May 23, 2014

May 23, 2014

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Behaviorist

Dear Reader, 

While reading his writing this writer noticed that his writing gets better when he writes about himself the way he does right now: in third person. It is the appropriate thing to do because he is constantly experimenting and reporting on his findings. Not a day goes by in which this writer doesn’t learn something new about Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB). His ongoing exploration is especially apparent in his writing, which in turn has its effect on how he communicates. Thus, he instructs himself with his writings and then he is testing his own instructions. This procedure is how SVB came about. 

There was a time when this writer insisted on writing and speaking from a first-person perspective. While he was reminded of that, this writer realized that his eagerness to express his first-person perspective was based on a lack of acknowledgment. Since his exploration of SVB has led to more reinforcement, his need for approval has subsided and his ability to be objective has increased and improved. 

It makes sense that writing enhances a person’s ability to be objective more than speaking. Writing is definitely a more advanced, more complex and also a more refined aspect of our verbal behavior than speaking. Even though this writer has often emphasized that in spoken communication things can be said which cannot be said in writing, he now thinks about how his writing can enhance and improve his spoken communication. However, he still believes that a valid argument can and must be made in favor of the former position. Without an accurate first-person perspective an adequate third-person perspective is impossible. Since one leads to the other, they are both needed.  

Just as each theory has its own limitations and determines what we will be paying attention to and what we will overlook, so too there is validity as well as limitation to our first-person and our third-person perspective. In spoken communication there seems to be more of a necessity for us to be able to move back and forth between the two, whereas in our written accounts there occurs more of an opportunity to favor either one over the other. It is interesting to note that there are many more written first-person accounts than third-person accounts. 

The ratio of scientific versus unscientific writings, whether 5 to95 or10 to90 , is only a concern of scientific-minded writers. Since this is not likely to change any time soon, but needs to change, it is, according to this analysis, more effective for scientists to bridge the knowledge-gap by means of spoken communication. However, such teaching must be characterized by the scientist’s ability to flexibly move back and forth between first-person and third-person perspectives.  

Teachers must learn SVB to be able to facilitate a teaching which bridges first-person and third-person perspectives.  The inability to distinguish between these two is perpetuated by the Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB) of those who presumably teach. Their way of interacting with students cannot set the stage for learning as long as they continue to favor one over the other. Their over-emphasis on third-person knowledge led to a disregard for individual experiences, while their over-emphasis on first-person perspectives led to a lack of education. SVB heralds many innovations in education due to which many  students will be learning because the validation of personal experiences reliably sets the stage for the exploration of third-person perspectives.