May 12, 2014

May 12, 2014

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Behaviorist

Dear Reader, 

Yesterday afternoon I had a interesting skype-conversation with Mike Worsman from Australia. Our connection got lost multiple times. Each time we both tried to re-connect. He made sure that I was hearing him, but he also made sure that he was hearing me and I was doing exactly the same. Although problems with technology created a little challenge, it didn’t prevent us from connecting. To the contrary, it enhanced our determination to understand each other and to be understood.

Mike and I were having moments of Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) as well as moments of Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB), but for the most part our conversation was SVB. I explained the importance of the environment in causing our behavior, but he interpreted me as someone who is trying to make people more conscious and raised questions about how that is done. Raising consciousness must involve telling people what to do. If we are going to have an effect on people, we need to know what exactly this effect is and how it works. However, Mike, like any non-behaviorist believes that we ourselves decide and that we cause our own behavior.

Mike is a film maker and he is trying to make a difference in how we view the world with his videos. He send me a link of a person, who is dancing in the airport and through the streets, who smiles at strangers and explains that we are held back and unhappy because we don’t express ourselves. This man is trying to change the behaviors of others, but with limited success. The majority of people is probably thinking that he is some kind of maniac. Most are scared and suspicious of him because of his shocking behavior. Although a few people respond to him positively, the majority seems to feel threatened. 

Many attempts like these have been made, but at best the punitive consequences of such actions would lead a person to decrease his behavior or stop it all together. That would have to happen if the person was to develop and increase the kind of behaviors that are truly enhancing him. Although there is no doubt that such a person gains a kick out of shocking people and finds that rewarding, if it was really his objective to change people their behaviors, he would have to be more stable himself to be able to achieve this.

A behavioral scientist is capable of prediction and control of his or her own as well as the behaviors of others, because he or she is familiar with the laws of conditioning that apply. Most importantly, and this often totally puts people off who are not familiar with radical behaviorism, our behavior is not caused by something internal, like an inner agent, consciousness, mind, belief, thought or emotion.

Mike asked me to let him know what I think. Surely, I think he knows how to make great videos. The guy who was on it was clearly visible and audible and his comments on what was happening gave it some context which was missing for most people who met him in person. However, from a behaviorist perspective the change that is most likely to occur will be in the behavior of the guy who is trying to act funny. His unusual behavior may be reinforced by some, but for the most part it will be rejected and this will make acting funny less likely in the future. 

It doesn’t seem to me that this grimacing man, who is demanding the attention of others, is as happy as he pretends to be. Although he acts funny, he seems distraught about the world he finds himself in, which, by his own description, is not very reinforcing to him. He would like it to be more reinforcing, but his extreme behaviors are more likely to elicit responses in the opposite direction. In other words, the dancing man is almost constantly punishing himself.