December 21, 2013

December 21, 2013

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Behaviorist

Dear Reader, 

 

Due to how our environment affected us, at some point in evolutionary history, human beings became capable of producing language, In  development occurring during our life time, our ontogenetic history and during evolutionary development as a species, our phylogenetic history, it is apparent that we all began as nonverbal creatures. We only recently became verbal. For the most part our human biology predates the arrival of language. In the same way that environmental pressures in ancient surroundings set the stage for the development of language of mankind as a whole, so too are we during our life time, as children and as adults, dependent for our development of language on our environment. Thus, we will only learn Dutch when we grow up in a Dutch verbal community, but we will learn Chinese if we grow up in a Chinese verbal community. Although languages are different, our nonverbal biological history from which they could evolve is the same. In stable environments, the fact that we have mastered a language  stops us from further verbal developments. There is no need to learn Chinese if Dutch will do the job. Yet, neither the Dutch always understand the Dutch, nor do Chinese always understand the Chinese. In other words, language works, but only if it is SVB.   

As most of us have experienced moments of SVB, we all have a sense of what it is. SVB is not anything magical or mysterious, it is an integral part of human experience and it exists in all cultures. However, there is such a thing as classical conditioning. This means that experiences of SVB became linked to all sorts of stimuli. For one person SVB means Christianity, for another it means Islam. These stimuli also involve countries, languages, music styles, politics, theoretical  perspectives, just to name a few. Because all sorts of generalized stimuli have come to control our behavior, we are oblivious of the stimuli that make SVB possible.

When dogs are presented with food, they reflexively salivate. Pavlov  found that if a dog hears a bell each time it gets its food, it will begin to salivate to the sound of the bell. Likewise, when since childhood, we hear the same kind of prayer, a certain kind of music and language, when we live and come together in groups in certain kind of buildings, when we wear certain clothing, eat certain foods, have certain kinds of habits, and produce certain kind of artifacts, then our sense of happiness, safety, belonging and continuity inevitably become contingent upon these stimuli.  Thus, our sense of self is defined by our reflexive or phylogenetic behavior, not by our operant behavior, which is ontogenetic. Reflexive responding is always at work when we make a big deal about the things that supposedly matter most to us. What we have  failed to recognize is the extent to which operant conditioning, learning which occurs as a consequence of behavior, is always constrained by biologically determined respondent conditioning. This is very important for how we communicate. Any kind of fear, apprehension, anxiety or distrust will instantaneously set the stage for Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB). Only the  absence of these makes Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) possible. To have SVB we must recognize that our language habits prevent it. By identifying and, subsequently, letting go of our language habits, we create and maintain  environments in which SVB continues. Our mistake was that we believed that others, who spoke the same language, would create this environment for us, but as  our body is our environment, we must take care of it.