August 5, 2014

August 5, 2014

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Behaviorist

Dear Reader, 

When talking about the natural science of verbal behavior, it is almost inevitable that people become overly focused on what they say. Not surprisingly, the behaviorologist’s emphasis on functional relationships often goes hand in hand with the rejection of form. Although form and function are equally important in the analysis of a verbal episode, more attention historically has gone to the contingencies that control form than to form itself. Surely, verbal utterances, the words we use, the language we speak, what we say, is controlled by variables in the environment, which set the stage, but, our nonverbal behavior, which either facilitates or distracts from what we are saying, simultaneously needs to be taken into consideration. 

Behaviorologists have not been able to change the prevailing view that individuals cause their own behavior, because they have mainly tried to verbally dispel this common superstition. However, in Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) communicators attain a nonverbal focus. Thus, SVB demonstrates that our attention for nonverbal behavior improves our verbal behavior, because verbal behavior is a function of nonverbal behavior. In the same way selection by consequences is the foundation for modern biology, contingency selection is the foundation of verbal behavior. Our verbal behavior has nonverbal origins.