March 19, 2015

March 19, 2015

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Behavioral Engineer

Dear Reader, 

This is the first response to “Analyzing Verbal Behavior Under the Control of Private Events” by Willard Day (1976). Reason for this response is the promotion of Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB). SVB is vocal verbal behavior in which the verbalizer positively reinforces the mediator. SVB public speech results into SVB private speech, commonly known as positive self-talk. With Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB), the opposite is true. In NVB the verbalizer controls the mediator’s behavior with a negative contingency. This always leads to NVB private speech or negative self-talk. 

This writer read a book by Willard Day and recalls that he was one of the few behaviorists who seemed really interested in vocal verbal behavior, in spoken communication. Day quotes Skinner, who in “About Behaviorism” (1978) talks about the special character of verbal behavior, “because it is reinforced in its effect on people – at first other people, but eventually, the speaker himself. As a result, it is free of the spatial, temporal and mechanical relations which prevail between operant behavior and nonsocial consequences...[An] important consequence is that the speaker also becomes a listener and may richly reinforce his own behavior” (pp. 88-90). 

Private events resulting from SVB and NVB public speech are different. Consequently, our SVB private speech comes to control our SVB public speech and our NVB private speech comes to control our NVB public speech. Our vocal verbal behavior is always preceded by our sub-vocal behavior that belongs to the same subset. Our NVB private speech can never control our SVB public speech and our SVB private speech will never control our NVB public speech. Knowing this can solve a lot of problems.