December 15, 2015

December 15, 2015

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Students,

This is my fifteenth response to “Epistemological Barriers to Radical Behaviorism” (O’Donohue et al., 1998). Not much progress has been made or could be made in helping the students “overcome barriers to radical behaviorism” as long as the distinction between Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) and Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB) was not made. Even those who teach behaviorism have overemphasized the importance of written words and underestimated the importance of spoken words. Although these “epistemological barriers” need to be pointed out, the elephant in the room is: they could not be properly addressed as long as we didn’t pay closer attention to how we talk. Regardless how many empirical studies have been done, no matter how many papers and books have been written, published and studied, nothing has been achieved that significantly improved our way of talking. One would think these “epistemological barriers” should stimulate behaviorists to become more alert about how they talk, but this dilemma is neither felt nor addressed in academia. 

Not a paper has been written that describes NVB, which occurs in spoken and written form. This has prevented behavioral science from being accepted. It is not enough for teachers of radical behaviorism to explicitly acknowledge that “their position deviates from what is commonly taken to be true.” Having such predetermined “position” sets the stage for NVB and so, unfortunately, even in the name of radical behaviorism, NVB has been increased. “Good teachers” should extinguish NVB and promote and increase SVB, but as of yet I am the only teacher who is capable of doing that. I could teach other teachers how I teach, but that will only happen if they read this and decided that they would like to be taught. The chances of that are very slim.

More likely my students or face book friends will read this and become inspired to explore SVB. I only write for those who want to learn SVB. The authors seem to believe they can reason others into behaviorism, but this is intellectual wishful-thinking. It hasn’t, it couldn’t and it didn’t happen. If someone became interested in radical behaviorism, it was because the person who taught it taught with passion. Although it is great if students can take a class in learning theory and “get in contact with the reinforcing properties of prediction and control” by conditioning pigeons, experience of the difference between SVB and NVB is of a different order as it requires self-experimentation.