Chapter 1
Summary
The first chapter is mainly devoted to B. F. Skinner, his work, and the impact it had on people. The author, Lauren Slater, discusses Skinner’s early days studying frog reflexes, the days when he worked with variable schedules of reinforcement and his time later on when he took care of his daughters and taught their dog to play hide-and-seek with them. She discusses how many people saw Skinner as “evil” and how his daughters loved him and found him to be a “child advocate.”
Discussion
I learned about Skinner and his boxes last semester in a psychology class, so the part about his studies was not new to me. However, I never heard the rumor about Skinner’s daughter committing suicide after he kept her in a box for two years – probably because it’s all false information anyway. I enjoyed learning about his early years and what he was like when he wasn’t doing his research. Slater paints a fairly complete picture of Skinner, including information from every side.
No comments:
Post a Comment