January 30, 2015

January 30, 2015

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Reader, 

 

The question why most human behavior across the globe is still governed by coercive processes and  why we are so inclined to punish instead of reinforce, is not answered by the fact that “punishment is an effective procedure, when it occurs in certain way, and especially in the short term.” (Ledoux, 2014, p. 359). Punishment can only result in this immediate effect of decreasing a behavior as long as it is accompanied by a punitive way of communicating, what this writer calls Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB). 

Without laws, verbally behaving organisms wouldn’t be able to achieve any “seizable decrease in the punished-behavior rate” by punishing “immediately” and “consistently” and with the “necessary intensity.” Of course, laws are written versions of what people supposedly agree on with each other. When we ask ourselves why coercive control, in spite of its tremendously negative long-term consequences, continues to be our standard, we must also look at how these punishment procedures and our common way of communicating, NVB, are codified by the law. 

In this writing, however, this writer brings the reader’s attention to the fact that NVB is an inevitable part of and necessarily needed for the implementation of punishment. Thus, NVB and coercion is perpetuated by law. However, it is also quite evident that without the law there would be  chaos. If, on the other hand, Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB), better and improved communication, would ensue, we would create very different laws, which would reinforce other behavior. In the short-term SVB is often punished by NVB, but in the long-term SVB is reinforced and will counteract and replace NVB punishment.

Punishing SVB reinforces NVB. If a parent doesn’t know how to reinforce the child, that parent, in one way or another will punish their child. Sadly, when the child who is hit by its parents immediately obeys and decreases its defiant behavior, this postcedent consequence reinforces the hitting behavior of the parent. Likewise, the consequences of punishing NVB is the reinforcement of its use. “While the long-range effects of punishment involve those problems of emotional effects and escape, avoidance; and countercoercion (among others), one immediate effect of punishment involves the quick and substantial reduction of the punished behavior” (Ledoux, 2014, p. 359). The question may arise: why do we punish SVB? If it is so beneficial and having such wonderful long-range consequences, why are we not reinforcing it? The short answer is: we don’t know how to reinforce it. The longer answer is: NVB keeps us trapped into short-term thinking. Also, emotional effects, escape and avoidance in others, which were caused by our NVB, give us a sense of power and make us believe that we are not like that. Since NVB is hierarchical, there is always someone above us and below us. Due to our status we may be able to deal with the punishment which we receive or self-inflict a little differently, but at best we only imagine that we are not on the receiving end of NVB.  

This writer, who has worked with many powerful, capable people, knows from their personal stories that they too experience emotional effects, escape and avoidance. The more powerful people became in their lives, the more conditioned punitive NVB effects appear to be. They could only get to their place of power, because they were praised continuously for their ability to punish others and their so-called discipline is based on being punitive to themselves. They punish SVB so harshly, because it exposes how they escape and avoid themselves and don’t know how they really feel.

January 29, 2015

January 29, 2015

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Reader, 

 

Punishment is a “postcedent process or procedure” which “occurs either as an addition or subtraction of stimuli” (Ledoux, 2015, p.358). Because of his knowledge about how punishment by subtraction works in our spoken communication, this writer has often endured punishment by addition. For more than twenty five years he has been focusing on the two response classes of vocal verbal behavior between which all human interaction constantly meanders: Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) and Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB). This writer became interested in the process of punishment by subtraction, when he became aware that NVB decreases SVB. Simply stated, NVB is the language of coercion and punishment, but SVB is the language of added reinforcement. Unless we realize how often we punish instead of reinforce SVB, it will never increase. SVB has not and could not be increased, because it was and is continually decreased by NVB. This important issue must be addressed head on. 

The ubiquity of NVB is made possible by the functional reduction of the ongoing rate of SVB. Although SVB is made increasingly impossible, it is becoming more and more evident that we can’t do without it. Without SVB  human relationship disintegrates. NVB and the fall-out of coercion must be stopped before SVB can begin to occur. Unless NVB, the communication which involves forceful control of human conduct, is brought to an end, we will not be able to have positive relationships.  Behaviorology, the natural science of human behavior, predicted this outcome since its incursion. This writer is not a doom-preacher, but a behavioral engineer, who is 100% capable of creating and maintaining environments in which SVB will occur. Moreover, all the people who participate with him in SVB, will know that it is happening and will be aware of the contingency which makes this happen.

The rate of SVB can be deliberately and reliably increased due to the positive energy traces that are coming from postcedent stimuli. Only if we are positively reinforced for SVB will it increase. NVB can’t do that. When communicators are repeatedly in environments in which increases of SVB and decreases of NVB are experienced, their nervous system structure will be transformed such that the antecedent stimuli that typically evoke SVB will begin to function more effectively. That is, the sound and impact of someone’s voice will more likely engage us in SVB, because our body was changed over time by SVB’s regulating effects. The opposite is true for NVB, which decreases SVB.  NVB disregulates our nervous system and makes us feel ashamed, embarrassed, not taken serious, weak, rejected, nervous and walked over, each time we produce SVB. Such punishing consequences then will make us produce less SVB. 

NVB is of course also postcedently reinforced either by added or by subtracted reinforcement. That is, our NVB is increased or strengthed by its consequences. No matter how alluring these so-called added benefits of NVB may be, they always go together with decrease of SVB. Moreover, they replace SVB and our need for SVB with something else. Supposedly, because of the much-praised benefits of NVB, such as income, career, security, fame, status and power, SVB doesn’t matter anymore, can be forgotten or can be forever postponed.   It should be clear to anyone who is reading this text that the insane, widespread, coercive, pre-scientific, unethical, immoral and inhuman control of human behavior, continues because of our NVB, which forever distracts and dissociates us from our SVB. There is not a shred of evidence in behaviorology that our mandatory way of speaking, NVB, is going to help us to raise our children, improve our relationships or provide world peace. Only SVB can reliably do that. 

When we look more closely at the so-called added reinforcement of NVB, it becomes apparent that we are completely mistaken. Although it looks as if NVB is maintained by added reinforcement, it is in fact maintained by subtracted reinforcement. Just as driving within the speed limit is reinforced (more likely to occur in the future) by a speeding ticket, which would subtract money from our bank account, we are also threatened into NVB, because we would lose all the perks that supposedly signify positive reinforcement; we are enslaved by NVB. 

Because punishment procedures and coercion form the essence of NVB, we must take a closer look at NVB in terms of what it decreases. When we say that NVB decreases SVB, we mean that it limits everything that makes us human. Indeed, NVB “induces disabling emotional anxieties and exaggeration of some subsequent operant reactions. It compels those on the receiving end to get away from the punisher (including any person providing the punishment), to stay away from the punisher, and to get even with the punisher. In technical terms we refer to these last three major effects of punishment – getting away, staying away, and getting even – as escape, avoidance, and countercoercion.” (Ledoux, 2014, p.358-359). 

Whether we know it or not, show it or not, admit it or not or, are aware of it or not, we are trying to get away from each other or we are trying to take revenge on each other during NVB. The sound of our voice in NVB signals distraction, struggle or attack. The latter often elicits counter attack, but struggle and distraction “often takes an exaggerated form due to emotional components.” (Ledoux, 2014, p. 359). Accurate expression of emotions is impossible in NVB. Furthermore, because NVB is a hierarchical way of communicating, when fighting back or attacking is not possible, we take it out on those below us or on ourselves.

January 27, 2015

January 27, 2015 

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer 

Dear Reader, 

It takes a person like this writer, who struggled throughout his life with the way in which coercive control conditioned and respondently limited his operant behavior, to long for a solution. Each time this writer found something that was reinforcing, he ran with it and took it as far as he could. At one point in his life he studied years of classical singing and aspired to be tenor-singer in the opera. During those years he learned to listen to nuances of his voice and sense with his body when his voice was resonating. Although he was quite successful, he didn’t want to continue because spoken communication was more satisfying and intellectually stimulating to him than singing. 

This writing is to remind the reader that his discovery of listening to his voice while he speaks, which is SVB, didn’t come out of the blue. After he had left his study in singing, he went through a poetry-phase and for the first time began to express as precisely as possible what he really felt and thought. Although he was strongly reinforced for his poetry, it didn’t translate into better communication with others. How he wanted to communicate was determined by a sound of his voice which he was only seldom capable of producing in his interactions with others. This intrigued him. Why was it so difficult to speak with that particular sound which made him feel so good? Why did he keep losing his voice? 

It took him many years to find out that his sound was affected by his environment and always expressed what was happening in his immediate surroundings. Consequently, in aversive environments he produced NVB, but in safe and supportive environments, he produced SVB. Slowly, but surely, he began to figure out that our way of communicating is, mostly without us knowing it, primarily based on how we sound. Due to how he grew up, this writer was conditioned to escape and avoid any aversive tone of voice. He was only able to learn from those whom he liked and those who had a negative impact on him began to trouble him less and less.   

Skinner in “The literature of freedom and dignity emphasizes ending that kind of [coercive] control, but largely ignores, even denies, the vital effects on our existence of added-reinforcement, an ignorance that can lead to disastrous global outcomes.” [word added] (Ledoux, 2014, p. 357). Compared to this writer, Skinner grew up under much more reinforcing circumstances. Since added reinforcement contrasts with punishment and since Skinner was so ingeniously effective in managing his environment, mankind’s need for added reinforcement at best became a literary topic, which was emphasized artistically as long as his verbal behavior was under control of the contingency of becoming a writer (this was Skinner's past passion). To further the cause of the science of human behavior, radical behaviorism, it was more effective to hit back at the field of psychology with the negative consequences of coercion. It is interesting to note that it was only at the very end of his life that Skinner gave his approval for behaviorology to establish itself as a separate science. And, of course, it also took someone with a history like Ledoux, to establish behaviorology and to increasingly focus more on added reinforcement. 

In spite of all the developments in which others explored the workings of operant conditioning, something has prevented behaviorologists from recognizing that even they must learn to talk in a different way. Unless  added reinforcement would change the way in which they communicated, they remained oblivious of the two response patterns or rather, the two entirely different environments that are involved in producing SVB and NVB.  Because they were so busy writing and studying, they never even bothered with the “ever present and always operating” vocal verbal behavior  involved in “behavioral control” which “comes in two flavors, which we call positive control and negative control.” (Ledoux, 2014, p. 357). This important distinction dovetails perfectly with SVB and NVB.

January 26, 2015

January 26, 2015

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Reader, 

It is becoming clear that Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB), the spoken communication which is going on everywhere, twenty-four-seven, is the language of coercion. During NVB communicators have the opposite effect on each other than in Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB), in which their verbal behavior is under bi-directional reinforcing postcedent control. In NVB, communicators are punishing each other, threatening and intimidating each other with punishment or they are oppressing, bullying and frightening each other by withholding reinforcement. 

In chapter 16, about “Aversive Control” in the book  “Running Out Of Time” Ledoux states the obvious, but often overlooked fact that “Control by both coercion and added reinforcers has always been with us.”  (2014, p. 357). We can deduce from this simple observation there must also be and there have always been two entirely different ways of communicating: SVB, the verbal behavior which is controlled by added reinforcement, and NVB, the verbal behavior which is controlled by coercion. Moreover, the ubiquity of NVB not only indicates that “our verbal behavior about control overemphasizes aversive control”, but it also signifies our bias towards what “pre-scientifically” seems to be “the most obvious kind of control, as if it were the only kind of control” (Ledoux, 2015, p.357). 

Stated more succinctly, SVB, based on added reinforcement, has to be our scientific way of communicating.  SVB is a much better way than NVB of controlling behavior verbally.  Unless we address the great difference between SVB and NVB and acknowledge that only the former can make scientific thinking possible, while the latter will keep us stuck in various pre-scientific coercion traps, we will neither be stimulated nor inspired to begin to replace NVB by SVB.

This writer, who was at the receiving end of a lot of aversive control while growing up, who, like many others who grew up under such circumstances, has been profoundly affected and deeply troubled by this, is relieved to have found Skinner’s radical behaviorism and now Ledoux’s behaviorology. 

Without the scientific knowledge about how his behavior is and has always been a function of environmental variables, he wouldn’t have been able to come to terms with his problems. He is well aware that many others, like him, are struggling with similar problems, but can’t make any progress because they are not taught behaviorology. All they receive in the name of mental health, is NVB, coercive communication. 

This writer has studied psychology and has worked in mental health for more than ten years and has seen and heard NVB over and over again. It is not intentional, as it is the contingency of reinforcement which keeps NVB and SVB going. Even with the best of so-called intentions or unconditional positive regard, even with all the so-called knowledge involved in ‘eclectic’ approaches, practitioners are still producing mainly NVB, while they are pretending to have SVB. 

Interestingly, behaviorologists and behaviorists have repeatedly been accused of circular thinking. They were blamed for insisting on and thus repeating their scientific explanations and coming up with even better and improved scientific explanations. Yet, the empirical data they accumulated doesn’t speak for itself and is unfortunately mostly ignored.  How can this be? Scientific explanations of behavior cannot be comprehended as long as people are not taught about it and changed by it. In other words, teaching requires a new way of communicating. NVB will not and cannot bring about the changes which require SVB. Although radical behaviorists like Skinner and behaviorologists like Ledoux, have amassed irrefutable evidence, they haven’t and couldn’t  begin to address the much-needed new way of communicating: SVB.  

January 25, 2015

January 25, 2015

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Reader, 

Given his high and steady rate of responding and the fact that only once in while this writer is postcedently reinforced, his Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) can be said to be on a variable ratio (VR) schedule of reinforcement. Approximately, as little as three out of hundred of his SVB responses are praised. When he was full-time employed, he would have said five out of hundred, but lately reinforcement dropped to almost nothing and the rate of responding, as usual under this VR-contingency, has gone up, leading to a bit of a burn-out.  Even thinking about SVB at this point is punishing to this writer. Just as a gambler who is losing money, while operating the slot-machine that pays out a response-to-reinforcer ratio of one out of thousand, this writer now feels very sad, spend and run out of resources.  

Like a gambler, who lost his shirt, this writer hoped for reinforcement, but he lost his job. He was made to believe that he would win the jackpot: he was hired and praised for his SVB. Of course, he ‘won’ a couple of times: they praised him and they liked him and then he got hooked, in spite of the fact that over time, their reinforcement became and less and less. He has lost friends, family, jobs, opportunities and years of his life in this process.  There is not enough reinforcement for SVB. 

Although right now he is feeling depressed, this author knows that once the school semester has started, he will feel reinforced again for his SVB by his students. This prediction is reliable and it gives him solace to think of this. Right now, however, since the semester hasn’t started yet, and since he has no employment other than this part-time teaching job, he hasn’t had much reinforcement for almost a whole month. 

The call he received from Stephen Ledoux wasn’t reinforcing, but punishing. Ledoux, whose book he is reading, doesn’t realize that SVB is behaviorism and behaviorology.  Once this writer is again in front of his class, due to his behavioral engineering, SVB will be on a different schedule of reinforcement.  Right now, however, reinforcement for his SVB depends on his wife and the very few people he may run into here or there, who happen to have a similar behavioral history, due to which they are open to his SVB and are capable of reinforcing it. Attempts to meet them have, as they have done in the past, led to a lot of rejection. Ledoux is a case in point. Even though Ledoux can sense this writer has identified something important, he insists SVB only matters if it is written about. He even invited this writer to submit a paper to the behaviorology journal.

When this author was younger, he would ride his bicycle all over town and change from one environment to another multiple times because he was so mobile. He would visit different people and places, sometimes he enjoyed the crowd and other times he appreciated just being alone. His genetic predisposition equipped him with a vibrant body. Although his lifeliness was reified and dispositionalized as ‘restlessness’, reinforcers would accumulate faster since his presumed ‘urgency’ for SVB produced such a high rate of responding. He was literally all over the place to be able to tell everybody about SVB, whether they wanted to hear it or not. Even though he didn’t call it SVB back then, he knew he was onto something because enough people had reinforced him. However, life is catching up with this writer. He is no longer rides his bicycle through town like he used to.  Besides, he emigrated to the United States and started a new life in this totally different environment. This led him to go back to school and study psychology and eventually behaviorism and behaviorology. Now the “counter-controlling contingencies” (Ledoux, 2014, p.339) like paying  mortgage of the house, wanting a steady job and thinking about old age and having money for retirement, compete with those needed for SVB.