June 30, 2014

June 30, 2014

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Behaviorist

Dear Reader, 

During yesterday’s seminar we were talking about all the things this writer has been writing about recently. Because of all his writing his words came out fluently and without any hesitation. All participants stayed from the beginning till the end, which means, they were there at 13:00pm when the group began and they left at 17:00pm when the group ended. Everyone was intrigued with Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB). The writer created a new rule that if people would produce SVB, he would raise his right hand, but when they would produce Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB), he would raise his left hand. This non-threatening, non-punitive, nonverbal gesture proved to be very effective, more effective then any verbal explanation. 

Initially, each time he raised his right hand to indicate SVB or his left hand to indicate NVB, he also gave a brief verbal description, which, because of the nonverbal hand-signal, immediately allowed participant’s attention to go to their nonverbal experience.  His verbal description, however, stimulated participants to verbally explain to themselves what SVB means. When they were made aware by this writer’s raised left hand that they were producing NVB, they asked him why this was the case. This writer only then gave them minimal feedback and simply instructed them to “try to produce SVB instead.”  They stopped and tried and succeeded and if they didn’t, other participants came to their aid and shaped their speech by giving them their version of SVB. In the process, not only the person who was trying to move from NVB to SVB was experiencing and explaining SVB and understanding the distinction, but the entire group was involved in the discovery that was done by one person. 

This writer realizes the importance of this shaping process by the whole group for both the individual as well as for each of the individual members of the group. He had done a similar group experiment in one of his psychology classes, which wasn’t about SVB, but which success had set the stage for yesterday’s experiment. 

The aforementioned experiment, which he had also explained and referred to during yesterday’s seminar, was a straightforward demonstration of operant conditioning. One student was asked to be a participant. His behavior was going to be reinforced and punished by the other students.  He was asked to leave the class so that the students could be instructed on how to condition his behavior. He was to take a chair away from the table in the front of the class, drag it to the back of the class and then sit on it while facing the wall. The students were instructed to only say “Yes” when his behavior approximated this task or say “No” when it didn’t. Initially, the student didn’t know what to do, but soon the reinforcing “Yesses” and the punishing “No’s” provided the stimuli to drag the chair to the back of the class, where he sat on it, facing the wall. The “Yesses” immediately increased the correct behavior and the “No’s” decreased not-wanted behavior. In front of everyone’s eyes behavior had been shaped by its consequences. 

A couple of matters about this experiment need to be further addressed. The student who was the participant was willing to participate. He felt reinforced when he did what he was supposed to do and even showed some frustration when he received negative feedback in the form of “No’s”. This means that he already understood that “Yes” means right and “No” means wrong. These did not need to be conditioned, these were already conditioned.  Also the English language was already in place. If the feedback had been “Ja” and “Nee”, which is Dutch for “Yes” and “No”, he would have been clueless.   

Furthermore, he participated as best as he could because trusted that we were not going to do anything weird or harmful to him, because we had promised this to him beforehand. The establishing operation which made the “Yesses” and the “No’s” effective was that the student wanted to do the right thing. It also needs to be said that this was already part of his behavioral repertoire, which didn’t need to be conditioned. What is clear from this brief excursion into the behavioral history of the participant is that his history set the stage for him to become a participant.  He raised his hand immediately when this writer asked for a participant. 

The approximations given by the participants in yesterday’s seminar were not the straightforward “Yesses” or “No’s”, but SVB was definitely understood as right hand raised, as a “Yes” and NVB was understood as left hand raised, as a “No”. In other words, a rule had been established.  Once the rule had been made clear it was very easy to follow. No one has any problem stopping for a red light and driving with green. All communication problems can be solved by rule-governed behavior, but they can’t be addressed without rules. As the traffic light example indicates: there is no problem! The idea that there is a problem is problem. Rules of traffic are necessary, we agree on them because it makes traffic safe. Likewise, the rule of SVB makes our communication safe. Without this rule, we can go on with NVB ad infinitum. Since we lack this rule we do!

In our society we agree on rules against murder. To kill each other is against the law. This author, who is able to predict and control the behavior of others, who reliably and repeatedly makes people stop NVB and produce SVB, predicts that one day we will simply rule out NVB. He is already implementing such rules in the Psychology classes which he teaches. In the same way as the behavior of the student was controlled by his class mates, NVB was ruled out during the seminar due to the feedback from others. 

The person, who ignores the speed limit, who ignores the agreed upon rule, is punished for breaking the rule. Unlawful behavior will be decreased as long as there are negative consequences and lawful behavior increases if it is reinforced.  We can accomplish things so much more easily when we stop trying to invent the wheel and adhere to rules. This is how cultures thrive.  Yet, NVB is equally rule-governed as SVB. And, the rules that apply to SVB are not the same as those that apply to NVB. Indeed SVB and NVB are based on different sets of rules. 

Different countries, different environments have different rules and in England people drive on the left. This shows that there is no right or wrong about rules. Rules matter because we are adhering to them. In England drivers are reinforced for driving on the left, but in the United Stated people are reinforced for driving on the right. The verbal community decides what rules the individual organism must follow. The rules that apply to SVB are not any better than the rules that apply to NVB; driving to the left isn’t any better than driving to the right. 

A culture in which people have SVB is definitely different from one in which they have NVB. A country in which we drive on the left is different than one in which we drive on the right. An environment in which we feel safe and supported will give rise to different behaviors than one in which we fear and fight for our life. 

In each of the above, behavior is reinforced by the environment that we are in. This is not a choice that anyone individually makes. One finds oneself in an environment which existed before one's arrived. Likewise, different environments will continue to exist after one has died. One is affected by one’s environment whether one knows it, whether one admits it, accepts it, realizes it, understands it or not. Our freedom is determined by our understanding how we are affected by our environment.   

Our behavior: driving on the left or on the right, struggling to survive or living a peaceful life, talking with (SVB) or talking at (NVB) each other, is always determined by our environment. In certain environments, we can drive on the left, but to do so would be very dangerous, because the rule is to drive on the right. In another environment, we may try to live a peaceful life, but to do so would be against the rule and not help us to survive.  It doesn't make any sense to try to have SVB when everyone has NVB. To do so would be to go against the rule. The idea that we can individually change the rule is false. We can, of course, take the law into our own hands and do whatever we want, but even this rule-breaking behavior, this denial of the rules is also determined by our environment. 

Thus, in criminal environments different rules apply, in political environments different rules apply, in religious environments different rules apply, in scientific environments different rules apply, because each environment require and therefore condition different behaviors.  Certain scientific rules apply across environments and generalize across cultures.  The rule that we use rules to govern our behavior is as true in one culture as it is in another. SVB and NVB are response classes that occur in every language, but at different rates and intensity level.

June 29, 2014

June 29, 2014

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Behaviorist

Dear Reader, 

When this writer has Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) by himself, he speaks out loud and listens to himself, while he speaks. When he has SVB with others, others do exactly the same: they listen to themselves, while they speak together with this writer.  During SVB, all the speakers listen to themselves, while they speak.  They do this because they enjoy how they sound. They enjoy how they sound, because they enjoy of how they feel. They feel very good within their own skin, because of how they sound. Their sound is the proof to them that they feel safe, supported, happy and trusting with each other. They know, they wouldn’t and couldn’t sound this way if they felt threatened, neglected, rejected, sad and suspicious.  These negative emotional experiences produce a different kind of sound. Moreover, in Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB), they would have very different proprioceptive experiences; their bodies would feel uncomfortable.  It is always in hindsight one knows one was having NVB; by the time one knows that one was having NVB, one is already having SVB again, because the sound of one’s voice has changed. 

In SVB these are the things that happen with the speaker.  The speaker speaks and listens to him or herself. Simultaneously, the speaker experiences his or her own sound with his or her body. This physiological experience makes the speaker an embodied speaker. His or her sound is produced by the instrument of sound: his or her body. Our sound depends on the shape and the condition of our body. Under different circumstances we sound differently, because we feel differently. If we listen to how we sound, we tap into how we feel. 

In NVB we don’t listen to the sound of our negative emotions. By experimentation we can find that self-listening, which makes other-listening possible, does not occur in NVB. In NVB, our other-listening excludes our self-listening.  In NVB other-listening prevents self-listening and this in turn prevents other-listening. In NVB we listen differently to others then when we listen to ourselves.  Yet, in NVB, we neither listen to ourselves nor to each other. 

The listener who experiences SVB is able to hear and understand what the speaker says without any effort. Effortlessness is the main characteristic of SVB, whereas NVB involves effort, forcefulness and a loss of energy. Listening to someone’s SVB is energizing, because we are listening to positive emotions which stimulate and resonate with our own positive emotions. Listening to NVB, we tap into our negative emotions. Since the listener’s public speech is positively impacted in SVB, since the relationship between the listener and the speaker in SVB is authentic, equal and ongoing, the willingness to listen in SVB is voluntary. In NVB, by contrast, listening is coerced, because there is inequality between the speaker and the listener. In NVB, the listener is lower, not as important or less powerful than the speaker. Because SVB public speech is reinforcing, the listener doesn’t experience any negative private speech which distracts from what the speaker is saying.  Such distractions occur only during NVB.  

The listener in NVB pretends to listen to the speaker and does what he or she is told, not because he or she wants to, but because he or she feels that he or she has to, because he or she is forced by the speaker. The listener in NVB is constantly made afraid for the consequences of not listening to the speaker. Thus, we are NOT listening in most of our communication, we are incapable of listening in most of our communication, which is NVB, because we are afraid of punitive consequences. This fear of listening is an important topic about which I shall later write more.

It seems to me that we are more afraid of what we fear we might lose than of what we can loose. In other words, much of our fear is imaginary.  We fear rejection, loss of relationship and opportunity, but unless we achieve SVB, we don’t realize that NVB will continue to exploit us for something it can't even deliver. NVB keeps us on our tows, but it never results in happy and healthy relationship, because it forces us to do things; the speaker coerces the listener.  Although most of us think that this is just an inevitable fact of life, we keep missing out on SVB, because we imitate how others speak. On the whole, the listener in NVB doesn’t get to speak that much, but if he or she does, he or she is bound to do so in a NVB fashion, that is, he or she will also make others listen to him or her. In NVB, listeners even make themselves listen, and they even force themselves to speak.

June 28, 2014

June 28, 2014

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Behaviorist

Dear Reader, 

It is quite surprising to this writer how much he enjoys writing. Writing is his new way of speaking. When he starts, he wonders what he will be writing about and something interesting always presents itself. He finds it relaxing and he considers writing as quality time with himself. Right now is three ‘o clock in the morning. The night is cool and quiet. Far away he heard a train and the birds are singing. 

In a little while, he will go back to bed, but for now he speaks with himself with these words. It is a sense of control and peace which is found this way and he wants to hear what he has to say. He doesn’t have to say it, but he can, if he wants to say it. He can determine what he wants to say, in his own way. 

Yesterday, he walked with his wife through the neighborhood. It was a nice walk and people said “good evening” in a friendly manner. He spoke with his wife about his recent emotional outburst when he opened this box with pictures of his family. He was thinking of contacting his family again, because he felt bad again about keeping his family out of his life, but his wife discouraged him. When they were talking, it was a relief to let them go once more and to be able to think that it is okay the way it is and that he doesn’t need to contact them again. 

It is still a new experience for this writer that he is now free from his past with his family. To write this sentence is liberating to him. To speak about himself in the third-person is also helping him to take distance from the things he was for so long so involved in, so attached to and so troubled by. 

There is more calm in his life these days. He is also free from other problems he used have and he is slowly getting used to not having many problems or not even having any problems at all. It is strange for him not to have any problems. He has a t-shirt that says “life is good”. He had a good first week at his new job. He had a training together with his colleagues and he is learning new behaviors.

This writer has learned and is still in the process of learning not to do or say things which before he felt he had to do or say. It is not really a new behavior because it deals with not doing and not saying. As he is doing and saying less and less, life keeps getting better and better. It is really amazing how much gets accomplished in an effective manner by doing and saying as little as possible. 

Even in his writing he practices the minimalism he enjoys. It is an art to say as much as possible with as few words as possible. This writer has always been rather lengthy, but has decided that he wants to be briefer. His success in accomplishing this is more satisfying than how he conducted himself before. 

At this point, Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) involves an exploration of writing. Writing happens because there is something to write, because something makes us write. Writing is a function of saying something. Although writing is not the same as speaking, although the contingencies that make us write are different than the contingencies that make us speak, they are two different categories of verbal behavior. Likewise, also SVB and Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB) are two different categories of verbal behavior. When we say something in an angry or hostile manner, this is called NVB, because our nonverbal behavior is based on negative emotions. The word ‘Noxious’ is used to describe the nonverbal effects on listeners. In NVB, a speaker's nonverbal expressions are experienced by the listener as aversive stimuli.  In SVB, however, we only express positive emotions. Although we are verbal in SVB and NVB, we can only be truly verbal SVB. We communicate only in SVB. No matter how verbal we are in NVB, we don't communicate.

Being verbal doesn’t mean that we communicate. We only communicate when it is possible for us to communicate. Negative emotions, such as fear, anger, distrust, irritation, anxiety and sadness make communication impossible. We think they are part of communication, but they are not. They prevent communication and have to be absent for it to start. Because we are so used to and conditioned by NVB, we never explored what SVB is like. SVB is based on the absence of negative stimuli.

June 27, 2014

June 27, 2014

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Behaviorist

Dear Reader, 

 

It happens again and again that this writer hears what other people have been going through is exactly the same as what he went through. This uniformity should be expected from the science called Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB). 

A person is believed to have achieved literacy when he or she has mastered four different behaviors, which are learned separately: listening, speaking, reading and writing. Listening and speaking must be joined for this person to become fully verbal. What this means is that listening and speaking happen at the same rate and intensity level, rather than that they occur separately, on different occasions. In SVB, speakers listen while they speak. Also, reading and writing are ideally joined; the writer reads his or her writing while he or she is writing, rather than reading after he or she has written or before he or she has started writing. 

The notion that something entirely new can be said, when a speaker listens to him or herself, while he or she speaks, originates in a stimulus control which was not operating when we didn’t listen to ourselves while we speak. Therefore, what we say is a function of how we sound. Novelty of public speech is a function of listening while we speak. Listening occurring privately, before or after we have spoken, leads to communication problems in both our public and private speech. 

In SVB public speech, because the speaker listens to him or herself while he or she speaks, he or she experiences SVB private speech, which only occurs during SVB public speech. Since SVB private speech is a continuation of the positive emotions expressed during SVB public speech, we are happy with ourselves and each other during SVB. However, this happiness doesn’t necessarily result in positive private speech, it may also results in the total absence of private speech, in silence. After SVB public speech has occurred, there may be an absence of private speech. After the accurate expression of our thoughts and feelings in SVB we become quiet. 

In Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB), in which the speaker listens to himself before or after he or she has spoken and not while he or she is speaking, public speech sets the stage for negative private speech.  Moreover, public speech is no longer a function of his or her environment, but it is a function of what this person is saying to him or herself privately. Although the negative emotions of NVB private speech were learned or conditioned in a negative NVB public speech environment, the NVB speaker’s public speech is now determined by his or her NVB private speech.  Stated differently, the NVB speaker is out of touch with his or her environment.

In SVB, by contrast, public speech is always function of the environment or, more accurately, of other people. During NVB, a person’s negative private speech doesn't  abate and therefore keeps setting the stage for NVB public speech. In NVB we can neither have peace with each nor can we have peace with ourselves.  The idea that we should try to change ourselves is the same as the idea that we should try to change others. However, we only keep thinking that we need to change ourselves or each other as long as we don’t view SVB as well as NVB as behaviors which are a function of our environment. There is no inner agent who causes our behavior!

We never individually produce English, Dutch, or Chinese, but we are part of a verbal community. Likewise, SVB and NVB are not behaviors we individually chose, but something we always do together. 

This writer, who in this writing experiences and enjoys the joining of his writing with his reading, realizes that most of what has been written is the product of NVB. NVB reflects the incessant negative private speech of authors, who wanted to be speakers, who wanted to be listened to and understood, who longed for SVB, but who didn’t know how to have it. Like everyone else, this writer, based on his being conditioned by NVB, was also once convinced that expressing his negative private speech into public was the most important thing to do. He did this in an attempt to rid himself of his negative emotions, but it never worked.

In SVB there is nothing to get rid of. The absence of aversive stimulation creates an environment in which we can communicate like we have never done before.  The only thing that works is the environment in which SVB is possible. 

When we don’t have any back problems, we don’t feel our back, but when we sprain a muscle, we feel our back all the time. In good health, we aren't even aware that our back is fine. Similarly, our private speech is only about things that we need to watch out for and be careful about. Said differently, private speech is basically always negative. It warns us for the negative stimuli outside of our skin, in our environment, which we need to avoid. Why would we want to have back problems? We must be careful when lifting things and be mindful about how much we can carry. If we try to lift too much weight, we will ruin our backs. NVB weighs us down, because of our over-involvement with the negative stimuli in our environment. Oddly, in NVB, we approach instead of avoid such stimuli. Indeed, in NVB, we are getting on each other’s back. Due to NVB people seem to have lost their backbone.  In NVB, we try to carry the weight of the world or we throw our weight around.

In SVB, by contrast, we have each other’s back. In SVB, we back up and we find that our verbal expressions are always embedded in our nonverbal experiences. In SVB, we back out of meaningless, NVB argumentation. In SVB we come back to our senses, because we embody our language. Coming back to our senses means we perceive safe environments as safe, we avoid and know how to avoid unsafe environments. In SVB, we get back to how we as individual organisms experience our environment. In SVB, by following the sound of our own voice, we follow the way back to our own well-being. In SVB, we become aware of circumstances that once existed, way back, in which we were happy and content. 

After SVB, there is nothing to hang on to anymore, not even our positive self-talk. After SVB, conflicts about who we believe to be completely dissolve, because SVB makes us one and allows us to experience unity while we speak. We go through many similar experiences and these experiences are expressed appropriately. SVB doesn’t lead to positive self-talk, but to absence of self-talk, because there is no self.  This however doesn’t mean that we are unconscious. To the contrary, due to SVB we are conscious and due to NVB we are unconscious and mechanical.