April 1, 2014

April 1, 2014

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Behaviorist

Dear Reader, 

 

It still amazes me that I can just begin to write and that my writing tells me something I didn’t know. I discovered so many new things since my writing became under discriminative control of behaviorism. Now that I know that my feelings and thoughts are caused by contingencies of reinforcement, it is much easier to make sense of them. The stimuli that make me behave the way I do reveal themselves to me in an effortless and enjoyable way and that is why it is such a pleasure to write about them. I am never without having anything to say and because of that my writing has changed significantly. 

The certainty reflected in my use of words was not part of my behavioral repertoire before I knew about behaviorism. However, I know and admit that my knowledge of behaviorism is incomplete, but, rather than taking away, this only adds to my certainty, because it motivates me to know more about it. Almost every day, I read something new that I didn’t know, but which makes total sense  in the light of what I have already come to know. I find it very fulfilling to study behaviorism because it explains my behavior. The benefits I am reaping are not only affecting me, but also others, with whom I am in contact.

  

This mutually beneficial effect at the same time has many protective factors of which I have only just now began to think. It keeps me out of trouble to know about behaviorism. My behavior, in particular this writing, is a function of the environmentt I am in. While I am writing, my wife came to sit next to me on the bed to eat her breakfast. I read her the first paragraph and she approved. I didn’t set out to proof anything and yet these facts speak for themselves. 

The bigger picture is one in which I view myself no longer as the doer of my deeds. I act more efficiently. My work quality has improved because there no energy lost in attempts to make things happen. To the contrary, there is a constant stream of nourishment available to me, determined by my outlook.

There is increased awareness about how I allocate my time. Different sets of behavioral patterns occur over time. Right now, for instance, I am in bed before I go to work. This allows me to write. When I go to work, I teach two psychology classes and I am involved with that. Then, there is my other job with mentally ill clients. This requires another set of behaviors, which are determined by another environment. I don’t feel any conflict about moving from one environment to the next and I like the variety. Also, on Sunday’s, I volunteer at a health clinic. My life consists of different experiments, which take place in different settings. 

Since I have become more scientific and more informed about behaviorism, I am better at analyzing how I am affected by my surroundings. My understanding is so accurate that I worry little about myself lately and have plenty of time to analyze others who are my environment. Behavior is function of the presence of other people. This distinction is of great importance. People who are not in our environment, who we only think of once in a while, are less relevant to us than those who are in our environment. Proper behavior with whom we share our environment takes priority over feelings and thoughts about individuals who are not there. They may be dead and we may remember good times together, they may live elsewhere and we may hear from them once in a while, but we fool ourselves if we believe that they exert more control over our behavior than those whom we meet, talk and work with every day. If, for whatever reason, we don’t see or hear each other regularly, our thoughts and feelings become less accurate. 

Although behavior can be viewed from a molecular perspective, that is, from what makes it possible one moment to the next, or from a molar perspective, from how abstract past patterns of behavior predict abstract future patterns of behavior, the stimulus-rubber hits-responds to the environmental-road in the three-dimensional world in which human beings, as whole organisms, exist. It is a natural process that Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) or Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB) is selected. We can distinguish between SVB and NVB and acknowledge that one or the other is reinforced.