January 13, 2016

January 13, 2016

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Reader,

I was describing the discriminative stimulus and the response, that is, the first part of the three-term contingency of Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB). The second part of the three-term contingency of SVB deals with the consequences of SVB, which are, among others: understanding, better relationship, positive emotions and involvement in behaviors which make us happy and successful. However, without the evocative effect of the speaker’s voice SVB cannot and will not occur. 

It is the speaker, who is listening to him or herself while he or she speaks, who can teach the listener to also become a speaker, who listens to him or herself while he or she speaks. People have of course had instances of SVB, but attributed it to the friendliness, empathy, kindness, openness or compassion of the speaker. Such dispositional, mentalistic explanations didn’t and couldn’t bring attention to the sound of the speaker’s voice, because, supposedly, something inside of the speaker caused him or her to behave the way he or she did. 

We don’t pay attention to the audible and measurable environmental stimuli, the sound of the speaker’s voice, as long as we believe in an imaginary inner self, which is causing the speaker to speak. We have felt confused and deluded about our so-called explanations, as  they could never explain why a speaker one moment is kind, but the next hostile. The sound of the speaker’s voice can set the stage for SVB, but can also set the stage for Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB). The hostile, defensive, distrustful, aggressive, dramatizing, intimidating sounding speaker sets the stage for NVB with terrible consequences