February 16, 2015

February 16, 2015

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Behavioral Engineer

Dear Reader, 

Summed up, in NVB the speaker is *outward oriented, *verbally fixated and *struggling for the listener’s attention. In SVB, on the other hand, because the speaker listen’s to his or her own voice, while he or she speaks, he or she is conscious about how he or she impacts the listener.  SVB is conscious communication, but NVB is unconscious communication.

Conscious communication is made possible by the fact that speaking and listening happen simultaneously in the here and now and at the same rate and intensity level. Moreover, because of the speaker’s awareness of his or her instrument of sound, of his or her body, the listener experiences the congruence between what is said and how it is said. The alignment of verbal and nonverbal expressions of the speaker will effortlessly evoke understanding in the listener, because the listener is not (as is the case in NVB) listening to an aversive-sounding, attention-grabbing speaker. 

Another way of putting this is that in SVB there is coherence between the saying and doing of the speaker. In NVB there is a mismatch between the verbal and the nonverbal expressions of the speaker. This mismatch is  dominating and straining the attention of the listener. Consequently, NVB is always effortful, while SVB is effortless. In NVB the speaker exploits the listener, whose job is merely to applaud and admire the speaker. 

Although, there are differences between employer and employee, parent and child, teacher and student, in SVB, there is no hierarchical difference between the speaker and the listener, and, consequently, there can be turn-taking. In NVB, on the other hand, turn-taking is impossible and so the speaker remains a speaker and the listener remains confined to being a listener. Although the illusion is often created by NVB speakers that one day the listener will also be praised and recognized as a speaker, this is only done in order to maintain dominance. Listeners who grow up with mainly NVB become NVB speakers. We are NVB speakers because of how we grew up. Sadly, most of us had very little SVB. Although we may have received aspects of SVB while growing up, it was never given to us in a deliberate, knowledgeable, consistent and skillful manner. More familiarity with SVB will occur as we acknowledge that it is natural to have it. When we enjoy our relationships and feel safe and at easy, SVB will increase. 

        

The issue of the speaker-as-own-listener versus other-as-speaker-listener has not been properly understood. Since the former makes the latter possible, the speaker-as-own-listener is necessary to have relationship. Problems are created as we over value the other-as-speaker-listener, which excludes the speaker-as-own-listener. How can we expect to have good relationships, if NVB prevents us from being conscious of ourselves?


NVB is ubiquitous because there is more reinforcement for it. There is not enough reinforcement for SVB because we don’t know how to reinforce it. The dominance of NVB can be compared to a food-addiction. Although we know we shouldn’t eat so much, we become obese because we don’t realize of what our eating-behavior is a function. Likewise, we don't know of what our NVB is a function. Unless we know that we can't stop it. We haven't stopped it because we didn't know that. What we believed to cause our behavior didn't cause our behavior. The 'self", which presumably explains our behavior, didn't explain anything and has only perpetuated our NVB.

 

Different types of reinforcement are believed to be involved in SVB and NVB. Direct reinforcement and automatic reinforcement are strikingly different, in that in the former another person is always needed. During automatic reinforcement, however, the mediation of the consequences by another organism is not required, but during direct reinforcement, the consequence for behavior is reinforcement delivered by another organism. 


In Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB), the other person is always needed for reinforcement, but Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) can be automatically reinforcing and another person is not always required. In SVB, the speaker produces a reinforcing stimulus, a sound, which is reinforced by the presence of a reinforcing stimulus, that is, another sound, which is the continuation of and an attunement with the previous sound. 

As NVB is never automatically reinforcing, others are always needed to reinforce it. Therefore, one conspicuous aspect about NVB is that the speaker always attracts and demands the attention of the listener. Moreover, in NVB, the speaker holds, directs and diverts the listener’s attention. NVB refers to all the verbal episodes in which the speaker controls the behavior of the listener with and aversive contingency. 

Since most of our spoken communication is NVB, we experience talking usually as something that is energy-consuming. SVB is experienced as energizing, because it is simultaneously reinforced by others while it is automatically reinforcing for the speaker. Stated differently, in NVB speakers are not stimulated by their own voice, but by the attention which they are receiving from their listeners. Moreover, during NVB, speakers have no idea about how they sound or what the impact of their way of communicating is on the listener. 


During SVB, on the other hand, the speaker knows that he or she sounds good and feels good about the way in which he or she speaks. In SVB the speaker is conscious of what he or she says and how he or she says it, but in NVB, the speaker is unaware of how others feel, because he or she is only interested in getting the listener to do what he or she wants them to do. No matter how much others listen to and obey the NVB speaker, such a speaker is never satisfied with the attention that he or she is receiving, because he or she is not aware of how he or she sounds. Therefore, NVB speakers lack the experience of automatic reinforcement and will abuse listeners with their incessant demand for attention.