December 11, 2015

December 11, 2015

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Students,

This is my eleventh response to “Epistemological Barriers to Radical Behaviorism” (O’Donohue et al., 1998). The authors write that “Humans can arrange contingencies that will further the species and the values that the members may hold, such as freedom and personal dignity.” In yesterday’s class my students and I engaged in one last conversation about the cumulative effects of Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) during this semester. It was moving to hear how positively affected everyone was by the discovery and exploration of SVB. When I asked them to talk about what has changed since they started this class nobody spoke.

It wasn’t that nobody had anything to say or didn’t dare to speak, but a deep silence and relaxation fell over our group. It was a profound experience and I described what was happening. Throughout the semester various aspects of SVB had been addressed, but this unique experience of meditation had not happened to us as a group. Everyone was blissful and I could tell by their faces that many students were surprised by the tangible beauty of this experience. The first one to describe this calmly said he felt that SVB pulled them into himself. Others agreed and reported that they had already experienced this elsewhere before.

One girl said she had always tried to describe SVB, but never had the words for it. Another person, who had been hearing voices his whole life, shared that because of SVB he was now hearing pleasant voices. Repeatedly, students reported on how changes in their environment had led to changes in their behavior. Also, some spoke about the mental health services they had received and which mostly involved Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB). Even psychiatrists, therapists, counselors and teachers don’t know about SVB and, consequently, are not helping. At best they have instances of SVB, but they don’t know what it takes to continue with it. 

For about one full hour our SVB conversation continued and students brought up the fact that their stress, fear, anxiety and depression had dissolved and they were able to identify the different people and situations which had brought that about. One student showed that he had been biting his nails his entire life, but he declared that now he was confident he would find a way to stop this habit. I had told the class at the beginning of this semester that I myself used to be a nail-biter and he still remembered that. The students looked at me and at each other. We smiled and we felt a deep sense of relief and gratefulness.

December 10, 2015

December 10, 2015

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Students,

This is my tenth response to “Epistemological Barriers to Radical Behaviorism” (O’Donohue et al., 1998). Skinner (1974) stated “A behavioristic analysis does not question the practical usefulness of reports of the inner world that is felt and introspectively observed. They are clues (1) to past behavior and the conditions affecting it, (2) to current behavior and the conditions affecting it, and (3) to conditions related to future behavior.” If you bring your private speech into your public speech, you can learn a lot about the past conditions, the current conditions and the future conditions which affect how you talk and listen.

In Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB) the inclusion of your private speech into your public speech is impossible, and, consequently, you are stuck with your private speech (read mental illness) and you end up thinking that you yourself have caused it. To read about these past and current conditions is not the same as to talk about them and one cannot replace the other. Most likely, reading about it creates the impression as if you have talked about it. This writing doesn't claim to dispel that illusion. 

The fact that your behavior is determined by environmental variables doesn’t take away anything from the richness of your experience, to the contrary, it only adds to it. Knowing that your behavior is caused by the environment doesn’t deny what is “uniquely human”, but “it gives humans the opportunity to reciprocally effect the environment.” This means that in Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) all the communicators recognize the fact that they are each other’s environment and that, therefore, they either cause each other’s positive or negative way of talking. 

SVB is made possible by the verifiable fact that we mutually reinforce each other. In NVB, on the other hand, the speaker aversively controls the behavior of the listener and the speaker causes the negative changes in the listener, in the environment, which cannot be verified as there is no feed-back. In NVB, the listener, the speaker’s environment, presumably doesn’t cause any change in the speaker. This is factually wrong. 

Although the NVB speaker, who due to a shared history of NVB is allowed to dominate the listener, is reinforced by this listener for his or her forceful way of talking, this NVB speaker is changed by this reinforcing audience. The listener who reinforces the NVB speaker doesn’t really know, but always experiences that he or she is being dominated and therefore also always produces some kind of counter-control. Likewise, the NVB speaker also doesn’t really know, but always experiences that he or she is dominating the listener, while he or she is always also affected by the counter-control exerted by the listener. This only becomes clear in SVB.

December 9, 2015

December 9, 2015

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Students,

This is my ninth response to “Epistemological Barriers to Radical Behaviorism” (O’Donohue et al., 1998). The authors state that “Skinner simply wanted to develop an economical analysis that would ultimately lead to practical technologies for bettering the human condition (e.g. Skinner, 1971)”. Within each culture there are only two vocal response classes, called Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) and Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB). These vocal response classes have great explanatory power as they provide the practical solutions to our problems of communication. 

I don’t like the phrase “bettering the human condition” as I want to be specific about how we sound while we talk. When we talk with each other, we have SVB, but when we talk at each other, we have NVB. This is the same for all human beings. In the former, there is a bi-directional relationship between the speaker and the listener, that is, the speaker can, at any time, become the listener and the listener can, at any time, become the speaker. In the latter, however, the speaker and the listener are separated, they cannot switch sides and there is no turn-taking. In NVB, our speech remains determined by our hierarchical differences and, therefore, it will be uni-directional. 

An important feature of NVB is that the speaker aversively influences the listener. In NVB speakers create and maintain an environment of fear, intimidation, domination, exploitation, alienation, pretense, dissociation and negative emotion. NVB is not communication, but we  adhere to it by default as we haven’t yet learned how to have SVB. We have endlessly talked about how to improve the human condition, but what needs to be improved is our way of talking. As long as NVB, which goes on everywhere, is accepted as communication, our relationships remain a total mess. 

In NVB, a person’s private speech is not considered to be caused by public speech. Consequently, people still believe that they are causing their own behavior. NVB communicators dis-regulate each other, but SVB communicators co-regulate each other. We keep, like inexperienced children, disturbing each other due to our lack of skills. In SVB, we realize that our private speech is caused by our public speech and that the joining of our speaking and listening behavior is an essential behavioral cusp, which requires an environment that is free of aversive stimulation. We have yet to learn how to create and maintain such a safe environment with a SVB way of talking.            

December 8, 2015

December 8, 2015

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Students,

This is my eight response to “Epistemological Barriers to Radical Behaviorism” (O’Donohue et al., 1998). The authors state that “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).” We can only learn about the distinction between Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) and Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB) if we get better at reinforcing each other for having SVB. As long as we are more likely to tell each other what is wrong we overemphasize punishment and continue our involvement in and our contribution to NVB. In SVB reinforcement is not overemphasized, but more reinforcement certainly becomes possible due to our repeated exposure to and involvement in SVB. 

Something interesting happened yesterday. One student, who is always sitting at the back of the class, demonstratively looked up at the clock, then looked at his phone and was obviously not very interested in anything I was saying. I was distracted by him and described this feeling to the class. Just as this student was affected by me, I was also affected by him. By reminding the class, but also myself, of this bi-directional influence, I was not feeling upset or rejected and it felt as if everyone, this student included, was paying more attention again. The distraction created NVB, but as I was able to describe it, it became SVB again. I was not punishing the student for not being interested in me and I thanked him for communicating by looking at the clock that he was not feeling well. I reinforced the concept I had talked about: whether we co-regulate or dysregulate each other. And so a disturbance became a teaching moment. 

“Language is simply a type of behavior (Skinner, 1957); it is subject to the same contingencies of reinforcement as all other behavior.” As the above example demonstrates, these contingencies can change rapidly during any verbal episode. From one moment to the next there can be an instance of SVB or NVB. This important fact about verbal behavior has not yet been properly analyzed. Also, during yesterday’s class, I was reminded of the enormous stress and anxiety I have experienced while I was in my graduate study. Looking back on that, I realized how punitive academia is and how common it is for everyone to accept that.

December 7, 2015

December 7, 2015

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Students,

This is my seventh response to “Epistemological Barriers to Radical Behaviorism” (O’Donohue et al., 1998). Like other behaviorists, these authors reiterate that behaviorism, like Darwinism, “removes humans from a special place in the hierarchy of living organisms.” However, they have no understanding about Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) and Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB). They don’t realize that a certain way of talking, NVB, maintains our “special place in the hierarchy of living organism.” In NVB the speaker and the listener are set apart by hierarchical differences. More precisely, hierarchical differences prevent the joining of our speaking and listening behaviors.

Hierarchical differences cannot be maintained when our speaking and listening behaviors are joined. Surely, “Humans are taken to be similar to other animals in many important ways: As a species we are subject to the selection of physical attributes through evolution and contingencies of survival, and as individuals our behaviors are subject to selection by the consequences those behaviors have in our ontogenetic evolution (Skinner, 1981).” Our problem is not that we cannot see ourselves as “similar to other animals”, but that we don’t hear that we are similar and that our similarity is apparent in the simple fact that our verbal behavior is selected by its consequences.

We have high rates of NVB as NVB is reinforced. If SVB was reinforced we would have high rates of SVB. “Selective contingencies” that explain these response classes are clear: in threatening environments we engage in NVB and in safe environments we engage in SVB. We will see ourselves as “similar to other animals” once we hear we are similar to each other as humans, but this will only happen as we engage in SVB. SVB only occurs due to a contingency of reinforcement, but cannot occur with a contingency of punishment. SVB is possible due to the absence of aversive stimulation. In SVB, the speaker’s voice is experienced by the listener-other-than-the-speaker as well as the speaker-as-own-listener as an appetitive stimulus. The contingency which sets the stage for SVB includes and expresses the environment that is within the speaker’s skin, but in NVB this crucial part of the environment is excluded, not expressed and not listened to.