June 1, 2016

June 1, 2016

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Reader,

Following Skinner’s example, behaviorists differentiate between rule-governed and contingency-controlled behavior. To the reader who read some of my writings, it should be clear that Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB) is rule-governed behavior whereas Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) maps onto contingency-controlled behavior. 

The verbal discriminative stimuli which specify the contingency for NVB keep us in our place of the social hierarchy. Breaking the rules has immediate punitive consequences, such as social disqualification. Not accidentally, verbal behavior governed by rules is insensitive to the contingency in which it occurs. 

Stated differently, rule-governed behavior requires us to be on automatic pilot; we stop for the red traffic light and we get moving on green. Our rule-governed behavior is not as effective in talking as it is in traffic situations. Preconceived notions about how we should talk dampen and limit our conversations. 

The NVB speaker, whose speech is governed by rules, isn’t and can’t be present in the moment. Moreover, preconceived talking prevents both the speaker and the listener from being alive. Consequently, in NVB there is hardly any turn-taking and the speaker and the listener remain separate, that is, their speaking and listening behavior cannot harmonize. 

In NVB the speaker is simply not open to the listener, who is not considered to be important as a speaker by the speaker. The speaker’s SVB, on the other hand, is under direct control of its consequences, which are mediated by the listener. The SVB speaker stimulates the listener to become a SVB speaker. 

As the speaker and the listener take turns during SVB, they mutually reinforce each other. My insistence on the SVB/NVB distinction, which always increases SVB and decreases NVB, came about because of my analysis of contingencies which others have not yet fully explored. 

My ability to create an environment in which SVB can occur and can continue, which is based on my skill to evoke experimentation in my students and clients who experience and acknowledge SVB’s beneficial effects, was based on a hunch I had, which proved to be correct.

Initially, I didn’t and couldn’t even believe it myself. I felt so energized and positive about the sound of my own voice while I spoke that I contemplated what would happen if I could continue to speak with that sound and if others would be able to do the same? 

Talking while listening to myself with others, who also listen to themselves while they speak, turned out to be much more complicated than talking out loud by myself. As it was much easier to do, I ended up talking with myself many times. Each time I did that I effortlessly synchronized my speaking and listening behavior again.

Due to the NVB public speech I had been exposed to and was conditioned by while growing up, I experienced a lot of NVB private speech. When I started listening to myself I had no idea about behaviorism and about the fact that my behavior was caused by my environment.

While listening to myself again and again I noticed that there occurred a separation between me as speaker and me as listener. It was only when I learned about radical behaviorism that I realized it was about the different rates of my speaking and listening behavior. 

The rift between our speaking and listening behavior is always preceded by the separation created by a speaker and the listener who is not that speaker in NVB. During SVB, even if it mostly only occurred by myself, my speaking and listening behavior became joined again. 

By listening to myself I regained a sense of wholeness and I experienced the reunification of my speaking and listening behavior. I was able to stop my mechanical rule-governed behavior and explored the contingency which allowed me to feel alive and conscious again. 

In addition to self-experimentation, I explained as often as possible to others the link between voice, the vocal discriminative stimulus and our way of talking. I created the contingency for novel, exciting, effective verbal behavior. From a wealth of positive experiences my understanding of the SVB/NVB distinction emerged. 

It was clear from the beginning that I was only able to explain how SVB worked to those who were willing to experiment and verify with me. Guided by my experience and by the feedback from others, to my own amazement I discovered the objective reality of what I was doing. 

The development of my contingency-based logic, which is, of course, entirely different from rule-governed logic, began some thirty years ago and was validated by those who experimented with me. By now also various behaviorists have found for themselves how SVB works!