August 26, 2016

August 26, 2016 

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Reader,

This is my twenty-eight response to the paper “Radical Behaviorism in Reconciliation with Phenomenology” by Willard Day (1969). One of the authors of the Rice symposium, Scriven, wondered if the falsehoods and falsifications for which phenomenologists and radical behaviorists blame each other will ever be resolved. 

Scriven raised the simple question: “How many of us psychologists are sufficiently prepared to understand Scriven when he talks?” (italics added). In doing so he addressed the importance of talking, but since he was talking about himself, he was actually asking himself whether calling radical behaviorists “wicked” made any sense at all? In other words, he was questioning his own Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB). 

Scriven believed there must be a better way, which, of course, there is. He pondered “Do we have to feed ourselves fibs as fuels for our forward movement?” He was wondering if predetermined theoretical talk wouldn’t continuously stir negativity? Only when we ask ourselves that question will we give an honest answer. Only when the speaker is his or her own listener can we step out of our NVB, which is basically talking bad about each other, mudslinging and putting each other down.  

When we listen to ourselves while we speak, we recognize our own negative self-talk and realize that what we do to each other, we also do to ourselves. This opens the door to Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB), in which we speak with each other in the same positive way as we talk with ourselves. In SVB the speaker is no longer accusing the listener of being wrong as the SVB speaker listens to him or herself while he or she speaks and he or she knows he or she is the same as the listener. 

As long as experiencing ourselves while we speak is not accepted as a “conspicuously exploratory research”, we “must justify, often with great hypocrisy, and inevitably with great caution, whatever interest in behavior we may have.” Scientists buttress their so-called competence, “by a formidable list of publications, often in some picked-over area.” 

This writing is to let the reader know that also the publication of Day’s behaviorist paper cannot bridge the gap between radical behaviorism and phenomenology, which might as well be described as the difference between written and spoken communication.  Unless we engage in an actual conversation, that is, in SVB, we will never get clear on this. 

According to Day “The profession greatly needs a lot more writing that consists of a little more than careful description of what is actually observed by psychologists” (italics added). However, to acknowledge and explore the SVB/NVB distinction, more conversation is needed. 

Radical behaviorism’s emphasis on “simple descriptions of observed behavior” should involve a listener’s (positive or negative) affective response, induced directly by the speaker’s voice. “Productive professional behavior” is a therapist’s or teacher’s ability to induce positive affect in the client or student by how he or she speaks. 

Day focuses on “complex behavior,” on verbal behavior and states “Although someone is able to make only the most tentative conclusions - here, of course, he is conditioned to hesitate even to speak, much less to publish – the professional community still needs the benefit of his experience.” 

I feel stimulated by Day to write this, but my conclusions aren’t tentative: SVB and NVB are observable behaviors which we will only learn to discriminate if we talk. Only the radical behaviorists who know about the SVB/NVB distinction can reconcile with the phenomenologists who know about SVB. We haven’t had this conversation as academics find writing and reading more important than speaking and listening.