February 23 , 2016

February 23 , 2016

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Reader, 

In Beyond Freedom and Dignity (1971, p. 212) Skinner explains why we have trouble seeing ourselves as part of the natural environment. “What do people do about such a scientific picture of man is call it wrong, demeaning, and dangerous, argue against it, and attack those who propose or defend it. They do so not out of wounded vanity but because the scientific formulation has destroyed accustomed reinforcers.” Mostly people change the conversation when it is no longer reinforcing to them. What goes on unnoticed is that such a change is always from Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB), in which people felt reinforced, to Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB), in which they continuously judge, argue and attack one another. 

Although it is true that we don’t feel reinforced by something we don’t believe in, the shift from SVB to NVB has more to do with how things are being said than about what is being said. In Skinner’s written analysis the focus is on what is being said, but by fixating on the verbal and by asserting counter control, he inadvertently enhances NVB even though in his speech he mostly had SVB. “If a person can no longer take credit or be admired for what he does [read: what he says], then he seems to suffer a loss of dignity and worth, and [verbal] behavior previously reinforced by credit or admiration will undergo extinction” (p. 212) [italics & words added].

When things are not how we believe them to be, we are said to be lost for words. When our explanation, our theory, our belief, our verbal behavior turns out to be wrong, this always dramatically changes the conversation. Under such circumstances our verbal behavior is a function of threatening stimuli.  On the cover of Verbal Behavior (1957) an illustrative incident is mentioned.  Skinner was at a dinner sitting next to the famous philosopher Whitehead. He tried to explain to him that science can account for our verbal behavior, but Whitehead basically ended the conversation by challenging him and expressing his doubt. 

Whitehead said to Skinner “Let me see you account for my behavior as I sit here saying no black scorpion is falling upon this table.” What should be noticed here about this event is that Whitehead had no answer to Skinner’s claim that science can in fact account for our verbal behavior and ended the conversation with him by throwing in a nonverbal threat, a curveball as they say. It was clearly Whitehead who changed the conversation from SVB to NVB. 

As the story goes, the rest is history and “Next morning Skinner began this book.” Thus, Skinner wrote his book Verbal Behavior (1957) in response to Whitehead, who had changed the conversation from SVB to NVB. Skinner proved his point which becomes more clear when behaviorists consider the SVB/NVB distinction.  In none of the papers that were written by behaviorists this incident has been analyzed in this manner. Whitehead clearly tried to intimidate Skinner. How can anyone have missed that? Whitehead must have perceived Skinner’s science of human behavior as threatening, why else would this scholar say something so unnecessarily attacking? 

The SVB/NVB distinction demonstrates that our belief in logical arguments is utterly flawed as it never did or could prevent hostile interaction. Why would there have to be any hostility if we are only concerned with the facts? The fact is, however, that we get upset every time we are no longer in touch with the facts. Also, the fact is that most human interaction, as demonstrated by the dialogue between Skinner and Whitehead, is to not about the facts, but about human emotions.  As long as these negative emotions generated by NVB are continued, we cannot get to the facts. Only with positive emotions, which are expressed during the SVB of Skinner, can we get to the facts. 

With all respect for Skinner, it is NOT true that “No theory changes what a theory is about. Nothing is changed because we look at it, talk about it, or analyze it in a new way (p. 213).” When we engage in SVB and extinguish NVB, we find our that SVB talking and analyzing changes things a great deal. In SVB we fluidly change how we talk and change the way we think as we are no longer feeling threatened.  The fact that we haven’t been able to create the safe environments in which SVB could continue is based on our ignorance about how SVB actually works. We have all had instances of SVB, but we did not engage in SVB reliably, skillfully, predictably, consciously and continuously.  Our reality of conflicts and problems is not going to change as long as we keep talking about it, like Whitehead did, in a NVB manner.