Book Reading: Opening Skinner's Box (Chapters 7 & 8)

Chapter 7:
Chapter 7, which seems to be one of my favorite chapters so far, focuses on addiction and substance abuse. During the 1960’s and 1970’s there were a lot of studies conducted in the area of substance abuse and addiction. Most of the popular theories at the time stressed a physical dependency as the main source and contributing factor to extreme addiction. These theories also stress that the brain is capable of producing most of the chemicals found in drugs such as cocaine and opiates. When these substances are abused, the brain takes a break from producing these chemicals, so that when the person stops using the substances, the body lacks these chemicals because the brain is on break.

Bruce Alexander and his research partners challenged the very basis of these theories in their Rat Park experiments. Bruce Alexander earned his undergraduate degree at Miami (Ohio) University and, intrigued by Harry Harlow’s studies of love, decided to earn a mentorship under Harlow. When the Vietnam war broke out, Alexander moved to Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, and after teaching a course on heroin addiction, decided to devise his own study to test substance abuse. His study, known as Rat Park, seeked to challenge conventional wisdom regarding substance addiction. Alexander studied rats and morphine, but focused his studies on the situation and the environment that the rats are subject to. Some of Alexander’s rats were kept in cramped, cold, and small cages similar to traditional studies, while others were kept in a wide-open cage, complete with ample food, friendship, mating opportunities, and safety. The remarkable difference is that the Rat Park rats would actively reject any drugs introduced, while the caged, depressed rats would toke up like crazy. While this study did not get much national scientific attention, I believe that these results better explain substance abuse. Although, I can also see that critics have ample footholds from which to launch an attack on Alexander’s theory.

Chapter 8:
Chapter 8 is a very interesting, but very frustrating chapter. In chapter 8, Slater spends time investigating memory and an experiment that challenges the basis of our understanding of memory. Elizabeth Loftus is a psychologist that focuses on false memories. Loftus believes that the human mind hates holes in memories and seeks to fill those holes by either accepting false information provided by an external resource or fabricating its own details to fill the gaps. She studies this by having her students conduct experiments on their siblings over a Thanksgiving break. Each student went home and casually brought up a fake story about their sibling getting lost at a mall, but providing only the slightest and vague details surrounding the event. Over the next few days the students observed their siblings filling in the gaps with the most interesting and small details. For example, some of the subjects remembered large amounts of fear and conversations with their mother after being found. Other subjects remembered strangers interacting with them during the time that they were lost.

I find this chapter quite difficult to read, because I do not want to stomach the idea of false memories. One of the most cherished things in my life is my memories and one of my biggest fears is not being able to trust my memories. I like to think of memories as concrete items, that are perhaps stored in a tricky filing system, that cannot always be retrieved easily, but that are there in their entirety. I do not like the idea that some of my memories could be fabrications of my imagination, in an attempt to fill voids. This does sound like a real possibility, but it is one that I would rather be blissfully ignorant about.