October 3, 2016

October 3, 2016 

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Reader,

It is no coincidence that radical behaviorism, which explains and supports the distinction between Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) and Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB) in terms of stimulus, response and consequence, known as the three-term contingency, is also rejected in favor of all our commonly held nonsensical pre-scientific beliefs.

As the SVB/NVB distinction exposes and decisively cuts through all our explanatory fictions it is rejected even more vehemently than radical behaviorism. However, once this distinction has been accepted, radical behaviorism is likely to be more widely recognized as well.

While resistance to radical behaviorism is lamented in peer-reviewed journals, resistance to the SVB/NVB distinction is simply a matter of avoiding the face to face interaction all together. I mention this difference, as writing and reading is a way of avoiding the conversation.

The limitations of radical behaviorism have led to more writings which conceal the fact that unscientific people decline to talk with scientific people and vice versa. When the NVB speaker talks at the listener, he or she misses out on talking with the listener and have scientific SVB.

It is not whether something is wrong with the science of human behavior or with the SVB/NVB distinction, what doesn’t work is our spoken communication. It is coercive NVB which limits our ability to predict and control behavior and not the lawfulness of human behavior. We are not helped by hypothetical constructs about what presumably happens within each one of us. We can only demonstrate, explore, experience and verify the lawfulness of SVB and NVB while we speak.

Our knowledge is limited by the extent to which we engage in SVB or NVB. Moreover, as NVB can’t generate new practices it makes what we know meaningless. SVB turns this around and makes what was meaningless meaningful. Naturally, there is only so much a person can know, but with SVB all our different knowledges and experiences will be validated.

Our unique individual findings will make us listen to and adhere to the general law about spoken communication: aversive-sounding speakers always separate the listeners from the speakers, while appetitive-sounding speakers always unite the speakers with the listeners.

Apparently, as I was affected by this process more than anybody else, I was able to put my finger on it. My personal annoyance about and frustration with how people talked at me and my excitement and gratefulness about people who talked with me, paved the way for the scientific analysis which posits that this is the same for everyone.

The science of SVB and NVB doesn’t concern itself with the average individual as it directly focuses on our individual experiences. The SVB/NVB distinction has in common with radical behaviorism that it transcends group-think and that it stimulates us to think as individuals.

SVB makes and keeps us conscious, but NVB makes us mechanical and keeps us unconscious. This is validated by everyone who was introduced to the SVB/NVB distinction. Another experience evoked by anyone who is introduced to the SVB/NVB distinction is a profound sense of joy and peace involved in recognizing its simplicity, beauty and parsimony.

Objections against the SVB/NVB distinction or radical behaviorism are always based on outdated arguments that the so-called complexity of behavior is impervious to science. These complaints are always a product of NVB and will disappear with SVB like snow melting in the sun.

The proof is in the pudding. There is no reason to doubt that great things can be achieved by conversation about the SVB/NVB distinction and about radical behaviorism. We find that SVB is the kind of conversation that results in happy and productive lives, but NVB keeps preventing this.