Lauren Slater used Opening Skinner’s Box to demonstrate B. F. Skinner’s biography, and unorthodox experiments as a psychologist. Slater acts like detective psychologist who is confused about the “real” Skinner. She wants to know who exactly he was, and what are the real facts and myths about Skinner’s life, personality, methods, and interactions with people and family members. I guess, it’s a research journey for Slater to find out every truth about the male colleague called Skinner. She is nosy! She read, researched, analyzed, and investigated about Skinner. She interviewed various people (colleagues, co-workers, friends, patients, and family member), and even personally retried Skinner’s experiment to find out every truth about him. She wasn’t
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It’s like not only she uses the title “Opening Skinner’s Box” to drive reader’s attention towards Skinner’s done experiments with animals in the cage, but also the ongoing false gossips of how he raised his daughter Doborah in a cage like crib. Reading all the negative gossips mentioned in the beginning of the first chapter, made me dislike Skinner immensely. He 's been described as a cruel, heartless, and maniac psychologist, who stops at nothing to prove the correctness of his ideas and claims. Only after finishing the chapter, I realized that I did the same mistake again. Judging without doing enough research and investigation. Skinner is an enigma with many myths and truths connected to him. I should have had studied thoroughly before I had let the previous paragraph influence me in a negative …show more content…
This method claims that humans and animals are able to be trained in every specific way if they are subjected to positive reinforcement and rewards. The chapter reminds us that encouraging reinforcement works better than the negative one. There many psychologist and psychiatrist who totally denied Skinner’s thesis, experiments, and the truth about them. Kosslyn in the other hand, is one of the loyal follower of Skinner who really believes in his research, claims, and theories. (Page 13 of Opening Skinner’s Box)
I also found it very interesting that Skinner started as a novelist, and ended up being a psychologist. Maybe this was one of the reasons of his colleagues to criticize his work and research, and deny the results. Maybe, they didn’t accept him as a psychologist, or were jealous that he’s was man who could master different subjects, and had also a fine soul.
One thing I don’t agree with Skinner is the “free will”. I do believe in free will, positive encouragement, and environmental/individual effects on one’s life, actions, and behavior. According to Skinner "free will" doesn 't exist, and humans’ and animals’ behaviors and actions can be manipulated by rewards and positive reinforcements. (Page 6 of the textbook). His denial of “free will” makes me wonder about his religious beliefs, and
It’s like not only she uses the title “Opening Skinner’s Box” to drive reader’s attention towards Skinner’s done experiments with animals in the cage, but also the ongoing false gossips of how he raised his daughter Doborah in a cage like crib. Reading all the negative gossips mentioned in the beginning of the first chapter, made me dislike Skinner immensely. He 's been described as a cruel, heartless, and maniac psychologist, who stops at nothing to prove the correctness of his ideas and claims. Only after finishing the chapter, I realized that I did the same mistake again. Judging without doing enough research and investigation. Skinner is an enigma with many myths and truths connected to him. I should have had studied thoroughly before I had let the previous paragraph influence me in a negative …show more content…
This method claims that humans and animals are able to be trained in every specific way if they are subjected to positive reinforcement and rewards. The chapter reminds us that encouraging reinforcement works better than the negative one. There many psychologist and psychiatrist who totally denied Skinner’s thesis, experiments, and the truth about them. Kosslyn in the other hand, is one of the loyal follower of Skinner who really believes in his research, claims, and theories. (Page 13 of Opening Skinner’s Box)
I also found it very interesting that Skinner started as a novelist, and ended up being a psychologist. Maybe this was one of the reasons of his colleagues to criticize his work and research, and deny the results. Maybe, they didn’t accept him as a psychologist, or were jealous that he’s was man who could master different subjects, and had also a fine soul.
One thing I don’t agree with Skinner is the “free will”. I do believe in free will, positive encouragement, and environmental/individual effects on one’s life, actions, and behavior. According to Skinner "free will" doesn 't exist, and humans’ and animals’ behaviors and actions can be manipulated by rewards and positive reinforcements. (Page 6 of the textbook). His denial of “free will” makes me wonder about his religious beliefs, and