January 13, 2014

January 13, 2014

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Behaviorist

Dear Reader, 

When there is communication, there exists an attraction between the speaker and the listener, which makes the speaker want to speak and which makes the listener want to listen. This magnetism determines that verbal and nonverbal expressions are aligned and that verbal expressions are never disconnected from or inconsiderate of nonverbal expressions. This author calls this Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB), because the voice of the speaker makes it easy to listen to what is being said. 

In SVB the listener gets energy by listening to the speaker. This is not so in Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB) in which listeners experience an energy loss. Because we don’t speak about the sound of the speaker, we think it has something to do with what is being said, but once we focus on how someone sounds it becomes clear that the sound of NVB drains us.

Alignment of verbal and nonverbal expressions also determines that what is said makes more sense and is meaningful. This effect on the listener occurs because of how we speak, but it is also because what we say in SVB is arranged differently. The connection between the speaker and the listener, which in SVB is affirmed and thus remains unbroken, allows the attention of both the speaker and the listener to be focused on what is being said. No attention is diverted in SVB by nonverbal aspects of speech, which in NVB distract from the verbal message. A  related matter is that this attention is effortlessly produced by both the listener and the speaker. In SVB, listeners are not straining to listen, nor are speakers straining to speak. This voluntary collaboration between speakers and listeners creates and maintains a positive communication environment in which participants will feel refreshed and full of energy.  

January 12, 2014

January 12, 2014

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Behaviorist

Dear Reader, 

Today’s writing is written with the letter type “magneto.” It attracted this writer because since childhood he has been fascinated by magnets. A teacher once showed him two types of magnets: one in the shape of a horse shoe and another in the shape of a bar. He held them behind a piece of paper on which iron powder was sprinkled and made the magnetic field visible. It was demonstrated that different seize magnets have different magnetic fields and that the bigger the magnet, the bigger the magnetic field. Also it was shown that the magnetic field decreases as one moves away from the magnet. Two magnets with the same poles will push each other away, but magnets with different poles attract each other. Another fact about magnets was that some metals are magnetic, while others are not. 

The impact of these demonstrations was long lasting.  Once one has seen the workings of magnets, one knows that there is lawfulness to the natural world. This writer remembers another demonstration he will never forget. The teacher had a metal ball and an iron ring. He heated the iron ball, which expanded and no longer fitted through the ring. By cooling it in cold water, he shrunk it to its original seize and it fitted again through the ring. This demonstration taught us about heat and cold, which caused the expansion and shrinkage of the iron ball.

Causal relationships are essential to science and both experiments created an unshakable foundation. Causal relationships also exist in how we behave verbally, in what this author calls Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) and Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB). It is needed to discuss these two dimensions as objective, verifiable, replicable processes. 

In SVB as well as in NVB things are said because we are attracted to saying them. This attraction reflects previous social reinforcements, which set the stage for our future behavior. Where there was reinforcement for our calmness, kindness, gentleness, sensitivity, playfulness and exploration, we would be more inclined to SVB. However, if intimidation, coercion, harshness, domination, competition or insensitivity were reinforced, we were more likely to have NVB in our future. We have so many NVB problems in our lives because they are reinforced. Likewise, we have so little problem-free SVB because we are not reinforced enough to keep it going. 

We were all, to some extent, reinforced for SVB while we grew up, but most of us develop with tendencies toward the NVB end of the spectrum. Only very few of us develop habits that are directed towards the SVB end of the spectrum. By and large, we are familiar with SVB, but we couldn’t continue with it because our reinforcement histories determined otherwise. We didn’t ourselves choose this; it was our environment, the verbal community to which we belong, which determined this for us. 

Ignorance about the fact that we were determined by our environments has prevented us from recognizing that we were never individually responsible for any of our behaviors.  Our environment is like the magnet behind the paper, which determines that the iron powder has its particular shape. If human beings are like magnets, then SVB is attracted to NVB and visa versa, because opposite poles attract each other. This is evident in how peace-nics and hawks define each other as opposites. Those who veer to the SVB end of the spectrum are trying to change NVB communicators. However, during this process they lose SVB and become NVB communicators. 

Reinforcement histories which are the strongest win from histories that are less strong. Also NVB communicators are attracted to SVB communicators. That is why they create as many slaves, servants, underlings, followers, criminals, needy people, minimum wagers, consumers, believers, fearful peasants, soldiers, heroes, patriots and voters as possible.   

Continuing our thought-experiment of mapping the properties of magnets onto the SVB and NVB spectrum, it may become clear why supposedly like-minded people always reject each other. Two similar poles of two identical bar magnets separate due to a force which doesn’t allow them to be together. Even if we bring them together with both hands, they separate again if we release the force that we applied to make that possible. 

Likewise, SVB often brings together people, who say they want peace, justice, openness, freedom and love, but who separate again due to their previously obtained behavioral histories. In the same way, NVB pulls people together in order to fight, compete, work, pray, study, explore and play hard, but this false togetherness doesn’t last long and is only a big masquerade.

In interaction opposites attract: SVB could interact with NVB without trying to change it or without losing SVB and NVB communicators could communicate with SVB without silencing it completely Change comes from more interaction between NVB and SVB. Technology makes this increase in interaction inevitable. Increase in the rate of responding between SVB and NVB will change both groups alike. The change occurs because both histories of reinforcement are changed by experiences that didn’t and couldn’t happen before. These changes are only indirectly facilitated by SVB communicators, who, by avoiding the confrontation with NVB communicators, will create an entirely new situation. NVB is always more attracted to SVB than SVB is attracted to NVB, but only SVB communicators can let nature take its cause.  

The stories we tell ourselves and each other are ways to create a social unity which exists like a magnetic field. It exists as an effect of the verbal community in which these stories were told. NVB and SVB are like different languages, spoken by those who have a history of reinforcement with them. There is nothing right or wrong. This view that in terms of their history of reinforcement SVB and NVB are equally lawful, makes us see that the moral issue we have made out of our behavior is not helping us at all. Lofty ideas about right and wrong have nothing to do with how behavior is increased or decreased. 

If deviant behavior is reinforced, it will occur more often in the future. By calling it deviant we are not putting ourselves in the position.to understand what reinforces it. This is equally true for social behavior we would like to see. By calling someone’s actions good, we have not described how that behavior comes about. Hang ups about good and evil make us attribute inner qualities to ourselves and each other, which prevent us from acknowledging that circumstances, not internal processes, cause our behavior. 

This brings us to the expanding iron ball, which no longer fitted through the metal ring. There is no inner cause why the iron ball expanded. It was a hot environment which made it expand. Without the heat it would not have expanded. The behavior of the iron ball changed and it did no longer fit through the ring. The expanding behavior of the iron ball can be reversed by changing its environment and by putting it in a bucket of water. As long as we keep the environment at a constant, the ball will reliably be able to pass through the ring. Exactly the same is true for how we communicate. Only if we keep the environment stable can we understand that our environment causes our behavior. 

The heat which expands the iron ball can be compared to the aversive stimulation that is produced in NVB. The voices of people who engage in NVB are produced by nervous systems which are dis-regulated. Environments that maintain NVB are one’s in which communicators are threatened, violated, hurt, humiliated, confused, distracted and alienated Environments like that have devastating consequences for our behavior. Environments in which SVB occurs are not the same as those in which NVB occurs. Environments in which SVB is possible are environments that make NVB impossible. Environments in which NVB is made possible are environments which make SVB impossible. No iron ball can simultaneously shrink and expand and no human being can simultaneously be involved in SVB and NVB. The idea that this is possible is because of good and evil, but these values always refer to which behaviors are reinforced and increased and which are punished and decreased. 

The notion of good and evil may assume that good or bad qualities exist inside each of us, but if the iron ball has no inner qualities due to which it shrinks or expands, neither does anything else in the material world. Human beings are part of the material world and are bound by its laws. The inescapable reality of our communication problems has given rise to all sorts of stories, which are contradicted by the science of human behavior. The facts about human relationship are not to be found in any of our stories. Regardless of how much stories have helped us cope in the past, they can't solve our current problems. All our old stories produce NVB and are preventing SVB. Stories are monologues which are preventing dialogues. NVB is uni-directional, but SVB is bi-directional. Also, we may believe that our stories have changed, but this is just another story we tell ourselves. SVB heralds the end of all our violent stories.

January 11, 2014

January 11, 2014

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Behaviorist

Dear Reader, 

The communication we all know is called Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB)r and the communication we don’t know and at best are only slightly familiar with, is called Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB). It may strike the reader as an exaggeration that this author claims that nobody was listening to each other, that we were never really listened to and that because of that we don’t listen to ourselves. Most people think communication is not that bad, we are making progress and things are not black and white as this author suggests, but evidence is missing. Behaviorists acknowledge that listening, because of its power, has become a taboo subject. 

As is always with taboos, it is no longer talked or written about. Listening is an outdated topic. When writers express feelings and thoughts which readers recognize,we feel, while reading, as if we are being listened to. We can follow what they are saying because they speak with us not at us. People who talk too fast, who talk at us, must learn to slow down so that they begin to talk with us and can be understood. Writers who talk too fast are easier to be recognized than speakers who talk too fast. We don’t want to read what is written if it doesn’t have any appeal to us, but in spoken communication,we often fake it or have to fake it that we are listening and understanding what is being said. This is also true for listening to calm, but pseudo-spontaneous communicators, who with seductive charm are able to influence us. They may be able to manipulate and dominate the attention of their audience, but that doesn’t mean that their communication is reciprocal. The uni-directional communication, which takes place and is believed to be bi-directional, always shows up, but only later.

Falsehoods, which we should simply call stimuli, are maintained by uni-directional communication in which the link between response and consequences becomes invisible. When immediate feedback is not allowed, it is difficult to see which stimuli maintain our behavior. In speech immediate feedback is condemned and  understanding about what maintains our spoken communication is lacking. 

The meaning of words depends on the verbal community to which we belong. Although we like to think otherwise, meaning exists separate from us. That is why Dutch makes no sense in Russia. What is meant by what is said can only be known to those who speak the language. We are representatives of a verbal community, but we can’t be that verbal community by ourselves. We talk as separate organisms, but others are needed to experience and maintain our verbal community. Our language resembles a community. It falls apart if words are spoken so fast that we can’t keep up with them. In SVB our boundaries are maintained by the pace of our words. In NVB,words follow in rapid succession, without a sense of respect for others. The NVB speaker’s wordiness floods the anxious listener. We can predetermine the pace of our speech, but such speech is NVB. Therapists, priests and peace activists have talked in a slower manner than most other people, but also news readers, car sales people and politicians.

SVB isn’t produced by slowing down our speech. Many are befooled by the impression that SVB can be achieved if we would just slow down. This happens every day, everywhere. The pace of SVB, which is certainly much more enjoyable than NVB, is not a matter of trying to slow down. Because is it impossible for sensitive people to influence insensitive people, those with NVB usually affect those with SVB in such a way that SVB disappears. Thus, NVB can only speak with NVB and SVB speaks with SVB, but we always speak the same language.

January 10, 2014

January 10, 2014

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Behaviorist

Dear Reader, 

 

When writing is like speaking and reading is like listening, it can be said in writing that when we stop reading, we actually stop listening. Why do we want to read certain words, but not others? Words invite us or they don’t. When we can’t and don’t think while we read thoughts that link the text to what we already know, when covert private speech, our self-talk, is not stimulated by written words to become part of overt public speech, we feel excluded and are likely to give up on what we read. We keep reading based on intermittent reinforcement, which is  the schedule of reinforcement that causes behavior that is most difficult to extinguish and has the highest response rate, because only once in a while there is a surprise reinforcement. What we know affects how we talk with ourselves, our private speech. The writing which doesn’t appeal to our self-talk can’t teach us anything, because we don’t want to read it. We read only what appeals to us because we like to read it. As our need for this kind of writing mostly determines what is written, many texts are written presumably to fulfill that need. However, when texts are written to satisfy a need which was not recognized and which had remained unfulfilled, such writings have nothing to do with the transmission of knowledge. While readers are only reading something that is reinforcing to them, they are on an intermittent reinforcement schedule for reasons that only benefit the writer. The readers buy these writer’s books because they are sold on his or her use of language. However, such emphasis on written words, which ideally represent our real world, still remains a function of our spoken communication, in which we weren’t listened to and in which we didn’t really listen to each other.