July 16, 2016

July 16, 2016 

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Behavioral Engineer

Dear Reader,

This is my thirty first response to “Epistemological Barriers to Radical Behaviorism” by Donohue et al. (1998). “A goal of radical behaviorists is the simplification of seemingly complex behavior into a parsimonious and powerful set of analytic terms.” They didn’t write: it is the only goal! Skinner wouldn’t have been able to promote his science if he hadn’t made simplification of complex behavior his most important goal.

Behaviorists have inherited Skinner’s “powerful set of analytic terms,” but they haven’t really contributed very much in terms of simplifying “seemingly complex behavior.” If that had been their only goal, they would have had to adopt, like Skinner, the central role for Verbal Behavior. As this is not the case, most behaviorists merely pay lip-service to the “simplification of seemingly complex behavior”.

The distinction between Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) and Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB) arose from experimentation, replication, verification and implementation; it is more than just talk. The validity of the SVB/NVB distinction is only apparent to those who during their conversation discriminate these response classes. This writing is at best an invitation to such an interaction. The principles of operant conditioning are clear during SVB, but cannot be understood in NVB.

“Skinner sought to produce an economical and general set of principles with which the apparent complexity of human experience can be understood using the same principle-based analysis on all occasions” (Guttman, 1977). Skinner’s emphasis on the importance of verbal definitions was inspired by his experimentation with nonverbal animals. 

Skinner extrapolated his conceptualization of verbal behavior from his experiments with nonverbal animals. I, on the other hand, started with what many unknowingly also have problems with: the struggle between nonverbal and verbal behavior. The SVB/NVB distinction came about due to my struggle between my feeling and thinking. NVB creates and maintains this struggle, while SVB brings this struggle to an end.