August 13, 2014

August 13, 2014

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Behaviorist

Dear Reader, 

 

Skinnner has gotten us started on Verbal Behavior (1957). He urged behaviorists to use his work only as a beginning, but he by no means claimed to have said the final word. He reasoned that the mediator [the listener] provides the conditions that make clear the conduct of the verbalizer [the speaker]. Moreover, to accomplish a complete description of our verbal behavior, he insisted on the distinct, yet perfectly dovetailing explanation of the behaviors of both the verbalizer and the mediator. 

Obviously, the mediator doesn’t and can't reinforce all the behaviors of the verbalizer. He or she will only reinforce certain instances of verbal behavior. Most certainly the sounds which will be reinforced, are those sounds which pertain to the language that is spoken by the verbal community. Thus, Arabic vocalizers will not be reinforced by English mediators. The same language implies similar sounds. 

When we analyze speaking and listening behavior in terms of producing and observing (listening to) the sounds of our negative and our positive emotions, we find that within each language there exist two distinct languages:  Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) and Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB).  

In Verbal Behavior Skinner accounted for the behavior of the speaker. Accounting for the behavior of the mediator is the goal of SVB. In doing so, we must take into consideration the sound that is produced by the verbalizer, which can be described as the reverberation of his or her environment, that is, the language of his or her verbal community. Skinner (1957) said that a child learns verbal behavior due to the reinforcement of “relatively unpatterned vocalizations” which “gradually assume forms which produce appropriate consequences in a given verbal community.” 

When we consider the verbalizer's expression of positive and negative emotions as “patterned vocalizations”, we must conclude that the mediator, who reinforces the behavior of the verbalizer, in addition to learning his or her native language, also acquires this pattern of vocalizations, which is considered the proper expression of emotion within his or her verbal community. However, if one keeps focusing on the content, one may overlook the nonverbal stimuli that are always occurring prior to and together with our verbal behavior.