October 8, 2015

October 8, 2015

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Reader, 

This writing is my twelfth response to “The Unit of Selection: What Do Reinforcers Reinforce?” by J.W. Donahoe, D.C. Palmer and J.E. Burgos (1997). Public ‘listenings’, not observations of SVB as well as NVB, will make us realize that these response classes occur in every language. It is only when we shift our attention from seeing to listening, that we can validate the SVB/NVB distinction and become aware of what happens at the level of the organism, that is, what happens to our own body when we speak and listen simultaneously. Skinner’s position was that such “principles [of public observation] are validated by independent observations at their own level of analysis, and, when validated, are said to explain the observations.” I claim, however, that observations are not helping us to improve our relationships. I insist that we must focus our attention on listening.  “The principles themselves are” NOT “explained” either “by observations at levels lower than those at which the principle was formulated.” We only make sense with what we say to each other by how we are saying it. In SVB the speaker speaks and takes turns with the listener, but in NVB the coercive speaker speaks at the listener and never really gives him or her the opportunity to speak.

There is nothing “circular” about the fact that NVB will make us look for something that can only be found if we listen more closely.  Once we do this and have verified the existence of these two response classes (SVB and NVB), we will realize how much of our “reductive reasoning” is based on NVB and how little it is based on SVB.  I agree with Skinner that “The unending nature of reductive scientific explanation is not a source of embarrassment; it is simply the way science proceeds”, but I have good reason to believe people will feel embarrassed once they find out about the SVB/NVB distinction. When scientists don’t realize that their NVB is unscientific their endeavors are fruitless.

Sadly, “in behavior analysis, the levels-of-analysis issue most often surfaces in the context of the molar–molecular debate.” This “debate”, like any other debate, is based on NVB and continues to create division in the behaviorist community. SVB, on the other hand, dissolves this division, which is artificial as the distinction between the environment within or outside of the skin. The authors agree that although “orderly relations exists between variables defined over appreciable intervals of time” these orderly relations also “exist between individual events within the session.” In other words, “Order exists at both levels simultaneously; which orderly relation is most useful depends on the question at hand.” This either/or dichotomy is maintained by NVB and dissolved by SVB in which we accept both levels. SVB is a fine-grained way of talking in which things can be expressed which cannot be expressed as long the speaker doesn’t listen to him or herself while he or she speaks. The way of talking in which behaviorists agree that “There are no inherently molar or molecular levels of analysis; these are relative terms, either of which can be applied to the very same observation depending on the frame of reference at that moment”, has to be different from the way of talking in which they are only talking about one or the other. The latter is an example of NVB, but the former is an example of SVB. Thus, the authors have given a verbal description of SVB. The question remains, however, if there are behaviorists who have enough SVB in their behavioral history to be able to talk about it.

I just finished reading a paper by A. Neuringer “Self-experimentation: A Call For Action” (1981). Without now going into that paper, I think that Neuringer would understand me. SVB is a form of self-experimentation. One can sit by oneself and speak out loud and figure things out about relationship and interaction, which are almost impossible to find out while we are talking together. Establishment of speaking and listening behavior that occurs at the same rate is easily disturbed by those who are not familiar with it, which is most of us. I have found SVB while I was alone and also had to go back to it again and again by being alone. 

Returning to the “Unit of Selection”, it needs to be made clear that in SVB the speaker and the listener are experienced and understood as  one, by both the speaker as well as by the listener. Other authors have formulated this differently as they never engaged long enough in SVB which would have allowed them to formulate it how I describe it. Their account is very far-removed from day to day human interaction and consequently “Even if an adequate molar principle of choice were formulated, it would, at most, ‘‘govern’’ the behavior of the scientist, not the subject. A molar choice rule may be a valid induction from observations of behavior, but the moment-to-moment contiguities of environment, behavior, and reinforcer are the events that make contact with the organism (Galbicka; Hutchison; Marr; Vaughan). In SVB “the moment-to-moment contiguities of environment, behavior, and reinforcer are the events that make contact with the organism.”

When I first discovered SVB I called it ‘the language that creates space.’ As anyone who engages in SVB agrees, this space-creating dimension is also experienced as freedom, relief, unburdening, opening up, calming, understanding, revealing and validating the communicator’s individual behavioral history. Things can be said because they can be said. The speaker listens to him or herself while he or she speaks and cultivates awareness about NVB, in which many things cannot be said. Likewise, in SVB feelings are felt and expressed and thoughts are articulated, because they can be felt and because they can be thought and they can be expressed. The difference between SVB and NVB introduces the speaker to the silence which comes with this novel way of talking. The more we have SVB, the more we become silent and peaceful. This silence is qualitatively different from silence that was imposed. It is caused and maintained by our SVB expressions. We express hesitatingly but with increasing confidence the noise that bothers us as our NVB private speech is included once again into our public speech. As we can all hear and agree that our NVB private speech is and was part of NVB public speech, it will transform into SVB public and private speech.