Opening Skinner's Box: Great Psychological Experiments of the Twentieth Century by Lauren Slater

'Makes for fascinating reading, helped along by Slater's charm and resourcefulness' Sunday Telegraph

'The experiments Slater describes are fascinating in their own right, but made more so by the rich social and personal context in which Slater places them' Daily Mail

'An unusual and compelling personal journey combining the emotional and the scientific ... a warm narrative flow achieved through a mixture of research, intuition, anecdote, reconstruction and engagingly haphazard interviews'

Time Out

A century can be understood in many ways - in terms of its inventions, its crimes or its art. In Opening Skinner's Box, Lauren Slater sets out to investigate the twentieth century through a series of ten fascinating, witty and sometimes shocking accounts of its key psychological experiments. Starting with the founder of modern scientific experimentation, B.F. Skinner, Slater traces the evolution of the last hundred years' most pressing concerns - free will, authoritarianism, violence, conformity and morality.

Previously buried in academic textbooks, these often daring experiments are now seen in their full context and told as stories, rich in plot, wit and character.

About the Author

Lauren Slater is the author of Welcome to My Country, Prozac Diary and Love Works Like This, and has written articles and contributed pieces to the New York Times, Harper's, Elle and Nerve.

Her essays are widely anthologized and she is a frequent guest on US radio shows, including 'The People's Pharmacy' on NPR.

Read The Guardian review here - ...Box pop - Opening Skinner's Box is an intriguing attempt by Lauren Slater to 'bring to life' 10 psychological experiments...

The book proved highly controversial in America - read the NY Times review of the controversy here - Unpacking Skinner's Box