January 27, 2016

January 27, 2016

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Reader, 

In his book “Beyond Freedom and Dignity” (1971, p. 61) Skinner explains “This strange state of affairs can be understood only by looking at the way in which organisms respond to punitive contingencies”(Italics added). It is not so strange that especially people “who defend freedom and dignity” emphasize punishment of unwanted behavior by others, because they find that to be reinforcing. Since they don’t include listening as an observing behavior in their study of punitive contingencies, they continue the false belief in holding a person accountable for his or her criminal behavior. However, in the long-term punishment doesn’t decrease criminal behavior. Although in the short-term punishment results into a decrease of unwanted behavior, in the long-term the punished person will misbehave as he or she gets better at escaping and avoiding the punishment. 

As these short-term consequences are incredibly reinforcing to the punisher, the punishment behavior is increased. The common belief is that “a person who has been punished is less likely to behave in the same way again”, but this is simply not true.  Moreover, as long as we only look at what a person does, rather than listen to what a person says in response to what we say, we will never get clear on the true role that is played by our verbal behavior in punishment procedures. 

Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB) is a punishment procedure in which the speaker aversively influences the listener with the sound of his voice.  When the speaker coerces the listener into compliance by communicating his presumed authority or superiority, the speaker is reinforced for punishing the listener and because of this “strange state of affairs” the punished listener is always only getting better at escaping and avoiding the punishing speaker over time. However, when the punishing speaker listens to himself while he speaks, he will notice that he is having this effect on the listener, because he is now himself that listener.  When a speaker notices that he is punishing himself by expressing a certain voice, there instantly occurs a change of his sound due to which he is able to produce Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) in which his voice becomes reinforcing to him and others.