Lauren Slater

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Dr. Lauren Slater

Lauren Slater (born March 21, 1963) is an American psychologist and writer. She is the author of six books, including Welcome To My Country (1996), Prozac Diary (1998), and Lying: A Metaphorical Memoir (2000). Most recently, Opening Skinner's Box: Great Psychological Experiments of the Twentieth Century (2004), a description of psychology experiments "narrated as stories," was nominated for a Los Angeles Times Kirsch award for science and technology writing. It has been described as "one of the first major books to bridge the gap between academic and popular psychology."

Slater was the winner of the 1993 New Letters Literary Award in creative non-fiction, as well as the 1994 Missouri Review Award, and her work was included in The Best American Essays of 1994 and 1997. She has contributed to The New York Times, Harper's, and Elle.

The Village Voice has called her "the closest thing we have to a doyenne of psychiatric disorder."

Education

Slater has a master's degree in psychology from Harvard University and a doctorate from Boston University.

Opening Skinner's Box

Opening Skinner's Box describes — in the form of stories, complete with characters, plot, and Slater's emotional insights and responses — the 20 psychology experiments she regards as the most significant or interesting of the 20th century. These include B.F. Skinner's work on behaviorism; Stanley Milgram's attempt to explore the willingness of ordinary people to obey authority; David Rosenhan's 1972 experiment in which eight people feigned mental illness then gained admittance to psychiatric hospitals; Harry Harlow's experiments with monkeys and motherhood; and Bruce Alexander's Rat Park, where laboratory rats addicted to morphine turned the drug down when given a better life.

Criticism

Criticism has focused on Slater's research methods for the book, and on the extent to which some of the experiences she describes may have been partly fictionalized.

Deborah Skinner Buzen, daughter of B.F. Skinner, criticized Slater for having failed to contact her before repeating rumors that Skinner Buzen had been abused by her father and had become mentally ill as a result. She told The Guardian:

Slater's sensationalist book rehashes some of the old stuff, but offers some rumours that are entirely new to me. For my first two years, she reports, my father kept me in a cramped square cage that was equipped with bells and food trays, and arranged for experiments that delivered rewards and punishments. Then there's the story that after my father "let me out", I became psychotic. Well, I didn't. That I sued him in a court of law is also untrue. And, contrary to hearsay, I didn't shoot myself in a bowling alley in Billings, Montana. I have never even been to Billings, Montana.

David Corfield, also writing in The Guardian, relates how, during Slater's discussion with Harvard psychologist Jerome Kagan, she recalled how Kagan had suddenly dived under his desk to illustrate a point about free will. But Kagan told Corfield that he had done no such thing, and in fact had only suggested that he could do so if he wanted. As a result, Corfield writes that he doubts the veracity of any of the reported speech in Opening Skinner's Box.

Bibliography

• (2004) Opening Skinner's Box: Great Psychological Experiments of the Twentieth Century, W. W. Norton, ISBN 0393050955
• (2003) Love Works Like This: Travels Through a Pregnant Year, Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, ISBN 0747562172
• (2000) Spasm: A Memoir with Lies, Methuen Publishing Ltd, ISBN 0413742504
• (2000) Lying: A Metaphorical Memoir, Random House, ISBN 0375501126
• (1998) Prozac Diary, Random House, ISBN 0679457216
• (1997) Welcome to My Country, Anchor, ISBN 0385487398

See also

• Rosenhan experiment
• Burrhus Frederic Skinner
• Rat Park
• Pit of despair
• Harry Harlow
• Milgram experiment

Further reading

• "One Man and a Baby Box", snopes.com