December 11, 2014

December 11, 2014

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer 

Dear Reader, 

 

This author is overjoyed with the results he is having with the students in the psychology class that he is teaching. Yesterday night it was such a fun class. There was a wonderful energy in the room. One student, who had been to this author’s seminar, suggested we do an experiment. It went very well. Students had to get on their feet and meet with at least 7 people. They wrote on a piece of paper a plus if they were experiencing Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) and a minus if they were having Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB). Everybody was talking and laughing. Most of them had 6xSVB and 1xNVB or 5xSVB and 2xNVB. The experiment was an incredible success. Everyone was buzzing with excitement. 

The accumulative effects of a semester of teaching SVB were unleashed. One of the students had even brought a friend to class, because she wanted her to get an experience of how wonderful this class is. Also, this author returned all the papers to his students and gave them lots of feedback and compliments. During Thanks Giving, while he had been with his Chinese family, he had been reading papers. He had felt so connected with his students through their writings. It had seemed as if they were talking with him. This writer had never before experienced this powerful written feedback. Many were writing about things that were said during class and that were important to their lives outside the class. Particularly the SVB/NVB distinction is very relevant to his students. 

SVB can be classified as “a communication-based intervention”, since it eliminates “problem behavior” (NVB) by “teaching individuals a specific form of communication” (SVB) (Carr et al, 1997). Because SVB is more effective, more energizing and more fun in influencing others than NVB, it may eventually replace it. The student who had been to this author’s seminar, commented that although outside of class most people may not be inclined to have SVB, he felt that the higher number of times he had NVB made the few times he was able to have SVB more valuable. He was referring to the stimulation and maintenance of SVB by what is known in behaviorism as a variable ratio reinforcement schedule, because he knew that continuous reinforcement was not likely to happen. People don’t need to feel rejected if they can’t have SVB. When they understand how it works, they know and trust it will happen if it can happen and not make a big deal when it doesn’t happen, because when it doesn’t happen, this simply means that it can’t happen. All sorts of emotional problems can now be avoided in this way.