February 24, 2015

February 24, 2015

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Behavioral Engineer

Dear Reader, 

 

Contingencies are based on verbal rules, but when we speak, contingencies are sounds. In vocal verbal behavior, rules are not only based on what we say, but even more so on how we sound. Behaviors which are evoked by nonverbal rules about how we sound can be considered as a refinement of behaviors which are evoked by verbal rules. Although words have enormous benefits in their accumulative effects as cultures, this effect is highly overrated. We keep getting carried away by what we say. Unless we acknowledge that our culture of words disconnects us from ourselves and each other, unless we communicate our need for direct contingency contact by means of our nonverbal behavior, we will be unable to build the necessary repertoire that allows us to get along and live peacefully. 

This writing is under discriminative control of Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) and Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB) as two subsets of verbal behavior. SVB refers to the verbal episodes in which the speaker controls the behavior of the listener with positive reinforcement. NVB, on the other hand refers to all verbal episodes in which the speaker controls the behavior of the listener with an aversive contingency. In NVB speakers presume that direct contingency contact is no longer necessary, while in SVB speakers claim that such contact is vital to survival and is needed to improve our relationships. In most spoken communication there are more NVB than SVB episodes. As a consequence of unnatural control of coercive contingencies our covert verbal behavior or thinking is mostly negative. 

Due to natural selective processes human beings came to have neural structures and vocal-musculature structures which are affected by the environment in such a way that verbal behavior became possible. The sounds that we have been producing have contributed in important ways to our survival. By imagining the sound of safety or the sound of danger, one begins to have a sense of SVB and NVB. Human interaction always goes back and forth between these two opposing experiences. Safety and threat presents to us as stimuli, inside and outside of our skin. They evoke more SVB or more NVB. In addition to this antecedent control, our sounds also postcedently control our behavior. We must not only use the proper words under the right circumstances, to be reinforced, but we must also have the right sounds under the right circumstances. As sound provides context for our words, the ‘meaning’ of our words is in how we sound.

 

The relative safety of a verbal community conditions post-cedently in its members the sound with which they speak. This writer, who was born and raised in Holland, immigrated to the United States in 1999. Although he is bilingual, he was never able to totally adapt to the way Americans sound. From his perspective, which is shared by his friends and family members, Americans sound louder, more pretentious and harsher than the Dutch. His former verbal community, with which, due to his immigration, he has for the most part, lost contact, continues as neural behavior inside of his skin, but is not very often reinforced anymore by someone outside of his skin. Nevertheless, his exposure American sounds make him sound more and more like a member of the American verbal community. As he becomes more attuned, he appreciates even more the sound on which he grew up. Due to this sound he was able to expand his repertoire with behaviorism.