My Sixth Response to Fraley

Dear Reader,

This is my sixth response to “On Verbal Behavior: The First of Four Parts” (2004) by Lawrence E. Fraley. When a teacher talks WITH, and, therefore, connects with, the students, the students experience and know very well that such a teacher is, of course, totally different from the teacher who talks AT them, who, therefore, disconnects from them. Students tell me some teachers are better than others, but they have never told me another teacher created Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) in their class-room like I do. I don’t write this to brag, but I want you to know my students tell me this every semester.

If students are given the opportunity to speak (as they are in my classes), they divulge their other teachers are sadly mainly engaging in Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB). They even ask me to teach their other teachers to have SVB with them. Furthermore, they tell me how surprised they are, as they effortlessly and joyfully learn more in my class than in any other class. Also, many of them express a sense of relief as well as disbelief about the fact that I don’t punish them. At the end of each semester, they are aware the wonderful learning environment we experience as group, is not magically created by me because I am such a great teacher, but by everyone’s participation in and understanding of SVB.

How different my experience with my students is from someone like Fraley. I appreciate the fact that he is honest about it, but I can tell from his writing that he isn’t successful in connecting with his students. He laments the “superstitious student”, who “already knows, with a certainty born of faith, that a verbalizer would have to be the same mental agent that a speaker is understood to be.” Rather than considering his own forceful way of talking (NVB), Fraley prefers to believe that his students can’t understand behaviorology because of their previous beliefs.

Please, read the following long quote very carefully and realize that the NVB speaker is always blaming the listener for not listening!!! “The instructor who insists that a verbalizer is only a body that exhibits verbal behavior is making that pitch to a student who knows, with comfortable certainty, more about it than that instructor is prepared to concede. As far as that student is concerned, that instructor is constrained by some narrowing rules of scientific logic from moving conceptually into a wonderful and awesome domain where that unfettered student is free to roam. While a natural scientist may view that student’s mystical thinking as forays into a fool’s paradise along paths of self-deception, the fundamentally superstitious student has a different view. Such students interpret their own frequent reversions to superstitious interpretations as their way of keeping a finger on the pulse of reality during their temporary detours into the sadly limited world of natural science, which they are undertaking to gain insights into the often appalling limitations with which natural scientists burden themselves in order to do their necessary if somewhat dehumanizing kind of work. While superstitiously indoctrinated students theoretically can be purged of their superstitious behavior, the necessary programs of reconditioning are typically so intense and so time consuming that the arrangements for them are more characteristic of protracted therapy than of academic instructional programs. As a matter of economy, science instruction, if it is to be effective and efficient within the constraints imposed by traditional instructional operations, must be directed to students who have been kept relatively free of superstitious indoctrination. However, the selection of superstition–free students for programs designed to produce effective scientists is difficult within a superstitious culture.”

Let me now unpack for you what Fraley, the person who supposedly knows how behavior really works, unknowingly, is referring to. Any instructor, who “insists that a verbalizer is only a body that exhibits verbal behavior” and thus, is repeatedly “making that pitch to a student”, is: 1) a verbally-fixated, 2) outward-oriented, and 3) struggling NVB speaker, who doesn’t recognize the simple fact that the sound of his voice has an aversive effect on the listener. Stated differently, Fraley describes a teacher who is struggling to keep the student’s attention. If Fraley directly tells his students (and I have no doubt he does) that their belief in an inner self, who presumably causes a person to speak, is “superstitious”, he is not doing a good job at shaping their behavior.

It is interesting, however, that Fraley admits that the student “knows, with comfortable certainty, more about it than that instructor is prepared to concede.” Fraley, the instructor, the verbalizer, should learn, during the interaction, from his student, the mediator. Such learning will only occur if he is able to receive feedback from his students about how they (probably with eyes glazing over) experience his lecture. This is a very common teacher/parent/couple problem: we want others to listen to us, but we are not listening to ourselves, that is, we engage in NVB.

What now follows is Fraley’s justification for sounding horrible and dominating his listener. “As far as that student is concerned, that instructor is constrained by some narrowing rules of scientific logic from moving conceptually into a wonderful and awesome domain where that unfettered student is free to roam.” (This is comparable to a parent, who would punish a child, but insist that it is for their own good.) “While a natural scientist may view that student’s mystical thinking as forays into a fool’s paradise along paths of self-deception, the fundamentally superstitious student has a different view.” Fraley doesn’t realize that his students, like he himself, already have endured much NVB in their behavioral history and that his teaching is just more NVB.

“Such students interpret their own frequent reversions to superstitious interpretations as their way of keeping a finger on the pulse of reality during their temporary detours into the sadly limited world of natural science, which they are undertaking to gain insights into the often appalling limitations with which natural scientists burden themselves in order to do their necessary if somewhat dehumanizing kind of work.” Due to NVB, Fraley speaks of “the sadly limited world of natural science.” To someone who knows how to engage in SVB, nothing is more exciting and liberating than “the world of natural science.” It is because of NVB that Fraley is basically burdening himself and is apparently only experiencing “appalling limitations.” It is only because Fraley isn’t capable of addressing the SVB/NVB distinction that he would even describe his work as “somewhat dehumanizing.”

I strongly disagree with his analysis, as I know with SVB many things become possible which are simply impossible with NVB. Also, I find it unpragmatic (and appalling) that Fraley and with him legions of behaviorists, when they can’t have their way with pushing behavioristic jargon on people, start using bombastic terms such as superstition, indoctrination and purging of behavior, while, supposedly, we are only talking about conditioning. “While superstitiously indoctrinated students theoretically can be purged of their superstitious behavior, the necessary programs of reconditioning are typically so intense and so time consuming that the arrangements for them are more characteristic of protracted therapy than of academic instructional programs.” SVB is not therapy, but a totally different way of talking!!!

Fraley now makes a ridiculous, elitist’ proposal as he is clearly suggesting behaviorology should perhaps only be for the ‘happy few.’ He writes “As a matter of economy, science instruction, if it is to be effective and efficient within the constraints imposed by traditional instructional operations, must be directed to students who have been kept relatively free of superstitious indoctrination.” There are no such students (!) as we are all, whether we know it or not, admit it or not or are aware of it or not, conditioned by NVB. Fraley seems to realize something is wrong with his statement…“However, the selection of superstition–free students for programs designed to produce effective scientists is difficult within a superstitious culture.”

Collaboration and SVB

Dear Reader,

Although we are all somewhat familiar with the terms collaboration and cooperation and often use these words interchangeably, they actually mean two very different things. Collaboration can be defined as the coordinated, synchronous activity that is the result of a continued attempt to construct and maintain a shared conception of a problem, while cooperation is accomplished by the division of labor among participants as an activity where each person is responsible for solving a portion of the problem. Most people, based on their past experience, will say that it is hard to collaborate and in the same breath they will tell you that cooperation doesn’t involve compromise or consensus-building. Presumably, collaboration is about giving up control to others and, supposedly, this requires your vulnerability. I am here to tell you that such a wrong view is based on your involvement in Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB). People only say collaboration is hard when they realize it requires a different way of talking than the one which they are used to.

Collaboration is not hard once we know how to have Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB), which, rather than making us vulnerable, unites us and makes us stronger. As we learn to have ongoing SVB and as we collaborate productively and happily, we find to our big surprise that the need to compromise or build consensus doesn’t even arise. Moreover, as we learn to practice effective self-management, we gain control over behavior, our speaking and listening, where previously we believed we didn’t have any control, due to which we were more prone to remain busy with trying to control others instead of ourselves.

As we were all conditioned by NVB, we mistake being open with conforming, giving in or falling on our own sword. However, when we engage in SVB, we don’t draw our sword, let alone fall on it and we don’t fight either, so there is no question about backing down. It is due to NVB we keep trying to ‘defend against’ the very possibility of collaboration by dismissively describing it as a messy process, as our collaboration would certainly prove that our forceful NVB is very primitive and unsophisticated and certainly not as orderly as it claims to be. In SVB, we enhance each other’s self-control, as we stimulate each other to listen to ourselves while we speak. The issue of coercively dominating others only arises during NVB. Nobody is giving up any control during SVB, only in NVB do we give up control.

Another myth that is perpetuated by our blunt NVB is that we will only be able to collaborate if we have some sort of enlightened leadership. We are presumably in need of the some visionary, some great thinker, someone with great ideas. All of this is a product of NVB, which prevents collaboration by selling people (hook, line and sinker) on the falsehood that novelty is always difficult. Supposedly, we are not open enough to the mumbo-jumbo and to the snake-oil pitches of the so-called professional speakers, the ones who presumably do the talking for others, the ones who supposedly are ahead of their time. In the name of innovation and improvement of the human condition, we should all jump on the band-wagon of their new ideas and be okay with the constant tension and divisiveness, which is the reliable outcome of their NVB. SVB exposes these sooth-saying preachers of discomfort and peril. There is no need for anyone in SVB to respect each other as we are already respecting each other. As the SVB/NVB distinction is a behavioristic construct, everyone who comes to know SVB embraces the fact that each of us has a unique behavioral history of conditioning.

Those with NVB endlessly talk about the need to trust, to be diverse and to collaborate. However, in SVB we are doing all these things. SVB, which is a scientific construct, is not made possible by the much over-rated different belief systems that people bring to the table. We leave our biases at the door in the room in which we engage in SVB! Furthermore, as we engage in SVB, we mutually reinforce each other, that is, we comfortably find that what we have in common matters more to us than our different values. Stated differently, SVB is about genuine cultural integration and collaboration. This new way of talking is needed to do justice to the fact that we are all different.

SVB doesn’t stress us accept different points of view. The question about respecting each other only arises due to NVB. In SVB, in which we all positively reinforce each other, we respect each other as we experience what it is like to be truly respected and validated. SVB is a behavioral cusp. Our participation in SVB is immediately reinforcing and future outcomes are predicted to be even more reinforcing as SVB increases our access to reinforcers. As everyone is reinforced, everyone not only collaborates, but is also responsible and accountable. We don’t need to work on getting better at collaboration as this is the natural outcome of our involvement in SVB. Our collaboration results from how we talk.

Learned Helplessnes?

Dear Reader,

I want everyone to know that there is no such a thing as a “teachable moment.” Those who speak about teaching in that way, don’t know what the hell they are talking about. Humans don’t learn in one moment. This is not how behavior works. Also, there is nobody inside of you, there is no inner self, who is either willing or unwilling to learn. You don’t learn because you “suddenly get it”, because you “have a high IQ” or because you are “so intelligent”. This one special experience which supposedly “changed your life forever”, all your “profound insights” and all your laughable, mystical “haha-moments”, simply demonstrate you don’t know anything about human behavior.

Let me make this very clear: YOU, whoever you believe yourself to be, don’t learn anything, ever! The only thing which really happens is that your body has been changed over time by certain conditioning processes. Particular responses were reinforced and these behaviors are then selected and are more likely to occur in the future. Once again, you don’t ever cause your own behavior. When you find yourself having a certain behavior very often, just acknowledge that your behavior was reinforced in the past and, most likely, is being reinforced right now in your current environment. Behavioral change will only occur if you change your environment.

I teach you to have Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) instead of Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB). You have very little SVB, but a lot of NVB, as you are almost constantly in aversive environments in which only NVB is reinforced. You need to be with other people and in different circumstances to be able to have SVB. Although you still believe you have to decide or choose your own behavior, although you have been conditioned to view yourself as a bad learner or a lousy student, there absolutely is no you inside of you, who does your behavior. There is only your body which was and which is conditioned and therefore changed by environmental stimuli, by certain circumstances, by what Skinner describes as contingencies of reinforcement. Obviously, if you have been in certain circumstances very often, if you stay in these same dreadful circumstances, change of your behavior will not occur. To change your behavior, you must change of your environment. It takes experimentation to figure things out.

Stop being busy with “learning things the hard way.” Coercive or forceful behavior control is rampant everywhere as people generally don’t know how to practice positive behavior control. If you find that most of your behavior is based on trying to avoid aversive consequences (as you are trying very hard to be polite, conscious, kind, open, genuine and positive), know that you are living in threatening circumstances in which you will never be able to have SVB. “Learning things the hard way” means you are not learning anything at all. It is just another horrible saying to justify Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB). And, here is another punitive saying for you: “If you don’t want to listen, you will have to feel the consequences.” Of course, you don’t want to listen to abusive NVB speakers, who will always shame you into believing that you are creating the negative respondent behaviors which they elicit. I repeat again: you don’t cause your own behavior!!! It is totally natural to you move away from aversive stimuli. “Avoidance learning” is the process by which an individual learns a behavior or response to avoid a stressful or unpleasant situation. The behavior is to avoid, or to remove oneself from, the situation. If you didn’t do that you wouldn’t be able to survive. However, repertoire that is based on avoiding negative consequences can never make you happy. As most of your behavior is coercively controlled by what behaviorists call negative reinforcement, you only have little repertoire that is controlled by positive reinforcement. By acknowledging the environment in which you can have ongoing SVB, an increase of repertoire that is controlled by positive reinforcement will naturally occur and you will feel very confident.

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.