July 10, 2016

July 10, 2016 

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Behavioral Engineer

Dear Reader,

This is my thirty-fifth response to “Epistemological Barriers to Radical Behaviorism” by Donohue et al. (1998). These authors, who don’t know Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) and Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB) continue to wonder if it is more difficult to abandon “folk psychology” than to surpass “the causal status of thoughts altogether?”

It sounds like a question inexperienced students might ask: is physics more difficult than chemistry? The degree of difficulty depends of course on someone’s behavioral history. That is not any different for the “Epistemological Barriers to Radical Behaviorism.”  For someone who knows about the SVB/NVB distinction the question doesn’t arise.

Someone who knows SVB considers such a question as the absence of knowledge. Teaching requires SVB, but will be impaired by NVB. It is as simple as that. The question: which is more difficult to surpass “folk psychology” or “the causal status of thoughts?” derives from NVB.

In NVB there is always a separation between the speaker and the listener and there is also a rift between public speech and private speech. As in NVB our private speech is kept out of our public speech, people inadvertently believe they cause and have their own thoughts.

“For the radical behaviorist, "the bodily conditions [that] we feel are collateral products of our genetic and environmental histories. They have no explanatory force; they are simply additional facts to be taken into account" (Skinner, 1975, p. 43). Although behaviorists have often repeated this statement, they have yet to realize that teaching radical behaviorism requires an entirely different way of talking.

Skinner had mostly SVB, but the majority of behaviorists have mainly NVB. “The ability to manipulate environmental variables directly allows the behavioral researchers to demonstrate prediction and control in a way that internal constructs such as belief and thoughts cannot.” As long as behaviorists engage in NVB, they reinforce internal constructs.