My Seventh Response to Fraley

Dear Reader,

This is my seventh response to “On Verbal Behavior: The First of Four Parts” (2004) by Lawrence E. Fraley. Here is what I believe is true for any subject that is being taught in schools, colleges and universities: if the teacher is able to establish Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) in the class and is therefore teaching his or her subject with passion and compassion, the student is going to be interested and capable of learning. It is obvious to me that this is generally NOT the case. Most teachers engage in Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB), that is, they merely demand the student’s attention and they act like celebrities.

When it comes to teaching behavioral science, it is NOT, as thirteen-in-a-dozen teachers like Fraley seem to suggest, a matter of whether students are “receptive to science.” Fraley is the typical example of a very knowledgeable, but cookie-cutter, inflexible, verbally-fixated and topic-obsessed teacher, who is obviously not very creative in experimenting with new ways of teaching, which would lead to better results. The more I read Fraley, the more a picture of him emerges of someone who writes elaborately in an attempt to deal with his frustration about teaching. Fraley is not alone in this matter as most of what is written, is in fact written as it cannot be said. Stated differently, most of what is written reflects our involvement in NVB, in which no one can say what they want to say.

Fraley writes “The introduction of new technical terms can sometimes prove effective”, but he doesn’t realize it is primarily the newness and the freshness of his own speech that brings this about and not so much what he says. Naturally, what he says is better understood when he says something in a way which is both appealing to himself as well as to his students. Interestingly, in the example, he says something he didn’t come up with himself. It is only when he refers to what someone else (Vargas) has said that he is, unknowingly, temporarily, out of his own (NVB) rigid pattern of speaking. “For instance, the term verbalizer in place of speaker better incorporates the non–vocal yet public forms of verbal behavior, such as the manipulative behaviors of a person who is exhibiting sign language. The term mediator in place of listener better suggests the important functional role played by that party in the conditioning of a verbal operant. That is, mediator stresses that party’s contingent provision of the behavior–changing consequences of the verbalizer’s verbal behavior. Insofar as the consequences of the verbalizer’s verbal behavior are mediated by the mediator, those terms closely fit the functional reality of a verbal episode. Nevertheless, the terms speaker and listener continue to appear frequently in the scientific literature of verbal behavior, and readers should remain prepared to interpret them interchangeably with verbalizer and mediator in most contexts.” What Fraley doesn’t understand and what even Skinner is not aware of, is that SVB is absolutely required to explain and understand that only “Insofar as the consequences of the verbalizer’s verbal behavior are mediated by the mediator, those terms closely fit the functional reality of a verbal episode.” In other words, Fraley and Skinner actually would like to engage in SVB, but, due to their NVB conditioning, neither one gets there.

My Eight Response to Fraley

Dear Reader,

This is my eight response to “On Verbal Behavior: The First of Four Parts” (2004) by Lawrence E. Fraley. What happens before you talk is referred to as “Antecedent Control of Verbal Behavior.” Although it may seem that way, it is not ‘you’ who talks, but it is your body which responds in the only way it is capable of responding. “Verbal behavior, being operant, is evoked by stimuli in the environment of the behaving organism. Consider two aspects of an instance of operant conditioning: (a) the momentary structure of the body that is being conditioned—a structure that, at any given moment, is determined by the prior operant conditioning of that body along with a variety of other physiological factors, and (b) the structure of the environment of that body, structured as it is at that same moment. Whatever verbal behavior then occurs to that body is simply the natural and inevitable reaction of that bodily structure to that environmental structure as energy from the latter impinges on the former.” All of this knowledge is needed to acknowledge that you can’t help that you are mainly engaged in Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB) and seldom in Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB). To have SVB, the structure of your body must be changed. This can only be accomplished if the structure of the environment of your body will bring about such change. The stimulus in the environment, which brings about physiological change, is the sound of our voice. SVB sounds different than NVB.

Only a speaker with SVB can evoke and reinforce SVB in you, but a NVB speaker will elicit NVB in you as well. “Failure to predict accurately an impending behavior is not evidence that nature is capricious, but rather that the sets of variables that respectively define the body and its environment at that moment have not been subject to a full accounting.” We have NEVER paid close attention to how we ourselves sound while we speak, so, it is not at all that surprising that we are not good at predicting accurately the outcome of our so-called conversations. In NVB we don’t really predict, but force the outcome!!! There is nothing scientific about NVB, except that the outcome of our blunt, coercive speech accounts for the tremendous conflict and chaos we see everywhere in our world. Even Fraley isn’t willing to explore the possibility of SVB with me.

Fraley’s refusal to talk with me (or anyone who engages in SVB), is based on one thing only: like everyone else, who doesn’t want to engage in SVB, he wants to continue with NVB, in other words, SVB and NVB are mutually exclusive. “Failure to render accurate predictions measures the ineffectiveness of the behavior of the person who predicts, not lapses in the functional aspect of nature. Given an instance of verbal behavior, we can always ask meaningfully what controlled it. The question pertains to its antecedent (i.e., evocative) environmental stimuli. If our inquiry is informed by a philosophy of naturalism, we anticipate that a valid and reliable answer is possible in terms of measurable variables, and we tend to look for those behavior–controlling antecedent stimuli.” Fraley, may proudly call himself a behaviorologist, but that doesn’t make any difference in his behavior, as he, like other behaviorists, isn’t interested in looking for “those behavior-controlling antecedent stimuli” while talking, while the rubber hits the road. Instead of honestly and scientifically admitting his own inaccurate predictions during a SVB conversation, he prefers to only write about it!

As a self-taught behaviorists, I know about SVB and since I am ALWAYS willing to explore the great importance of the SVB/NVB distinction during a conversation, I feel little affinity with coward behaviorists, who basically back out of the conversation, by pretending to know more about behavior than others. Another often heard excuse for not talking with me is that I haven’t done any research and that I don’t have data. I teach college level psychology courses, with a strong and consistent emphasis on behaviorism. My students come from all walks of life and I don’t have any requirements for talking with anyone. I can and I do talk with everyone and I find it sad, pedantic and arrogant that the vast majority of behaviorists refuse to talk with me.

Are you reading what I am writing? Do you in any way recognize I am talking with Fraley in my writing? He writes “In the past, under similar search conditions, we have so often discovered functional antecedent controls in proportion to the effort expended to discover them that our behavior to reveal such environmental evocatives for a specified behavior now tends to continue unabated (or, as it may be stated in terms of popular fictional constructs, our current expectation that precise controls exist to be discovered is much strengthened).” It is simply not true that the discovery of “functional antecedent controls” continues “unabated”, as we don’t have genuine interaction in which that would be the case. We are never going to write and read our way into SVB. The (over) emphasis in science (not only behavioral science) on reading and writing, that is, on visual stimuli, underestimates the great importance of auditory stimuli in the antecedent control of our verbal behavior. Our gigantic problems with talking and listening will continue as long as we keep engaging in forceful NVB. We can all get very philosophical and academic about it, but the fact of life is that we either engage in SVB or in NVB.

Co-regulation & Self-Control

Dear Reader,

In this writing, I started out by writing what I have already written so many times. I slept on it and continued with it this morning. Initially, it felt like boring writing to me, but as I continued with it after I woke up, I liked it much better, as it addresses, in a new way, the issue we usually describe as self-control. Our self-control is only as good as our conversations with others. How can our conversation with ourselves be any good if our interactions with others aren’t? The often made emphasis on self-control is punitive and perpetuates the superstitious folklore that we cause our own behavior. The real issue is how we communicate, co-regulate and, thus, are able to self-regulate. We may do a whole lot of talking, but we don’t really connect, we disconnect, we alienate, we dysregulate each other and our involvement doesn’t reinforce self-control, but it reinforces negative, autonomic responses, such as fleeing, fighting and involuntary freezing.

I wrote this first paragraph to introduce you to the writing I did yesterday evening. Please take my writing serious, read it out loud so that you can listen to your own voice. It doesn’t matter how you sound, just listen to your own voice. You can make a big difference. You don’t need to affect anyone other than yourself. Yes, I am not telling you to save the world, but I am telling you to save you. The world will take care of itself. The world doesn’t need to be saved, but you need to be saved. You need to be saved from yourself and only you can do it. Nobody except you can save you. You are doomed if you don’t save yourself. To save yourself you must talk.

The only way to save yourself is if you talk out loud with yourself about what is going on with you and about what is going on with you in this world. Yes, you need to talk with you. You don’t need to talk with others and you also don’t need to listen to what others have to say. You need to take control over your own life and the only way to do that is to listen to what you have to say to yourself. Yes, you have a lot to say to yourself, but you have never said it out loud and you have never really listened to the sound of your voice.

What you need to say to yourself is only known by you. It cannot be learned from a book or from someone else. If you still believe that you have nothing to say to yourself then it is more than time to let yourself know this isn’t true. What is bothering you? Of course you have something to say to yourself. Get rid of your opinion about who you believe to be, who you are supposed to be and just be who you are. Tell yourself what you want to say and who you want to be. It is up to you, nobody can tell you who you are, only you can. You can and must try to figure out what you really want to say. What you want to say has nothing to do with others, it only has to do with you. There is no one to help you with this.

Stop being busy with trying to figure out your dealings with others and get involved with who you are. Who are you? You are definitely not who you want to be or try to be. Who are you when you no longer try to be someone else? What is left of you when you are talking with yourself? Who are you when you are no longer proving your point, trying to impress, claiming to know? What is your answer to the question only you can ask yourself? What can only you say to yourself? What can you say? What is true of what you say? Why don’t you say what is true?

If you do this and listen to the sound of your voice while you speak, you will find, with great certainty, you are not doing this because you are expressing something that is or was inside of you, but you are only expressing something that you are now capable of saying because you have given yourself permission to say it. You are also not saying what you are saying because you now have a clear, open, non-judgmental mind, but you are saying what you are saying because it is now possible for you to say it. And, since you are listening to the sound of what you say, you can say more than you usually say. Moreover, since you enjoy what you say, you can say many things which you couldn’t say before because you were conditioned by Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB).

As you engage in Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) on your own, you become absolutely certain that you can have SVB with others, who, like you, can also step out of their NVB conditioning, just like that. As you explore SVB on your own and let yourself know you can already have it and talk very differently with yourself then with others, who talk at you, but not with you, you will find the people who will reinforce your SVB, who you can have SVB with. You will recognize them as they will validate you. Just like you, they were there all along, but you couldn’t recognize each other as you didn’t yet know SVB on your own.

Abilene Paradox

Dear Reader,

Have you heard about the Abilene paradox? To those who, like me, know about the difference between Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) and Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB), it is not a paradox, but to those who, like most people, unknowingly, mainly engage in NVB, it seems like a paradox. People who enjoy ongoing SVB together don’t collectively decide on a course of action that is counter to the preferences of many or all of the individuals in the group. It is always only in NVB that there this so-called breakdown of group communication in which each member mistakenly believes that their own preferences are counter to the group’s and, therefore, does not raise any objections. Conformity pressure which makes us say that we don’t want to rock the boat is in fact funny, as we basically can’t agree on anything during NVB. For those who know SVB, the Abilene paradox is a stupid thing as it is characterized by our inability to manage agreement. SVB speakers don’t need to manage their agreements and laugh at NVB speakers who believe they need to, but are never able to.

In Wikipedia is says that the Abilene paradox was “introduced by management Jerry B. Harvey in his 1974 article "The Abilene Paradox: The Management of Agreement". The name of the phenomenon comes from an anecdote that Harvey uses in the article to elucidate the paradox: On a hot afternoon visiting in Coleman, Texas, the family is comfortably playing dominoes on a porch, until the father-in-law suggests that they take a trip to Abilene [53 miles (85 km) north] for dinner. The wife says, "Sounds like a great idea." The husband, despite having reservations because the drive is long and hot, thinks that his preferences must be out-of-step with the group and says, "Sounds good to me. I just hope your mother wants to go." The mother-in-law then says, "Of course I want to go. I haven't been to Abilene in a long time."
The drive is hot, dusty, and long. When they arrive at the cafeteria, the food is as bad as the drive. They arrive back home four hours later, exhausted. One of them dishonestly says, "It was a great trip, wasn't it?" The mother-in-law says that, actually, she would rather have stayed home, but went along since the other three were so enthusiastic. The husband says, "I wasn't delighted to be doing what we were doing. I only went to satisfy the rest of you." The wife says, "I just went along to keep you happy. I would have had to be crazy to want to go out in the heat like that." The father-in-law then says that he only suggested it because he thought the others might be bored. The group sits back, perplexed that they together decided to take a trip which none of them wanted. They each would have preferred to sit comfortably, but did not admit to it when they still had time to enjoy the afternoon.” If we consider this anecdote from a behavioristic perspective and also include the SVB/NVB distinction, there is more going on than is stated in the aforementioned narrative.

The one who, dishonestly, said "It was a great trip, wasn't it?" may have really been the most honest person of the whole group. Noticing that everyone was feeling depleted, but nevertheless still trying to be upbeat about it, he or she stated the exact opposite of what happened. It wasn’t a great trip at all and they all knew it. By saying this lie, he or she was actually being honest and giving others the chance to get real about the ordeal they had just gone through. As his or her well-timed question resulted in everyone’s confession about how they had truly felt, the person who raised the question engaged in SVB.

The mother-in-law, who said that, actually, she would rather have stayed home, but went along since the other three were so enthusiastic, was afraid to disappoint others. Her previous NVB in agreement with the decision which went against what she wanted, was negatively reinforced as she was trying to avoid being a party-pooper. Notice, however, that as she says what she really feels, she engages in SVB. Then, there was the husband, who said "I wasn't delighted to be doing what we were doing. I only went to satisfy the rest of you." Although I may be wrong, it doesn’t seem to me he was feeling particularly relieved to say this. I can easily imagine that he said this with a sense of resentment and blame. Moreover, he also seems to express a sense of self-loathing about feeling so obligated to the rest of the family. I would assess what he said as NVB as it struck me as negative. It seems he was trying to blame others for his negative feelings, while it was in fact his own action he regretted.

The wife said, "I just went along to keep you happy. I would have had to be crazy to want to go out in the heat like that." She went along in order to avoid being socially disqualified as someone who wouldn’t want her husband and her family to happy. Making other people happy is more important to her than what appeared to have been an accurate evaluation of the weather. She appears to take more responsibility for her choice to go along and seems to express a sense of relief to be back in an air-conditioned home again. She felt obliged and must have expressed NVB, but, at this moment, as she is happy the whole event is now behind her, she expresses SVB. Lastly, the father-in-law only suggested to go because he thought others might be bored. People with NVB are always bored, but people with SVB are never bored. Furthermore, people with NVB are superficial and always in need of some kind of distraction as they are experiencing negative feelings from which they would like to move away. Another typical feature of NVB is that people would make conversation without having anything to say. Most likely father-in-law was right and others were bored and most likely he was reinforced before for his suggestion to go somewhere and for breaking up the boredom.

As everyone agrees that the day was a disaster, there is a brief moment of clarity. As always, these few fleeting moments in which some SVB is possible are finished before you know it. So, the situation is such the group could finally sit back for a moment and realize they were and still are in this together. They are perplexed and surprised they unknowingly together decided to take a trip none of them wanted. Reinforcement could have been available much earlier, but, before they went on their hot, dusty, frustrating trip, none of them could admit to sitting back comfortably to enjoy the afternoon. With NVB, we hope reinforcement will come later, in the distant future, but with SVB there is immediate reinforcement. The Abilene paradox illustrates the workings of NVB in a poorly functioning group in which the individuals act contrary to their own wishes and have negative feelings about the outcome of the things they seemingly decided together. NVB, our way of talking, is, of course, the only real paradox. Since we cannot agree with ourselves, we can only pretend to agree with each other. In SVB, however, we agree with ourselves and, therefore, we have no problem disagreeing with each other.

Harris & Peterson

Dear Reader,

I was listening to a discussion between Sam Harris and Jordan Peterson. At some point, they were talking about whether the Bible or the Koran could be changed. Sam spoke about the Koran, which prescribes that a thief’s hand shall be cut off and he mentioned the difficulty of revising this. He also stated it would have been much easier for Christians to be against holding slaves if one of the Ten Commandments simply had been swapped out with: don’t possess slaves.

While discussing these religious books, it was clear to me that neither of these intellectuals, who mainly engaged in Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB), seemed to believe that what we say to each other is of much greater importance than what is written. It was kind of surprising to hear them talk about these books as if these books determine how people talk, which is, of course, not factual. We talk because of how other people have talked with us. For someone who knows about the difference between NVB and Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB), it is obvious that both Sam Harris and Jordan Peterson didn’t grow up with a lot of SVB, but it is also quite apparent that Sam must have had more SVB than Jordan.

Let me repeat what I have just stated so that you, my reader, can consider the importance of what I am writing and would much rather like to talk with you about. Although everyone believes that books determine what we believe and thus, how we talk, this is not how our talking comes about. Only living members of our verbal community mediate how we speak and whether we engage in SVB or in NVB is not determined by what is written and read, but by how others talk with us. It not surprising Harris and Peterson simply skip over this, as anyone who engages in NVB does exactly the same. The belief that what is written determines how we speak, doesn’t make it so.

So, let’s face it, their entire discussion is flawed. They should have been talking about how people talk with each other, instead of only about what has been written and read. Had they done that, they would engage in SVB and acknowledge that we can change our way of talking more readily than our scriptures. Changing the way in which we talk with each other is more pragmatic and more hopeful than changing our way of writing.

As we have never really succeeded in the past in effectively changing our way of talking, we have given more and more importance to what was written and read and less and less importance to what was listened to and said. Presumably, we should all be listening to these authorities, these highly intelligent people, who tell us about what is really going on. However, their catastrophic, but, also cowardly, emphasis on what is written and read can no longer obfuscate the reality of the challenge we still face as human beings.

Regardless of what religion we are talking about, all religions over-emphasize the importance of what has been written over what has been said. Presumably, what has been written is a record of what has been said, but given the fact that we have been engaging in NVB since we as humans became verbal, what is written is either mainly a record of our NVB or our attempt to get away from the horrors of NVB, which, loosely defined, can be described as our religious tendencies.

Peterson says that we have to be very careful equating all religious texts and Harris agrees with that. However, they should know and say that not just a couple of things, but everything that is written into our religious texts (and is endlessly regurgitated by millions of people) goes against what we have come to know scientifically and all claims to the opposite are major impediments to our interactions and our relationships. In other words, all our religiously predetermined speech is always NVB. It always was and it always will be. Surely, the only way mankind is going to be able to overcome its religious superstition is by engaging in SVB. I look forward to talking with Sam and Jordan.

December 28, 2018

Dear Reader,

It is no coincidence that when I perform one of my songs, I first play the melody and only then do I sing the song. The melody is an existing piece of music. I chose it because it sounds good, I resonate with it, and, it is easy enough for me to play on my recorder. When I hear some nice tune, I immediately know if I can play it or not. If I can play it, I like it so much that I am feeling inspired to write my own text to it.

In almost all my songs I sing about Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB). Occasionally, I also write something funny or obnoxious, but, even then, the melody was always selected first. Those are songs which illustrate the workings of Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB).

I perform my songs mostly alone and there is a reason. Only just today I am able to understand how my songs come about. I have my own way of working and I think it is because of that that people seldom invite me to play with them. Sometimes someone asks me, but not very often. I will try to play more often with others in the next year. The fact is, however, only a few people can play with me. Most people are too much into themselves. The music which I play is not about me, but about everyone.

Although I am not a great musician, I know when I get it right and when it sounds good. Often there is too much noise for me to perform well. I do better when people are quiet and attentive. At the Open Mike in Paradise, yesterday evening, there was no sound system as John Michael was out sick. Due to this a different situation had been created. The atmosphere was more intimate and more natural.

The text of my songs are only understood if people take time to experience my sound. Most people can’t play with me because they can’t have Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB); I can’t play with people with whom I can’t have SVB. If people were more attuned to me, I think we could play my songs together very well.

In the same way my performance works, so too works SVB; it is the melody which always comes first, the text comes later. To me, it seems as if the music creates the text. Those people who appreciate my music, they learn about SVB from the text, but those who don’t like the music, they find my songs pretty boring, as they are always about the same thing.

Each song is unique; it supports SVB in a way which no other song could. My melodies came from many different composers, who lived in different cultures. Their sound struck a chord in me and inspired me to write a text. Sometimes, when we are dealing with and ancient traditional melody, the composer of the song is unknown, but usually it is someone we have all heard of, like Mozart, Vivaldi or Bach. Each time I have sung my song, like I did yesterday night, I go and search again for a new melody. I spend hours listening to new tunes. It is amazing how much music there is, how many different audiences at different locations have appreciated these great works of art.

The melody tells us more about the function of our verbal behavior than the words we use. It is not the words which are some kind of vehicle that convey a message, but it is the sound which informs us about the emotional experiences which could only occur in certain circumstances. When people talk about the passion, they speak about someone’s ability to create a situation in which what he or she says makes sense due to how he or she says it. Few people know that our belief that our words can be filled with meaning or that our words express our thoughts, is based on the ignorance about the science of human behavior.

Usually, we don’t distinguish between spoken and written words as we consider our words as things, but behaviorism distinguishes between our spoken and our written words precisely because spoken and written words are a function different environments. Moreover, words which are sung, they are, of course, also a function of yet another environment than the words which are spoken or written. Also, it makes a big difference whether you listen to a song which is performed life or on your I-pod at the gym.

When I sing my song after I have played the melody, I have introduced my audience to the environment in which I would like them to hear what I want to say. I sing about what I want to say, so actually, there are three environments: 1) the environment in which I play the music without words, 2) the environment in which that same melody expresses words, and 3) the environment in which we talk and listen to the sound of the words we express, in which we engage in SVB.

All of this is needed to experience that in talking we are not, as speakers, using our words. Words are not, as is so often erroneously believed, tools or things we use. Words are verbal behavior, which is stimulated and reinforced under certain circumstances. Only if we pay attention to the sound of what we say do we experience that speaking and listening are behaviors, which in NVB occur at incongruent rates. Only in SVB, in which we listen to ourselves while we speak, can speaking and listening occur at the same rate.

Another important aspect of bringing attention to the sound of what we say is that usually we think we talk about the physical world (our car, our children, our house, our guns, etc.) or we think that we talk about something that has happened to us (some experience, some event or some development). When we do this, our words presumably represent our ideas, feelings, thoughts and experiences. By talking, we are trying to deal with whatever we think we are going through or whatever has happened to us. What nobody seems to notice is that in NVB, we behave verbally in such a way as if our words go from us to our environment.

We presumably describe things, we name things, we express what has happened or what is happening. We are so convinced that we speak about the reality and we think that we refer to our past experiences and we emphasize the importance of certain aspects of life, which supposedly are more important than others.

Our words seldom if ever express the way in which our environment actually causes them. Due to how we were conditioned, we don’t realize that our verbal behavior doesn’t and can’t cause our reality and that only natural events, environmental stimuli, can cause our verbal behavior. The direction of our verbal behavior, therefore, is not from us (as speakers), to our environment (to the listeners), but from the environment (from the listener) to us (to the speaker)!!! Skinner defines Verbal Behavior (1957) as an indirect action; the listener is needed to mediate the consequences; that is to say, the listener is needed to reinforce the speaker. The reason that we appreciate songs which elicit emotional experiences is that music allows us to trace the environments from which our verbal behavior has emerged. By listening to beautiful music, it is as if we, as speakers, feel that we are finally being listened to….

December 30, 2018

Dear Reader,

Most likely you will not appreciate my strong opinion that I think that you don’t understand Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB). This is probably the main reason why hardly anyone knows about it. I do everything in my ability to let others know about SVB, but the reality is that only a few people are learning about it from me.

You would think that everyone would like to know about SVB, but this is not true. People are offended when I let them know that I know something which they don’t know. I can’t help it that things are this way: I am the only one who teaches SVB and unless people are learning it from me, they will miss out.

The few people, who know more or less as much as I do, are known to me, but not to you. They face the same situation as I do. (By the way, I don’t claim to know all there is to know on SVB, as I learn more about it every day in my conversations with others). My ability to write this text is a result of that. Those who experience and understand SVB will also have to let others know they know something nobody has yet properly explained (not even behaviorists).

This writing is not about explaining to you what SVB is (I do that in other writings)! This writing is to let you know that you don’t know what SVB is!!! Please, don’t be offended or fearful, just contact me and talk with me so that I can explain it to you. I promise you will not regret it; SVB will totally change your life!!! I look forward to engaging in SVB with you in 2018.