July 14, 2016

July 14, 2016

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Behavioral Engineer

Dear Reader, 

This is my twenty-ninth response to “Epistemological Barriers to Radical Behaviorism” by Donohue et al. (1998). When we consider the problems people have talking with each other and, this, of course, includes the problems involved in the “Epistemological Barriers to Radical Behaviorism”, we must acknowledge if a certain behavior occurs more often than another behavior, this indicates that this behavior is more often reinforced and that other behavior is more often punished.

“All behavior is understood to be a function of environmental variables, and behaviors are selected based on their consequences (i.e., through contingencies of reinforcement and punishment). This analysis does not change based on the seemingly complex act a person (or any other animal) has performed.” This is all that is needed to explain the relative low rates of our Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) and the relative high rates of our Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB) in the world at large.

If SVB was more often reinforced it would occur more often. As long as we don’t even know the difference between SVB and NVB and the benefits that can be achieved by differentiating between the two, we end up having more NVB, by default. Without the SVB/NVB distinction we have no control; we can neither increase SVB nor decrease our NVB.

The seemingly complex act of verbal behavior is explained by how others talk with us; they either reinforce or they punish us. If their  way of talking is punitive, as in NVB, we will be reinforced not for our verbal behavior, but for our obedience. In SVB there is only positive reinforcement, but no punishment. SVB is the speech of positive behavioral control, but NVB is the speech of coercive behavioral control. As we haven’t acknowledged NVB is caused by environmental variables, by people who couldn’t make us feel safe and supported, we don’t realize that different people are needed to learn SVB from.