February 2, 2015

February 2, 2015 

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer 

Dear Reader, 

Although this writer considers himself to be a verbal behaviorologist or a verbal behaviorist, he is neither representing radical behaviorism, which has verbal behavior as its crowning jewel nor the natural science of human behavior called behaviorology. These are only important to him, because they explain why he has found what he has found. 

When he read Walden II  (1948), one of B.F. Skinner's books, he was delighted, because it confirmed what he had already believed to be possible.  When he became aware of the incompatibility of psychology and behaviorism, he sighed with great relief of having found his theoretical home. Although he postponed reading Verbal Behavior (1957), because he knew he needed to be better prepared to be able to understand it, he was excited to read papers which referred to this important work, as he felt validated by this environmental account of how we behave verbally. 

When, after studying radical behaviorism, he stumbled upon behaviorology, he realized what had taken mankind so long to establish the science of human behavior: academics are only reinforced for writing and reading, but not for talking and listening.  This is where the rubber hits the road. Academics accuse those who are not yet familiar with their discipline of wanting to learn by means of talking. Non-academics are told that if they want to say something, they must first write it down. Moreover, they are given the false impression that they will be listened to once they are read. To make this imaginary event happen, they have to submit a paper. Of course, they will first have to understand what submit means to those who call the shots in academia. They will say it means to present, to propose or to put forward. This writer, however, doesn’t experience the feedback he is receiving as an invitation to do that. According to him, he is being asked to succumb, to acquiesce, to surrender, to bow down and to give in. Spoken words presumable are of no importance at all....only written words are. 

Dear Reader, 

What follows requires some context. As I became more familiar with radical behaviorism and then behaviorology, I knew that this was what I had been looking for academically, but had not been able to find. It was such a delight to study on my own behaviorist literature that I tried to contact the behaviorists and behaviorologists, whose papers and books I had read. Although the majority was not interested in conversation with me, with some I got positive responses. Low and behold, this was especially the case with behaviorologists. Initially, I had good phone and skype conversations and email exchanges with behaviorologist, who obviously were also excited to hear that someone was interested in their work. I felt so validated that I decided to call myself a Verbal Behaviorologist. 

In spite of its validity and pragmatism, behaviorism and behaviorology are virtually ignored in the world of academia. Many papers have been written to address this unresolved issue, but none of them focused on how we talk. As I continued to discuss with behaviorologists why it is necessary to talk about the SVB/NVB distinction instead of only reading and writing about it,  I received an admonishing email from Stephen Ledoux, who told me that I was not allowed to call myself a Verbal Behaviorologist. What now follows is my response (in cursive) to that email.  

Dear Stephen, 

Enthusiasm and misrepresentation 

You start out with “enthusiasm”, which in my view refers to Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB), but then you add “misrepresentation”, which brings in Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB). In other words, you start out with inconsistency, because, already in the heading of your email, you are switching back and forth between SVB and NVB. Although this is very common and happens all the time, this is also the very reason why SVB can never increase. Unless we recognize that NVB stops SVB and makes it irrelevant, SVB will not be able to continue. Unless NVB stops, SVB cannot and will not continue. Because we haven’t been able to stop NVB, our SVB happens at a very low rate of responding.  Also, because we don’t even know that when SVB starts, NVB stops and that when NVB starts, SVB stops, we have no clue how this makes us miss out on higher rates of SVB, which would enhance human relationship.  

  

Thank you for your well-intended feedback. I never claimed to be fully knowledgeable about behaviorology . If people have this impression, this is because they have not talked with me and rely only on what I have written. I have never told anyone to rely on what I have written, but instead I have always insisted on verification by talking with each other, because only in conversation can we discriminate the contingency for SVB and NVB. My writings are meant to get people to talk with me.

I use the label Verbal Behaviorologist, which I came up with myself, and which, as far as I know, isn’t used by anyone, to bring attention to the universal patterns of vocal verbal behavior, which I call SVB and NVB. To deny that these patterns exist, flies in the face of everyday reality. It is amazing that people like yourself, who are educated in the science of how all behavior is a function of environmental variables, should have any trouble recognizing that these patterns are present and urgently need to be addresses, that is, reinforced. Although you or others, who didn’t have enough conversation with me or who refused to talk with me altogether, may not realize that the SVB/NVB distinction is an extension of verbal behavior and is explained by behaviorology, I still insist that if we would talk more, we would be able to recognize these mutually exclusive and obviously distinct response classes.  

In both the email as well as in the phone conversation we had recently, there was mostly NVB and little SVB. Both communications were mainly characterized by a verbalizer, in this case you, who talked at, but not with me, the mediator. It was very clear that you were not the least interested in me being the verbalizer. As a matter of fact, I have the impression that what I have written has rattled the chains of a lot of self-absorbed people, who for all their great knowledge and status, are unwilling to have genuine conversation with each other or with me. By completely ignoring the content of the email which I recently send, in which I requested to have the opportunity to verbally present my SVB thesis, and by accusing me of unfair misrepresentation, I am being punished and I should, according to you, decrease and stop my writing.

While I appreciate your enthusiasm for behaviorology, and am glad that you found my intro text of interest, out of respect for full disclosure I wanted you to know what I thought needed to be said to people to whom you are unfairly representing yourself as someone fully informed about the natural science of behavior, especially the verbal behavior part of it, although I sincerely hope that someday you do come to be fully informed about it (which is a worthwhile reason to maintain communication). 

I have never presented myself as someone who is fully informed about the natural science of behavior and if verbal behavior theorists take offense to what I am writing, let them write me back and at least have a ‘sublimated’ written conversation with me. Don’t you realize that this total unwillingness to talk is as superficial as people who are nowadays only just texting, face-booking and tweeting each other? I do deeply respect your writing in which you state your case. This is my response. I am still reading your book, I am learning, but I don’t have the means for another graduate study. Besides, I have found what I was looking for. To me it all makes sense. Only those who talk with me can verify.

I will continue to learn about verbal behavior and behaviorology and radical behaviorism and remain hopeful that we will have the kind of conversation in which the validity of SVB and NVB can be determined once and for all. The problem which I address and which has not been addressed and is bound to rub many people the wrong way. Based on my experiments, it is clear that human relationship gets lost in translation because we keep failing to differentiate the great difference between spoken and written communication. Thus, it is not the proverbial child who is thrown out with the bath water, but it is the bathwater itself, the environment, which is repeatedly thrown out. The chances of that happening are less likely in spoken than in written communication.

If I alone was affected by this, I would have said this:

"As authors, we all know that our writings affect readers in different ways that we may agree with in some cases and not in others. In the case of Mr. Maximus Peperkamp, we wish to clarify that, while Mr. Peperkamp seems to take his views very seriously and sincerely, the facts remain that (a) he calls himself a behaviorologist but just doing so is insufficient to established credentials as a behaviorologist, (b) he neither represents nor speaks for the organized behaviorology community, and (c) he is not a member of the behaviorology[ organizations to which we belong. The personal views that he is promoting, inappropriately with the behaviorology label, are his own longstanding and independently developed conceptualizations, and while they may be valid, we cannot tell because they have not been submitted, so far as we can ascertain, for any formal natural science of behavior peer review."

Your writing shows exactly the point which I am making. You write “I would have said this…”, but you are not saying anything, you are writing this. In the first paragraph you repeat the switching back and forth pattern which was announced already in the heading. First you praise me a little, which is SVB, but then accuse me of inappropriately labeling myself, which is NVB. I appreciate the second paragraph in which you almost (may be it is just my wishful thinking?) seem to defend me. Again, first the mediator, me, is supposed to be mollified by a couple of SVB remarks, that we don’t have to agree with everything that is written and that Mr. Peperkamp takes his views very seriously and sincerely, but then follow some painful NVB rejections.    

I don’t disagree with and accept the criticism that a) calling myself a behaviorologist (actually a Verbal Behaviorologist) is insufficient to establish credentials as a behaviorologist. It simply felt reinforcing to me to call myself that and to have something to hang on to. As you know, I am still paying off huge loans for a study at a graduate school which was truly an example of misrepresentation. Where do I complain about that? The California Board of Behavioral Sciences (another misrepresentation) let me know that my Master of Science (M.S.) in Clinical Psychology from Palo Alto University (PAU) is worthless for transitioning into a Marriage and Family Therapy (M.F.T.) license or any other counseling position because all my classes were geared toward a Ph.D. that was focused on dealing with people with severe trauma and mental illness. My big mistake was that I had been attracted to what was presented as the Scientist Practitioner Model, but all I got was punitive treatment from scientifically ignorant, mentalistic professors employed by the cookie-cutter-psychology machine called PAU. By calling myself a Verbal Behaviorologist, I felt vindicated and I also acknowledged the link which exists and needs to be enhanced between verbal behavior and behaviorology. Moreover, it helped me to keep my head up in spite of the immense disappointment and financial set-back of not achieving my Ph.D. Ironically, I discovered behaviorism on my own, once I was out of the PAU program. I don’t claim to represent, but wish to communicate with the organized behaviorology community and I consider behaviorology as my theoretical home. I have read enough to know this, although I admit that my knowledge is incomplete. So, yes, b) I don’t speak for the behaviorology community and yes, c) I have no money to become a member of any behaviorology organization. However, I vehemently reject the false accusation that d) I am promoting my personal views, which are not congruent with behaviorology. Furthermore, I also object against the fallacy that a peer-reviewed article can suddenly miraculously make anything clear about the issue I wish to address, because reading about things is just not the same as talking about it. The contingencies pertaining to spoken communication are totally different from those pertaining to writing and reading. Didn’t Skinner often warn against the tendency to mix up and confuse different levels of analyses? 

Although I happily agree that I need to study more behaviorology and look forward to discovering all that I haven’t yet understood, and feel  supported by your guidance to study your book and may be one day will write an article, I have studied and read sufficiently to know that my independently developed conceptualizations of SVB and NVB are valid, even without any paper being written or published about it or without any behaviorologist acknowledging me. This conviction is not born out of fanaticism, but out of a dedication to and understanding of authentic human interaction.  All my attempts to speak with others were only to discover, explore and verify together the validity of my views about SVB and NVB. My insistence on speaking is because speaking is more pragmatic than writing. Much can and needs to be improved about how we communicate. Behaviorology and verbal behavior pave the way.         

However, Maximus, many others are also affected, and their preference was that just this be said:

      "Mr. Maximus Peperkamp seems to take his views very seriously and sincerely.  However, his statements do not reflect a behaviorological understanding of verbal behavior.  Although he calls himself a behaviorologist, he is not a member of our organized behaviorology community and neither represents it nor speaks for it."

Again, this is absolutely not meant fastidiously, but deeply serious. Supposedly, something was said, but, although it was put into quotation marks, nothing was said, only something was written.  Moreover, it wasn’t even written by those "many affected others", it was written by someone, who was their spokesperson, their representative, someone who supposedly voiced their opinion, who did the talking(?)for them. 

In SVB, in which we consider the verbal behavior at the level of the individual organism, nobody can be the voice for someone else, because each communicator has to be his or her own voice. In NVB, by contrast, in which we adhere to hierarchical differences, which are, by the way, just as fictitious and unscientific as inner agents, what one person says is supposedly more important than the other and consequently the assumption can be exploited and perpetuated that groups of individuals can be represented by someone, a leader, who is allowed to dominate the conversation. Although this may be mankind’s history, it is a deeply problematic history and not one which paints a bright future. Only with SVB, in which we are our own voice, can we leave our violent history behind, do we become truly verbal, are we real participants in the conversation, because we successively speak and listen and what’s more, speak and listen simultaneously. In SVB, we matter as individuals.  

  

Once behaviorologists will experience SVB, they are able to admit that their accusation, that my statements do not reflect a behaviorological understanding of verbal behavior, was wrong. What will become clear, however, was that their understanding of verbal behavior which didn’t include SVB and NVB was lacking. I agree that my statements take the issue of verbal behavior into new direction, but just because they don’t know about SVB what I know doesn’t mean at all that I am wrong. Just, for the record, the pattern of first giving a little SVB (Mr. Peperkamp seems to take his views very seriously and sincerely) and then a bucketful of NVB, is not my idea of having a nice conversation.  The switch from SVB to NVB is always made with words like "however"… 

Now I am sure that neither phrasing is fun, but they occur, not as an attack, but so that you can see how you are needlessly offending even those who would support your effort if you worked to develop it within the same scientific protocols in which others have to work (rather than making claims that don't yet fit right, and so rub folks the wrong way), because these protocols (e.g., peer review) help everyone and we have all benefited from participating in them. Please put your views up for proper and appropriate peer review by those already acknowledged by natural scientists of behavior as natural scientists of behavior. And remember that, however they respond, it will, as it should, only be to help you out of professional respect, which is of course a major part of why I write this to you. 

I appreciate that at least you are honest enough to acknowledge that either phrase is punishing me. Where is the support that you speak of? Who are these needlessly offended people and why didn’t they, as I have repeatedly asked, talk with me? Why didn’t we have any of the conversation in which these scientific protocols were explained and discussed? They are offended because I wrote something down. By doing this, I stepped on their toes. If I had continued to beg for a conversation, I would have never received anyone’s attention. I am not asking attention or stirring the pot for the effect, I have something which nobody has yet discussed. What are these claims that I make which rub people the wrong way? Why do they rub the wrong way? They are not intended to do that at all, if anything, they are intended to create the environment in which behaviorology is validated by our way of talking. Behaviorology is undermined by NVB. I can prove that. Nothing fits during NVB, although square pegs can be coerced into round holes. During SVB all communicators agree that things fit.

Having not said that, but having written that, I promise, I will put up my views for peer-review and I want to thank you for the invitation and encouragement. I admit, I can’t get anyone to talk with (=SVB) me and give me feedback (you talked at me=NVB). This sort of feedback coerces me into submission for peer-review. You are right, it isn’t fun, but I trust your appeal to professional respect and look forward to the feedback, which although some of it is written, is still mostly withheld. I seem to be below the standard to respond. How is that supposed to make me feel? I can handle it and I feel challenged. I want behaviorology to be known all over the world and it is to this bigger cause that I surrender.  Thank you again for being concerned enough about me to write to me.

After taking some time to think this through calmly, I feel confident that you will see how such steps in particular, and these events in general, can only help you discover how much behaviorology you know or not, and then making the effort to better learn more behaviorology will help clarify and define the parameters and quality of your interest areas. 

You thought right Stephen and I again feel appreciation for you. This is SVB. I will do as you say and learn more about behaviorology. I predict that my definitions and parameters, although objectionable to some, are not that far off and that those who, due to coercive behavioral histories, are no longer interested in conversation, have little or nothing to offer in terms of contributing to the quality of my area of interest.  

Of course some professionals, more experienced than I am, suggest that my writing you only reinforces those of your responses that are contributing to the problem. If that is true, then the consequence for me will be to see no progress, which will substantially weaken my writing responses; whether or not that happens depends on what steps you take, or not. I look forward to not being disappointed.

This is to me the most interesting part of your letter. Again, this is SVB to me. Thank you. If these other, supposedly more experienced, professionals were right, then you were wrong; but you were right and so, they were wrong. Although you are looking up to them (that is why you call them more experienced), it is apparent that you see progress differently as they do. You are willing to give me a chance and I will try not to disappoint you, while I stay true to findings which are not my own, but of thousands of people, who have come to know SVB and NVB.

Wishing you success in those endeavors, and hoping to hear about them as they progress (but not from mass mailings, which are a style that in my experience mostly undermines success [or maybe the letter-carrier just stuffs too much junk mail in my box]),

Thank you for your suggestions, which I will follow up on. I appreciate that you wish me success and hope to hear about my progress. That is SVB. What follows (between parenthesis) is again NVB. I just wanted to talk with people about what I have found, because it is important and it matches, but I was wrong in assuming that behaviorologists or radical behaviorists would be more inclined to talk with me. I had hoped that we would work things out while talking and I still think we can and should do that. I enjoy this writing although it doesn’t measure up to the joy of talking. If it makes people feel better, I will no longer call myself a  Verbal Behaviorologist.

Kind greetings,

Maximus Peperkamp