December 8, 2014

December 8, 2014

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Reader, 

The probably forgotten and no longer read paper “Behavior” Does Not Mean “Behavior of the Organism”: Why Conceptual Revision is Needed in Behavior Analysis” by Vicki L. Lee (1999), was read, understood and enjoyed by this author. The paper’s abstract informs the reader that “discussion about social justice issues would be more effective if the implications – for how we talk about behavior - of the different meanings for the word “behavior” were grasped.” The fact that Lee mentions “how we talk about behavior” immediately peeked this author’s attention. 

Like Lee, this author addresses independent variables that affect how we talk. However, his emphasis is not on the words that we use, on what we say, but on how we are talking and, more specifically, on how we sound while we are really talking. This is more pragmatic. In what follows, this author uses Lee’s elucidation on the word “behavior” as a stepping stone to introduce the reader to two different types of verbal behavior: Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) and Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB), the latter being the verbal behavior in which we invariably get trapped by the content, by the words; the former being effective verbal behavior in which what we say is enhanced and made clear due to how we say it. The distinction between SVB and NVB is one which deals with changes in the sound of our voice while we speak. Everyone who has ever explored this distinction agrees that SVB sounds good and that NVB simply sounds horrible. The unanimous agreement among those who have experimented with the SVB/NVB distinction led this author to wonder: why does the sound of our voice change from energizing, regulating and positive, to draining, dis-regulating and negative? Of what is the sound of the speaker during SVB and NVB a function?  

    

The scientific explanation of “behavior” is so far removed from what we commonly understand it to be (e.g. putting on your shoes, getting the mail out of your mailbox, playing flute) that most people feel put off by technical phrases such as “stimuli shaping behavior”, “the environment controlling behavior”, or “behavior being emitted by organisms.” This is a clear example of what this author means by NVB. Obviously, for those who are familiar with behaviorist terminology there is nothing noxious about them. However, this doesn’t mean behaviorists engage in SVB. To the contrary, their tenacious focus on what they say, on the content, again and again makes them produce NVB.

NVB is a function of our verbal fixation. Simply stated, NVB speakers get carried away by what they are saying. They argue over the content, but they don’t realize that their argument has never led to any improved communication. Improved communication could only occur when the argument had stopped. Thus, only SVB, in which what we say is viewed as a function of how we say it, explains why we sound horrible in NVB and why our voice then functions like an aversive stimulus that elicits respondent behavior in the listener. Moreover, during uni-directional, forceful NVB, the fight, flight or freeze reflexes, which are triggered in the listener, prevent bi-directional SVB communication. No matter how much we may be able continue to pretend otherwise, NVB is not communication.

It is interesting to notice how everyone seeks to justify why they are predominantly involved in NVB. SVB doesn’t need any justification, because it is self-evident when it occurs. Regardless of whether we talk about fighting couples, arguing politicians or disagreeing scholars, they all engage in the same NVB. The conversation or rather, the lack thereof, between other scientists and behaviorists is in essence no different than the one between Jews and Palestenians, husbands and wives, students and teachers or employers and employees. The false belief that something different is going on in each of these relations determines the continuation of NVB. Characteristically for NVB, scholars like Lee would say “these ways of talking were necessary in the first place only because early psychologist gave the word behavior an unusual meaning.” Notice that she justifies her NVB by emphasizing the content of what we say and recognize that since “early psychologist” were trying to only prove their point, their choice of words was a function of their need to convince others and to win the argument. 

Besides our verbal fixation, there are two other reasons why in NVB our voices sound terrible. The second reason is: we struggle for each other’s attention. We may think that we have grown up and we may be able to camouflage the fact that we are forcing each other's attention, but during NVB we sound like a baby, who is crying for its mother: our voice is grabbing, holding and demanding the attention of others. No matter how many papers have been written about the need for verbal, precise, scientific terminology, behaviorists have been given the same treatment, by the field of psychology, as the needy child, who continues to demand attention. Behaviorists are being ignored because they keep subscribing to their own treatment. Skinner, who got the attention from others with his original descriptions, didn’t get it by using NVB. To the contrary, he had a lot SVB. The many behaviorists who came after him, who often mechanically or even religiously repeated what he had said, produced lots of NVB. Furthermore, also among themselves they have produced primarily NVB. 

       

The third reason why we keep having NVB, in which our voices are felt by the listeners as stabbing, punching, grabbing, pushing, pulling, choking or draining, is our hyper-vigilant, anxious, guarded and suspicious outward orientation. When, as behaviorists would certainly like, we want others to listen to us, we are generally not listening to ourselves. We are so busy trying to influence others, trying to teach others, trying to defend ourselves against others, trying to control our others, who are our environment, that we don’t realize that this is a function of our lack of well-being. The lack of feedback of how our own behavior affects the behavior of others guarantees NVB, in which we talk at each other, rather than with each other. Our outward orientation prevents us from noticing that we are not in contact with ourselves and therefore we cannot have SVB with others.

The contingency for NVB is different than the contingency for SVB. Thus, that we feel threatened or on guard is not causing our NVB, but rather, our NVB is the direct expression of the way in which we are affected by a hostile environment. Very informative for the distinction between SVB and NVB is Lee's description “The room and its temperature and the window and its various states are in the environment of the individual’s body. That is, they are outside the individual’s body. However, they are among the constituents of the things the individual gets done. That is, they are inside the person’s actions.” This illustrates beautifully how we experience and engage in SVB or NVB. 

   

Skinner (1938) focused on operant, not respondent behavior. He unknowingly chose SVB over NVB when he wrote “Operant behavior clearly satisfies a definition based upon what the organism is doing to the environment, and the question arises whether it is not properly the main concern of a student of behavior and whether respondent behavior, which is chiefly involved in the internal economy of the organism, may not reasonably be left to the physiologist. Operant behavior with its unique relation to the environment presents a separate important field of investigation (p. 438.)” Skinner's focus on "what the organism is doing to the environment", is necessary if we are going to learn about SVB. 

Lee stated that “the way we talk about our subject matter might exacerbate other psychologists' misconceptions about behavior analysis (1993).” She also quoted Morris, who wrote "the structure of our language influences how we think about behavior in ways that are incompatible with the nature of behavior" (Morris, 1993). Although structure was mentioned, not a word was said about SVB or NVB. It was supposedly always only about what was being said, but not about how it was said. Even Morris was unable to recognize that positive or negative emotions would create a different structure of our language. As long as they have NVB, even behaviorists can't think clearly about behavior as “behavior of the organism." In NVB, communicators think that they cause their own behavior and consequently they hold each other accountable, but in SVB, it is apparent that we reciprocally create conversation. However, in both SVB and NVB, we are in it, we behave together.  Once pointed out, the difference between engaging in SVB and NVB is as obvious as being in a warm or cold room.