Summary:
The author, Lauren Slater, does a superb job of detailing some of the most insightful experiments over the past century. Although she is eccentric in her writing, transitioning from one topic to the next, she does make the book an interesting read. Rather than simply stating the results, she infuses the book with small amounts of humor and her personal life. The experiments she chose to use in the book seem to build on one another by either elaborating on previous experiments or providing new conclusions that one can draw about human psychology.
To begin, she describes Skinner's experiment. In this example, Skinner showed that animals can be conditioned to perform any set of tasks as long as they are rewarded properly. This challenged the concept of free will and showed that animals are reward driven. Next, she discussed Milgram's obedience to authority experiments, which we have already put enough analysis into. Next, she moves into putting sane people in insane asylums, performed by Rosenhan. This was an interesting chapter in which Rosenhan infiltrated these asylums and tried to escape after saying that the voice "thud" had disappeared. Slater than details Darley and Latane on the subject of helping out other people. Their main finding was that as the population increases, diffusion of responsibility occurs. This a detrimental fallacies among human beings, and I will definitely be sure to watch out for it in the future of my life.
Continuing, Slater details Festinger, his theory of cognitive dissonance, and Audrey, whose mother claims to be a healing saint. The main experiment in this work was the fact that people were offered $1 and $20 to lie. The people that received $1 were more likely to believe their lie in respect to justifying their actions. Next, Harlow performed experiments on monkeys in which he removed their mother and provided them a surrogate. He noted that the three main attributes needed to produce normal monkeys were motion, touch, and play. Bruce Alexander created Rat Park and showed that in a happy environment, rats were much less likely to use a drug and become addicted than in a miserable environment. This is crucial to consider when dealing with any kind of addiction in the real world.
Slater than concludes the book with a few final chapters over memory and some of its fallacies. First, Loftus studies implanting fake memories in people and notes how easy it is to do. This is interesting given the plethora of examples of cases in which it was one person's word against another. This topic surfaces the questioning of who is right, and not the best story teller, given the easy altercations of memory. Second, Kandel performs memory on sea slugs and the case of H.M. is brought to attention. Throughout the chapter, the main points to take away were that memory can be physically altered, but increased memory does not always lead to increased ability to draw conclusions. Finally, Slater finishes the book with Moniz, who performed lobotomy experiments on people. His experiments mostly cured depression and extreme illness by physically cutting some pieces of the brain, but left some people feeling a little more "flat".
In conclusion, Slater does a remarkable job of demonstrating how fragile the human mind is. She showed the mind can be conditioned, gives into authority easily, places labels on other people, diffuses responsibility, finds justifications for any action, doesn't need much to love, creates false memories, and how these memories can be physically altered. There are some intriguing points that I will keep with me when dealing with other people in the future as well as knowing my own limitations. I greatly appreciated this book and found the experiments interesting, enjoyable to read, and informative.
To begin, she describes Skinner's experiment. In this example, Skinner showed that animals can be conditioned to perform any set of tasks as long as they are rewarded properly. This challenged the concept of free will and showed that animals are reward driven. Next, she discussed Milgram's obedience to authority experiments, which we have already put enough analysis into. Next, she moves into putting sane people in insane asylums, performed by Rosenhan. This was an interesting chapter in which Rosenhan infiltrated these asylums and tried to escape after saying that the voice "thud" had disappeared. Slater than details Darley and Latane on the subject of helping out other people. Their main finding was that as the population increases, diffusion of responsibility occurs. This a detrimental fallacies among human beings, and I will definitely be sure to watch out for it in the future of my life.
Continuing, Slater details Festinger, his theory of cognitive dissonance, and Audrey, whose mother claims to be a healing saint. The main experiment in this work was the fact that people were offered $1 and $20 to lie. The people that received $1 were more likely to believe their lie in respect to justifying their actions. Next, Harlow performed experiments on monkeys in which he removed their mother and provided them a surrogate. He noted that the three main attributes needed to produce normal monkeys were motion, touch, and play. Bruce Alexander created Rat Park and showed that in a happy environment, rats were much less likely to use a drug and become addicted than in a miserable environment. This is crucial to consider when dealing with any kind of addiction in the real world.
Slater than concludes the book with a few final chapters over memory and some of its fallacies. First, Loftus studies implanting fake memories in people and notes how easy it is to do. This is interesting given the plethora of examples of cases in which it was one person's word against another. This topic surfaces the questioning of who is right, and not the best story teller, given the easy altercations of memory. Second, Kandel performs memory on sea slugs and the case of H.M. is brought to attention. Throughout the chapter, the main points to take away were that memory can be physically altered, but increased memory does not always lead to increased ability to draw conclusions. Finally, Slater finishes the book with Moniz, who performed lobotomy experiments on people. His experiments mostly cured depression and extreme illness by physically cutting some pieces of the brain, but left some people feeling a little more "flat".
In conclusion, Slater does a remarkable job of demonstrating how fragile the human mind is. She showed the mind can be conditioned, gives into authority easily, places labels on other people, diffuses responsibility, finds justifications for any action, doesn't need much to love, creates false memories, and how these memories can be physically altered. There are some intriguing points that I will keep with me when dealing with other people in the future as well as knowing my own limitations. I greatly appreciated this book and found the experiments interesting, enjoyable to read, and informative.
Chapter 1: Opening Skinner's Box: B.F. Skinner's Rat Race
Skinner was born in 1904 and was a fellow at Harvard when he met his wife, Yvonne. Skinner was studying psychology in 1928 when he aspired to be a novelist. Before his arrival to pscyhology, it was a numberless field. Pavlov discovered classic conditioning which focuses on conditioning a natural reflex (salivating dogs) to a specific stimuli.
Skinner studied rats with a lever and a fixed ratio schedule of pellets for mice. He also studied the extinction version when he removed pellets as a source of reward. Also, he studied intermittent reward schemes and found that irregular behavior was the hardest to eradicate. He envisioned a society governed by benevolent behavioralist after his studies of obscure applications such as pigeons playing ping pong.
However, he died of leukemia in 1990. Slater then proceeds to visit Kagan, who demonstrates free will by jumping under his desk. Slater then experiments Skinner's experiment by training her child to not cry at night. Next, Slater visits the basement of William James Hall at Harvard where she learns most about Skinner's daughters, Deborah and Julie Vargas. Vargas suggests reading Freedom and Dignity before speaking with Slater again. In the end, Slater imagines what the chocolate was like that Skinner was eating when he dies.
Chapter 2: Obscura: Stanley Milgram and Obedience to Authority
Slater begins to describe the shock experiment of our previous reading. She assigns the experimenter and the learner the name Wallace for ease of reference. Slater then goes through a sample trial in which the reader administers the shocks and describes the prods and voltage shocks that were expanded in Milgram's book. Then, the post interview occurs in which the experimenter fills in the subject about the details of the experiment and that wallace is fine.
Milgram notes his experience at Queens College and studying Soloman Asch at Princeton. After moving to Yale, Alan Elms joined Milgram as an assistant graduate student. His wife, Alexandra, details how the high results made him cynical towards people in general. He even expands his results to explain the happenings in Vietnam.
Although the files are locked until 2075, Slater talks with Joshua Chaffin to find out more about disobedience because he had a heart related issue. It turns out Joshua did not blow Milgram's cover and even participated in WWII. Next, Slater meets Jacob Plumfield who was 100% obedient. He went from hopes of attending medical school to gay activist because he was more critical of authority.
Although the files are locked until 2075, Slater talks with Joshua Chaffin to find out more about disobedience because he had a heart related issue. It turns out Joshua did not blow Milgram's cover and even participated in WWII. Next, Slater meets Jacob Plumfield who was 100% obedient. He went from hopes of attending medical school to gay activist because he was more critical of authority.
Chapter 3: On Being Sane in Insane Places: Experimenting with Psychiatric Diagnosis
David Rosenhan studied putting sane people into insane institutions by faking their illness. Rosenhan did his study in 1972 while he had joint degrees in psychology and law. Out of the eight people that participated, one of his friends was Martin Seligman. The participants were instructed to say that they kept hearing a voice saying "thud". The mean hospital stay was nineteen days and the maximum stay was fifty-two in Rosenhan's experiment. Rosenhan published "On Being Sane in Insane Places" in the Science journal which proved to be ironic.
Robert Spitzer was one of the biggest critics of Rosenhan. Correlating with Rosenhan's experiment, Rosenthal and Jacobsen showed that telling students they have higher IQ in a certain grade actually does transition to achieving more at a later grade. Spitzer gave the example of drinking blood and then puking in the ER to give a false diagnosis. He learned that Spitzer was a patient in 1976. To counter, Rosenhan was to send an undisclosed number of patients to an insane asylum and they were instructed to turn them away if they were sane. They claimed to turn down 41 patients while Rosenhan sent none.
Spitzer then re-writes "Diagnosis and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders" or DSM into its second and third revisions (1980). Slater then proceeds to repeat the experiment with the fake name, Lucy Schellman. Although she had been a previous ex-mental patient, she was diagnosed with PTSD and depression. She then contacts Spitzer at the Colombia's Institute for Biometrics and notes that she received antidepressants and anti psychotics such as Risperdal. Spitzer then acknowledges defeat.
Robert Spitzer was one of the biggest critics of Rosenhan. Correlating with Rosenhan's experiment, Rosenthal and Jacobsen showed that telling students they have higher IQ in a certain grade actually does transition to achieving more at a later grade. Spitzer gave the example of drinking blood and then puking in the ER to give a false diagnosis. He learned that Spitzer was a patient in 1976. To counter, Rosenhan was to send an undisclosed number of patients to an insane asylum and they were instructed to turn them away if they were sane. They claimed to turn down 41 patients while Rosenhan sent none.
Spitzer then re-writes "Diagnosis and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders" or DSM into its second and third revisions (1980). Slater then proceeds to repeat the experiment with the fake name, Lucy Schellman. Although she had been a previous ex-mental patient, she was diagnosed with PTSD and depression. She then contacts Spitzer at the Colombia's Institute for Biometrics and notes that she received antidepressants and anti psychotics such as Risperdal. Spitzer then acknowledges defeat.
Chapter 4: In the Unlikely Event of a Water Landing: Darley and Latane's Training Manual
John Darley and Bibb Latane of NYU and Colombia, respectively, study what happens in a group crisis when there is no authority. The story begins with Catherine Genovese, also called Kitty, who is raped and murdered by Winston Moseley. There were thirty eight witnesses that did nothing to aid Kitty. The experimenters were social psychologists that created a fake seizure experiment with 59 women and 13 men.
The experiment was set up so that the subject could hear a seizure taking place, but was also in the presence of other individuals. Of the results, only 31% aided the person having a seizure within the first three minutes when there were four or more people in the same setting. However, when there was no additional people, 85% of the subjects proceeded to help the victim. This phenomenon was called the diffusion of responsibility. Another side result of this experiment was that the more time that passes, the less likely people were to help the victim.
Darley and Latane performed a similar experiment in which smoke was sent into a room. When the subject saw another person acting normal, they proceeded to act as if the smoke was harmless. However, when the subject was by oneself, they reported the problem immediately almost every single time. Another example of group behavior was studying turkeys with attached recording of a cry for help to the leg of a polecat which soon ate the turkey. Next, the author notes the Werther effect when a suicide is published, more people are likely to commit suicide. To explain this phenomenon, Darley and Latane give some rules to follow as such:
- You, the potential helper, must notice an event is occurring.
- You must interpret the events as one in which help is needed.
- You must assume personal responsibility.
- You must decide what action to take.
- You must then take action.
Chapter 5: Quieting the Mind: The Experiments of Leon Festinger
Leon Festinger, who earned a graduate degree in psychology at the University of Iowa, was mentored by Kurt Lewin. They write "A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance" and moved to MIT in 1957. There work focuses on the rationalizations of the human mind. The chapter begins with a story of Marion Keech and Dr. Armstrong, who believe a flood is going to occur due to a god named Sananda. Prior to the Great Event, the skeptics did not contact any media. However, after no flood occurred, they were willing to talk to media and stated that their movement caused no flood to occur.
Festinger and one of his graduate students, Elliot Aronson, showed that people were more likely to lie when receiving $1 for their lie rather than $20. Elliot eventually became Professor Emeritus at UC, Santa Cruz. This shows that people needs to find reason for their actions. He also studied Induced Compliance Paradigm in which fraternity brothers who suffered severe hazing felt more allegiance towards the chapter. Festinger smoke Camels each day and eventually died of liver cancer.
The story then discusses Linda Santo and her daughter, Audrey, who is brain dead from falling into a pool at the age of three, and still under Linda's care. People then came to the Catholic home of Audrey, who appears to be able to mysteriously heal people by taking their pain, such as a chemo patient or a woman with ovarian cancer. A twist comes about when we find out that Linda has breast cancer. Linda does not seek Audrey's help because mothers don't give suffering, they take it away. Linda even managed to find Ruby, who aids in taking care of Audrey. Eventually, Matthew Lieberman showed that East Asians have less cognitive dissonance by being able to handle things that make no sense.
Chapter 6: Monkey Love: Harry Harlow's Primates
Harry Harlow was originally known as Harry Isreal. He was born to Lon and Mabel in Iowa. He went to undergraduate and graduate school at Stanford, where he worked under Terman, who studied people with high IQ. Eventually, Harry went to the University of Wisconsin to teach. He married Clara Mears, who had an IQ of 155. Previously, work was published that stated human attachment is predicated on drive reduction.
In the early 1950's, Harry noticed that infant monkeys separated from their mothers found an attachment to a cloth towel. Eventually, he placed a hard metallic surrogate mother with feeding capabilities and a cloth covered cone to simulate a surrogate mother that is more carrying. The monkeys attached themselves to the cloth mothers and not the Iron Maiden, who provided actual food to the monkeys. Even if a mask was put on the soft towel, the monkeys would turn it around to the plain side.
For his research, Harry was elected as president of the American Psychological Association in 1958. He ended up remarrying a fellow psychologist, Margaret Kuenne, who he called Peggy. Len Rosenblum was on of Harlow's students and noted that there are three variables to love, touch, motion, and play. We later find out that Peggy has breast cancer. This causes Harlow to turn to more severe drinking problems. Harlow's experiments were border line cruel. Roger Fouts, is a research psychologist, who is also an animal rights activist. Eventually, Harlow remarried Clara after both of their spouses died.
Chapter 7: Rat Park: The Radical Addiction Experiment
The experiment was conducted by Bruce Alexander with co-investigators, Robert Coambs, Patricia Hadaway. In 1981, they designed Rat Park, which was a benevolent environment in which they got rats addicted and observed. The chapter begins with Emma Lowry and her addiction to OxyContin (opium). Alexander, who is a psychologist and lives in Vancouver, admits to taking LSD (acid). He studied psychology as an undergraduate at University of Miami and then follow Harry Harlow to work on graduate studies at University of Wisconsin.
Around the time of the Vietnam war, he moved to Canada and began teaching at Simon Fraser University where he taught a course in heroin addiction. He hypothesized that people used drugs as ways to cope with adapting to difficult environments. He closely followed Olds and Milner's work, in which they gave rat brains a shock to their brain for pulling a lever. The notion of drugs is that they follow the neuroadaptive model in which uses throw off our homeostatic systems and reduce our own natural chemicals (endorphins, dopamine, serotonin).
Alexander found that in Rat Park, the rats did not get addicted to morphine. Actually, they preferred to stay sober when the environment provided ample reward opportunities. They resisted opiate drugs. This was termed the Seduction experiment. Next, Alexander showed that when the rats were already addicted, they could easily quit morphine use in Rat Park while the other rats in dense living conditions remained addicted. Alexander did not get his papers published in Science and Nature, but did publish them in Pharmacology, Biochemistry, and Behavior.
Avram Goldstein of Stanford, did an experiment and his strategy failed completely but received good press because it was inline with mainstream thinking. Also, drug czar Kleber, of Yale, is a not an advocate of drug legalization because it increases availability which increases addiction. Slater decides to take morphine for 57 days, but only manages to last 14 before quitting. Her husband also takes drugs, but is not addicted.
Chapter 8: Lost in the Mall: The False Memory Experiment
Elizabath Loftus is a professor at the University of Washington who has a Ph.D. from Stanford and studies memory. The chapter begins with a lawyer recruiting Loftus for a defense trial of George Franklin against his daughter Eileen for sexual assault. After losing the case, Loftus then begins to stray away from how memory can be distorted and more into how to plant an entirely false memory in a person.
Loftus develops the Lost in the Mall experiment in which she plants one false memory alongside three valid ones. Lost in the Mall was written in 1993 and published in American Psychologist. One in four people not only believe the false memory, but added vivid details that were untrue. Steve Porter from the University of British Columbia plants memories in people that they survived a viscous animal attack in childhood half the time.
Loftus and Richard Ofshe plant the fake memory in Paul Ingram of child sex abuse. We find out that Loftus had her own childhood trouble when her mother drowned in the swimming pool. Loftus is now divorced due to working so much, but keeps some her husband's stuff around.
Wilder Penfield found that when he touched brains with a probe, it created false memories 97% of the time. Bessel van der Kolk says that when a traumatic event occurs, it cannot be comprehended by narrative means and is stores in another part of the brain, waiting to resurface. Judith Herman shows that when rats learned a task in a state of high stress, it was difficult for them to extinguish their behaviors.Finally the chapter concludes with another example that asked people where they were when the Challenger blew up and then again three years later.
Chapter 9: Memory Inc.: Eric Kandel's Sea Slug Experiment
Eric Kandel, a psychoanalyst is the centerpiece of this chapter and performs experiments on seas slugs. A focal point of this chapter revolves around Henry, also known as H.M., and Dr. Scoville, who accidently gives H.M. memory loss. Dr. Scoville was attempting to cure H.M.'s epilepsy. Brenda Milner then performs several tests on H.M. and discovers the difference between conscious and unconscious memory.
Kandel went to Harvard where he was in the neuroscience lab at medical school. On his sea slugs, he discovered that learning is habituation, sensitization, and classical conditioning. This transitions the title of this idea from "learning theory" to "memory". Consequently, Tim Tully performed experiments on fruit flies in which he turned the CREB on to enhance memory. In the process, Kandel created Memory Pharmaceuticals. Then, Slater reveals A.L. Luria S., who can recall any information that he had seen in the past. However, S. cannot make any inferences from the data that he takes in. Thus, memory is a tricky subject.
Chapter 10: Chipped: This Century's Most Radical Mind Cures
Antonio Moniz was the father of lobotomy and worked in Portugal. He lived with his uncle named Abadelde, who was a priest. After returning from a conference in London, Moniz shot up a patient which he called angiography. He is also known as the father of psychosurgery. Moniz heard Jacobsen and Fulton perform tests to cure anxiety and depression in a primate named Becky.
Moniz's first patient was named Mrs. M. It was an incredible success on Moniz's part based on the results. His continued success enticed Freeman and Watts in America to start a similar practice. Although the practice was mostly successful, it seemed that the patients became flat, losing their spark and creativity. The author relates the procedure to a drug called Prozac.
Today, one must convince an ethics committee that they have exhausted all other options if they want to pursue a lobotomy. The author then tells the story of Charlie Newitz, who is to undergo the operation. Charlie's doctor is Dr. Roberts and his wife's name is Sasha. Charlie ends up coming out of the surgery fine in the end. Also, Slater tells of Suzanne Corkin, who heads the MIT psychology department, found that cingulotomy patients did not have their emotional reactions marred. Today, a popular treatment for these issues are deep brain simulations to avoid any unnecessary surgeries.
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