April 29, 2014

April 29, 2014

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Behaviorist

Dear Reader, 

 

In today’s writing this writer continues to let his writing be under discriminative control of the content of the paper that was written by Ruiz and Roche in 2007. In that paper the importance of dialogue was emphasized in reference to values and making ethical decisions. The section of that paper which detailed the radical behaviorist account, began with a quote by B.F. Skinner that was taken from his book “Beyond Freedom and Dignity”. He said “What a given group calls [italics added by Ruiz and Roche] ‘good’ is a fact; It is what members of the group find reinforcing.”

It must be mentioned that the behaviorist community is not interested in exploring the contingencies of spoken communication, because it would require behaviorists to talk. Like most mentalist scientists, what behaviorists mean by the dialogue which Ruiz and Roche refer to, is: writing, publishing, reading, studying and then, more writing. In other words, behaviorists, like other scientists, don’t talk. This writer has tried to talk with each of the well-known behaviorists, but no one wanted to or had time for it! Therefore, the so-called 'good' that most behaviorists subscribe to and find so reinforcing, is exactly the same as most mentalists, namely, academic validation and resources for research. As behaviorists and non-behaviorists live in the same academic environment, they only produce more and more papers that are mainly read by the members of their own group.

The survival of spoken communication as a culture depends on the contingencies that are its values. To put it squarely, NVB has no values whatsoever, because it doesn’t need to have them. Values purported by those involved in NVB are only a means to their end, which belongs to those who can exploit, oppress and coerce others.

In SVB, values like attention for nonverbal communication (which is needed for accurate conscious verbal expresssion); reciprocation (the understanding that we are each other’s environment, by which we are influenced and which we ourselves influence); turn-taking (between listener and speaker, in which speakers become listeners voluntarily and listeners are invited to and stimulated to become speakers); congruence (between what we say and how we say it); alignment (of verbal and nonverbal expression); and inclusion (of private speech in public speech), are there because these values translate in higher levels of accountability of speakers as well as listeners. 

In NVB, in which there is no accountability, values are used to manipulate those who want SVB, in which everyone is accountable. Skinner was explicit about the survival value of any culture. He made it clear, however, that nobody chooses survival as a criterion according to which a cultural practice is to be evaluated. Indeed, in operant conditioning we don't look for antecedent values to determine our choice of behavior. If communication is mutually reinforcing, then, due to the outcome of positive circumstances, it is more likely to occur in the future. Yet, circumstances in which SVB is reinforced are rare. They only happen accidentally, occasionally, but not deliberately, skillfully or reliably. Although we have experienced it, we haven’t looked into the difference between SVB and NVB enough to make this possible.

In spite of the fact that NVB is ubiquitous, SVB has survived. The reason for this is that SVB cannot be avoided. The nonverbal part of SVB, unlike its verbal part, is not to be learned, it is innate. How we sound and how our autonomic nervous system is responding, reflects our phylogenetic history (involuntary behavior), but what we say is operant and reflects our ontogenetic history (voluntary behavior). No matter how stressed we are, our biology, our bodies are geared toward escaping, reducing and avoiding it.