January 24, 2014

January 24, 2014

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Behaviorist

Dear Reader, 

This writing continues the line of thought developed yesterday. Particularly, this author wants to emphasize the strong behaviorist evidence that exists in favor of verbally saying, writing, thinking, interpreting and understanding after nonverbal behavior or direct contact with the world has happened. In behaviorism, the functional relationship between doing and saying is called correspondence. So, my dear reader, get this: there was first doing then talking about doing. Because of drought people had to move away to find water. Migration behavior is a function of the availability of food and other resources. Language is a function of movement. This is easy to see when one moves away from one’s country, from what was historically one’s verbal community.

This author has always felt a strong resistance against quoting what someone else has said or written or referring to their research. To him it is just as relevant to refer to what his mother, his father or his sisters and brothers have said, than what Skinner or any other researcher has said or written. This writer finds what someone says more important than what someone writes. He is interested in spoken communication. Written communication is only relevant to him if it leads to spoken communication and since this is usually not the case, most of what is written doesn’t interest this writer at all. This writer is not busy with what someone wrote if this person was not willing to talk with him. Those who wrote in such a way that he felt they were speaking with him are also not authors he is inclined to quote, because what they said was simply something which he liked. Other people don’t need to quote this writer for what he has said. He doesn’t require others to quote him. He wants others to have their own part of the conversation and he is not interested in making them say what he has already said. 

What the world looks like is very different when one realizes that there was first behavior and only then understanding. This is completely opposed to what people think. Most people, even highly educated ones, believe against all the available evidence that what we do is caused by how we think, by an internal imaginary agent, by something inside of us. Our internal locus of control refers to something inner, which we presumably possess and  causes us to behave in a particular way. External locus of control refers to when we are determined by our environment and not by what we supposedly choose ourselves. 

When it comes to causation of behavior the majority of people have it completely wrong. We don’t cause our own behavior. Behavior is caused by our environment. Only after we have done something cab we begin to talk about it. The illusion that we first talk with ourselves and that our actions are preceded and determined by this self-talk, prevents us from changing. Our behavior has become extremely rigid due to how we view ourselves and each other. If one can only for one moment entertain the notion that nobody is or can be responsible for their own behavior, that there is in fact no such thing as my behavior or your behavior, that there is only behavior, one recognizes what a strange conundrum we put ourselves and each other in. We don’t possess our behavior, nor do we own our own feelings, thoughts or language. The issue of ownership doesn’t arise because all of our verbal behavior belongs to our verbal community and has no existence outside of this community. 

We can change behavior quite easily once we recognize that behavior isn’t caused by us. Once we recognize what causes behavior, our behavior begins to change. The fact that behavior doesn’t change or changes for the worse means that we don’t know what causes it. Unintended consequences may be unintended, but they were caused by something. They were not caused by what we thought was causing them. Nothing of what we thought has caused our behavior. Behavior is not a function of what we think. Behavior such as walking is not caused by thoughts about walking. Behavior such as talking is not caused by thoughts about talking. Whether we are going to walk may be a function of whether the weather is good. Whether we are going to talk may be a function of whether someone likes us. The nonverbal aspect of behavior isn’t given its proper place. Verbal behavior is a function of our nonverbal experience. 

Human beings have existed for a long time without language before language evolved. Each child is born nonverbal and only later becomes verbal. Our infatuation with our language is such that we disconnect from our biology, our body, our here and now experience. There are many reasons for that, but none of those have anything to do with our so-called inner self. Our identity didn’t and couldn’t cause our behavior. Our body was in a particular place, in a particular circumstance, in a particular situation, with certain people or without them and this caused us to behave. We did what we did not because of ourselves but because of others. No matter how inconsiderate we are toward others, we want to be esteemed by others.