January 6, 2015

January 6, 2015

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Reader, 

Based on what he knew at the time, this writer wanted to become a psychologist. He attempted to pursue a Ph.D. at Palo Alto University (PAU), which attracted him because of their so-called “Practitioner-Scientist Model.” He had advanced to candidacy and was writing his dissertation, but he withdrew, because there was no support for his views, which, as he later discovered, were rooted in Radical Behaviorism. Although he had taken two master level classes in Applied Behavior Analysis, his teacher had been punitive and boring and of no help to him. The dominant way of thinking at PAU, like everywhere in mainstream psychology, was mentalistic and in retrospect didn’t  even qualify as scientific. Thus, this writer was duped out of his education and still pays off huge loans and did not achieve his academic goal.

The positive side of this debacle was that this writer could spend a lot of time studying behaviorism and behaviorology. It wasn’t until he found out about behaviorology that he realized what a difficult task he had set himself in teaching Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB). Initially, he had wanted to study psychology to gather scientific validation for what he called the “Listen While You Speak Technique.” He now calls it SVB, because behaviorology is the science which explains his work. Even radical behaviorism didn't seem good enough, because they basically backed out of establishing themselves as a separate field of scientific endeavor, next to biology, physics and chemistry.  This author's views align perfectly with behaviorology. What he does is predictable and replicable and therefore should be considered as science.

This writer had wanted pursue science and eventually he got it. Unfortunately, behaviorology is not very well known, but it exists and, as its proponents have said: validity doesn’t depend on the number of people adhering to it. Although he doesn’t have a degree in behaviorology, he considers himself a behaviorologist, because his behavior is under evocative control of this new science. If behaviorologists want to check on his status, they are invited to do so, because everything he is saying can and should be verified. SVB and Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB) are two naturally occurring universal response classes, which appear in every language. It is this writer's wish that one day an examination committee of behavioriologists and radical behaviorists listens to his spoken dissertation about the SVB/NVB distinction. Interacting with him and exploring this distinction based on his explanations should convince each committee member that this distinction is a genuine behaviorist construct which can benefit many people, generate a lot of research and new discoveries and should be rewarded with a Ph.D. degree. This writer challenges behaviorists.  The proof for the fact that the proof is in the pudding, requires that we eat the pudding. There is nothing circular about this line of rational thought. 

In Chapter 13 of the excellent introductory behaviorology text book “Running Out of Time” (2014, p.308) by Stephen Ledoux, the reader is informed about differential reinforcement. This procedure “involves reinforcing some responses differently from others.” Certain members of verbal behavior response classes are treated differentially, that is, certain response class members are reinforced, while others are extinguished. This could and should be applied to how we speak. In most of our spoken communication members of the NVB response class are consequated, while members of the SVB response class are not reinforced at all. No wonder that NVB is ubiquitous.

Ledoux (2014, p.309) clarifies differential reinforcement with an example of “helping a friend” who is going through hard times. The helper should only reinforce that friend’s verbal responses “that indicate some comprehension of the problems he is experiencing and some reasonable steps towards solutions” and essentially ignore any “mis-comprehension regarding his problem-related behavior.” This is exactly how we should be dealing with the response class members of SVB and NVB, respectively. However, we can only begin to do this once we acknowledge that these two response classes exist. How can we differentially reinforce bi-directional SVB and ignore uni-directional NVB, if we don’t make this distinction? The fact is that we can’t do this and we will not be able to do this as long as we haven't explored this distinction.

Members of the SVB response class always involve verbal and nonverbal expression and reciprocation of positive emotions, while members of the NVB response class always involve mostly nonverbal, but also verbal expression of negative emotions. In NVB someone is always on top (the speaker) and someone else (the listener) is on the bottom, someone is above others, better than others, superior to others, someone is dominating, coercing and exploiting others. NVB is hierarchical and has been around since the dawn of man. The arrival of language made our hierarchical relationships equal and gave rise to scientific behavior. NVB verbalizers, whose intimidating, manipulative manners are hard to address, oppose or confront, make the mediators feel inferior and as mediators have been differentially reinforced for not speaking about what they think or feel, they also produce NVB, even if they are allowed to speak.  

In NVB we are unknowingly only experiencing negative emotions and nobody is supposed to talk about it. Rather than “the machinations of some miscreant inner agent”, it is the discrepancy between our verbal and our nonverbal behavior, which gives rise to our NVB. NVB separates the speaker from the listener, which means that we are divided within ourselves. Consequently, we are also divided as speakers and listeners from each other. Only during SVB do we really connect with ourselves and with each other. In NVB our sense of separateness reinforces the notion of a self or an inner agent, which supposedly causes our behavior. We need to differentially reinforce SVB in order to be able to extinguish such mystical assumptions.