April 9, 2014

April 9, 2014

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Behaviorist

Dear Reader, 

 

In certain environments miracles seem to be possible, while in others, one feels deprived and stuck. Stimuli controlling these different behaviors, according to B.F. Skinner, are not only outside, but also inside our skin. However, few people are capable of recognizing and accurately describing these matters. Although the majority of us is inclined to blame others, who are our environment, for our behavior, this assessment, based on our own experience, is thrown out of the window due to the prevailing belief that we ourselves are responsible for our behavior. What most us know is pushed out because our MINDS are believed to be causing our behaviors.

The fact that we tell this to ourselves and each other and that we even have laws to remind us that our actions are NOT caused by our environment, that is, by our interaction with other human beings, but by our lack of responsibility, despicable criminal motivations or by our innate devious self-nature - which, as religions would want us to believe, paradoxically, can only be overcome by total submission to an external, all-powerful God, who is ultimately responsible and taking the blame for our actions and doing for us what we are unable of doing for ourselves - is problematic.

There is no way for us to influence our own behavior, as long as we don’t realize that we DON’T cause, yes, CAN’T cause, our own actions. Our belief in our ability to cause our own actions is more troublesome than any other pre-scientific belief. The only way in which mankind is going to be able to let go of all its superstitions is by addressing this fundamental flaw in our thinking that something inside of us makes us do what we do. This utterly absurd notion lays the foundation for everything that is wrong in this world. The only real consolation that we have for all our trouble is behavioral science, which teaches us: WE DON'T CAUSE OUR OWN BEHAVIOR. 

By accepting our failure to be responsible for our own actions, we can become aware of the environmental stimuli (other people) that cause, shape and maintain our behavior. Environments have determined man’s evolution and understanding this, we stop blaming ourselves and each other for this undeniable biological fact. Unless we say it out loud to ourselves, we we are NOT going to be able to say it to each other. We have NOT been able to say this to each other, because we were NOT saying this to ourselves. Why? Nobody ever told us to say this out loud to ourselves. 

In Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) we come to terms with our evolutionary history. Selection by consequences pertains not only to our biology, but, of course, also to all our behavior. Our emphasis on biology is misplaced. It was the selection of our behavior which led to the selection of the whole human, biological organism. It was, and it still is, our behavior, or rather, our interaction with our environment, which either has good or bad consequences. Good, in evolutionary terms means survival. Good in behavioral terms means reinforcement and increase of our behavior. 

Unless we acknowledge that we are NOT individually responsible for our own actions, we are going to destroy ourselves and each other. To the extent that we have been made responsible and feel responsible, we are deeply troubled and involved in suicidal behaviors. Our destructive tendencies are only amendable by the way in which we speak. In spite of what we believe, of all behaviors, we know the least about our talking. Because interaction is so complex and because we have been so unsuccessful in it, we have avoided looking into how our spoken communication actually works. 

In SVB, we find out what went wrong with how we communicated. In SVB, we recognize that we are each other’s environment and that our communication only makes sense if we do that. When we don’t acknowledge that we are each other’s environment, our communication breaks down. We behave verbally, but, under circumstances in which we are alienated from each other, that is, from our environment, we produce Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB). 

In SVB, we recognize stimuli outside and inside of our skin, which cause NVB. Moreover, in SVB we realize there is no difference between inside or outside, in terms of how our behavior is determined. In other words, we can finally become objective about that part of the world to which only we have subjective access. This can be achieved through verbal instructions such as this writing. Discriminative learning is possible by having communicators listen to themselves while they speak. Stimuli inside of our skin that cause NVB are different from the stimuli outside our skin that  cause NVB. Stimuli inside of our skin separate us from our environment outside of our skin. Stimuli inside of our skin that cause NVB, take precedence over stimuli that are outside of our skin that cause NVB. Unless stimuli inside of our skin that cause NVB are communicated with greater awareness, communication about stimuli outside of our skin is not going to make any sense. What makes sense is that part of the world, our body, in which our senses are located. Communication of stimuli outside our skin only makes sense if they are linked, while we speak, to stimuli inside our skin.

Another way of explaining this is to bring our private, covert speech into our public overt speech. We can do this when we are talking with others, but we can also do this by talking with ourselves. It is helpful to do this by ourselves, because it is easier to identify the stimuli within our skin and outside our skin, when we are not disturbed by others, who would focus our attention more on stimuli that are outside of our skin. When we are by ourselves, we can easily focus on the stimuli inside our skin. As we describe them, we notice the great difference between when we talk about them or not. This difference is the difference between public and private speech. We find, to our own amazement, that we can only come to know about our private speech through our public speech. In other words, we can only find out about our private stimuli when public stimuli are not demanding our attention away from our private stimuli. Even though we are by ourselves, it is only when we express ourselves out loud, by ourselves, in public speech, that we realize what we have been saying, covertly, silently, and, unconsciously, to ourselves. Once we have experimented, privately, how to gain access to our private speech, we can bring private speech into public speech. Public speech - by ourselves - is possible and effective, because it allows us to gain access to our private stimuli.

In our communication with others, the expression of our private stimuli only makes sense to the extent that others express their private stimuli as well. If only one of the communicators is expressing private stimuli, but the other is not, and is only expressing public stimuli, we are likely to misunderstand each other, because we are talking about very different things. In SVB, we find, while we speak, what we used to perceive as our own private stimuli, are in fact public stimuli. However, only when we have the opportunity to express our private stimuli will we be able to come to this conclusion. We haven’t been able to come to this conclusion because we haven’t had the opportunity to express what we considered to be our private stimuli. In NVB we cannot achieve this opportunity. 

In SVB, because we listen to ourselves while we speak, we realize that our conversation is different from NVB, which we have accepted as our normal way of talking. Moreover, in SVB, we find it is possible to say things we normally can’t say. In SVB the circumstances have been created that make this possible. Public speech is only as good as it accurately represents  private speech. When it does that, private speech stops being private.