Reference Information
Title: Opening Skinner's Box: Great Psychological Experiments of the Twentieth Century
Author: Lauren Slater
Editor: W.W Norton & Company, 2008
Chapter 7: Rat Park
Summary
This chapter discussed Rat Park, an experiment done by Bruce Alexander in an attempt to disprove addiction. There were two test groups, rats offered morphine that lived in cages, and rats in a rat-utopia that were also offered the drug. Those in in cages lived off of it; those not in cages avoided it. Alexander used this to conclude that addiction arises because of circumstances and situation, not because of chemical predisposition or helplessness.
Discussion
I found it very interesting that the rats in utopia could care less for the drugs, and that Alexander was able to rattle off so many facts disproving addition, while society currently bases so many things on the fact that drugs are so addicting. I agree that there is much controversy surrounding this topic, although for that reason, I found it quite odd that the author decided to do her own experiment on herself. What if she had gotten addicted? The consequences could have been very large.
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