July 23, 2014

July 23, 2014

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Behaviorist

Dear Reader, 

Not much attention is given to the fact that we already agree non-verbally and that all our disagreements are therefore verbal. The reason for this is that we are in denial of our nonverbal nature, which we have in common with nonverbal animals. Human beings are verbal animals. Our language is embedded in adaptations which have nothing to do with language and which predate the arrival of language.  Since language is a behavior to which we have not fully adapted, most of us grow up with the verbal coercion of our nonverbal, animal nature. 

If we want to be able to make sense to each other verbally, we must know more about the nonverbal foundation that gave rise to our verbal behavior. We have overrated the importance of language and are continuously carried away by it, without knowing it. The reason for this is that we know very little about learning without words. We hate to hear about rats running through a maze to find food and we feel insulted by pigeons in a Skinner box, whose behavior is reinforced by pecking a key. As we, unlike them, are verbal, supposedly, we have nothing to learn from them. However, our behavior is affected by consequences in exactly the same manner as rats and pigeons. Of course, we are biologically different. Rats are different from pigeons too, but both animals are equally affected by the consequences of their behavior. 

The science of behavior pertains to verbal and nonverbal animals. Even while humans for various reasons are verbally obsessed and verbally fixated, their nonverbal behavior still has consequences.  The fact that we don’t pay attention to this doesn’t mean that it isn’t happening. And, surely, there are as many verbal consequences to our nonverbal behavior as there are nonverbal consequences to our verbal behavior. As long as what we consider to be our nonverbal behavior is completely distorted by our verbal behavior, we have no clue about how we are affecting others or about how others are actually affecting us. We can only differentiate between our verbal and our nonverbal behavior more accurately if we engage in the calm conversation which has the specific purpose to explore this difference. We shouldn’t predetermine and stress the verbal if our objective is to explore and experience the nonverbal! We do this during Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB).