January 11, 2014

January 11, 2014

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Behaviorist

Dear Reader, 

The communication we all know is called Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB)r and the communication we don’t know and at best are only slightly familiar with, is called Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB). It may strike the reader as an exaggeration that this author claims that nobody was listening to each other, that we were never really listened to and that because of that we don’t listen to ourselves. Most people think communication is not that bad, we are making progress and things are not black and white as this author suggests, but evidence is missing. Behaviorists acknowledge that listening, because of its power, has become a taboo subject. 

As is always with taboos, it is no longer talked or written about. Listening is an outdated topic. When writers express feelings and thoughts which readers recognize,we feel, while reading, as if we are being listened to. We can follow what they are saying because they speak with us not at us. People who talk too fast, who talk at us, must learn to slow down so that they begin to talk with us and can be understood. Writers who talk too fast are easier to be recognized than speakers who talk too fast. We don’t want to read what is written if it doesn’t have any appeal to us, but in spoken communication,we often fake it or have to fake it that we are listening and understanding what is being said. This is also true for listening to calm, but pseudo-spontaneous communicators, who with seductive charm are able to influence us. They may be able to manipulate and dominate the attention of their audience, but that doesn’t mean that their communication is reciprocal. The uni-directional communication, which takes place and is believed to be bi-directional, always shows up, but only later.

Falsehoods, which we should simply call stimuli, are maintained by uni-directional communication in which the link between response and consequences becomes invisible. When immediate feedback is not allowed, it is difficult to see which stimuli maintain our behavior. In speech immediate feedback is condemned and  understanding about what maintains our spoken communication is lacking. 

The meaning of words depends on the verbal community to which we belong. Although we like to think otherwise, meaning exists separate from us. That is why Dutch makes no sense in Russia. What is meant by what is said can only be known to those who speak the language. We are representatives of a verbal community, but we can’t be that verbal community by ourselves. We talk as separate organisms, but others are needed to experience and maintain our verbal community. Our language resembles a community. It falls apart if words are spoken so fast that we can’t keep up with them. In SVB our boundaries are maintained by the pace of our words. In NVB,words follow in rapid succession, without a sense of respect for others. The NVB speaker’s wordiness floods the anxious listener. We can predetermine the pace of our speech, but such speech is NVB. Therapists, priests and peace activists have talked in a slower manner than most other people, but also news readers, car sales people and politicians.

SVB isn’t produced by slowing down our speech. Many are befooled by the impression that SVB can be achieved if we would just slow down. This happens every day, everywhere. The pace of SVB, which is certainly much more enjoyable than NVB, is not a matter of trying to slow down. Because is it impossible for sensitive people to influence insensitive people, those with NVB usually affect those with SVB in such a way that SVB disappears. Thus, NVB can only speak with NVB and SVB speaks with SVB, but we always speak the same language.