June 18, 2015

June 18, 2015

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Reader, 

 

It is remarkable to find out that even most behaviorists are not interested in or unaware of the importance of Skinner’s analysis of verbal behavior. Many don’t bother with it as reading and studying “Verbal Behavior” (1957) will turn their world upside down. The intellectual challenge of explaining verbal behavior,  like any nonverbal behavior, as behavior that is shaped by selection mechanisms, requires a complete change of looking at things, or rather, since we are dealing with the speaker and the listener, a totally different way of listening and talking. 

This new way of talking must occur between members of the verbal community from whom we have derived the verbal practices we used to call language. Behaviorists haven’t put much effort into talking and are isolated from the verbal community and this is something which needs to change. Obviously, they are only going to do that if they experience the reinforcing effects of social interaction. While writing and reading and studying it is easy to forget that verbal behavior is behavior mediated by other persons. The most important part of mediation by others, such as being accepted, belonging, connecting and enjoying  one' s company, is not happening, because they don’t talk. 

The reinforcing effects of verbal behavior can only be experienced in what I call Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB), because SVB is the kind of talking in which the speaker controls the behavior of the listener with an appetitive contingency. In Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB), on the other hand, the speaker controls the behavior of the listener with an aversive contingency. Since these two subsets of vocal verbal behavior have not been identified and analyzed verbal behavior remains a hot potato, since it strikes directly at the core of everything that is wrong, destructive and negative about our most practiced way of talking. 

It is needed that we explore and analyze the reinforcing effects of our verbal behavior during our conversations. To differentiate between direct and indirect effects, the non-mediated and the mediated effects, we must talk and be willing to accept many unpleasant, punishing effects, which are part of the talking we are most familiar with: NVB. Given the fact that most verbal episodes consist primarily of instances of NVB, people naturally move away from aversive stimulation. However, the problem with escape and avoidance behaviors is that they are direct responses to the environment and prevent verbal behavior. Many if not most of our protective, defensive, non-talkative behaviors are, of course, elicited respondent behaviors, which restrict and often make totally impossible our indirect, operant, approach verbal behavior.

Skinner, who, in writing Verbal Behavior, applied the concepts which he had already worked out experimentally, allowed his private speech to become part of his public speech. Like Darwin, he was quite aware that people would not accept that his words would completely change their public speech, but his already validated experimental knowledge told him to make room for and listen to his private speech. He said resolutely to himself “as behaviorists we’ve got to tackle it sometime.” Of course, he was referring to how our verbal behavior, like any other nonverbal behavior, is determined by environmental variables and that all his research applied to language as a natural phenomenon.

Although “Verbal Behavior” (1957) was theoretical, it was Skinner’s interpretation of how his laboratory experiments relate to language. Since its publication many experiments have been done which have validated his extrapolations. However, none of these experiments dealt with the elephant in the room: the future probability of speaking and listening behaviors are also selected by consequences. When we are in environments in which we cannot speak and are forced to listen, our private speech becomes more pronounced than our public speech. This has led to art as well as to scientific discovery.  SVB, in which speakers listen to themselves while they speak, is both an art and a science.