting. When alone, the subject may not even realize that quitting in the middle of the experiment is okay. In these experiments, the precedent is there; the subject can quit if he wants. I think this, in conjunction with peer pressure, aids in getting more people to break the experimenter’s authority.

Chapter 10: Why Obedience?—An analysis

In this chapter, Milgram looks at why obedience is such a strong influencing factor in people’s behavior. His analysis seems quite obvious for me. As humans found mutual benefit in forming and maintaining groups, we needed order. We allow for someone to dictate this order in the group to ease the burden on oneself. Thus authority exists. In order for order to be maintained, we must learn to obey the authority.

Chapter 11: The Process of Obedience: Applying the Analysis to the Experiment

Milgram delves a little deeper into why obedience happens on a more psychological level. I did not find this chapter particularly interesting personally. Nothing really novel came out of this chapter.

Chapter 12: Strain and Disobedience

I am glad that Milgram included this chapter. He explicitly explained all of the strain that the different subjects experienced. This gives the dimension of clear conflict in moral standing versus obeying authority. Even though many people will obey authority over their own convictions, they were not blindly following authority.

Chapter 13: An Alternate Theory: Is Aggression the Key?

I think this chapter was mostly to address many people’s immediate reaction that the subjects in the experiment are horrible, mean people. This chapter, therefore, did not mean much to me. While there are truly mean people out there, many of them are moralistic and humane.

Chapter 14: Problems of Method

Milgram finally addresses some of the issues that I had with the experiment itself. To me the most significant factor to the experiment was the believability in the learner actually being shocked, but I think it would be easy to see that the shocks are not real. Many people, even if It was a minority, were not completely convinced that the learner was really being shocked, which may have skewed the results. Nonetheless, I appreciate that Milgram kept these subjects in his results and did not just dismiss them.

Chapter 15: Epilogue

In Milgram’s final chapter, he starts looking at the present and even at the future. In general, obedience to authority will not stop. The Vietnam War reflects some of the effects of obedience to Americans directly. I think this is the reason why people dislike the Vietnam War so much. This war really made Americans face the clear-cut conflict of authority versus morality. This conflict can be seen today in the War on Terror.