February 26, 2015

February 26, 2015

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Behavioral Engineer

Dear Reader, 

 

The distinction between Sound and Noxious Verbal Behavior as two mutually exclusive subsets of verbal behavior involves the contingency analysis of how an individual interacts with him or herself as well as how two or more individuals interact with each other. Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) refers to the verbal episodes in which the speaker controls the behavior of the listener with positive reinforcement. On the contrary, Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB) refers to all the verbal episodes in which the speaker controls the behavior of the listener with an aversive contingency. These two different contingencies need to be broken down in three terms: an antecedent, a behavior and a consequence. 

The antecedent condition which calls for and makes possible SVB, is a particular sound, which is called Voice II. This stimulus sets the stage for SVB. Another stimulus, Voice I, sets the stage for NVB. As the speaker is the owner of the contingency, the speaker with Voice I emits and omits different behaviors than the speaker with Voice II. The contingency with which the speaker with Voice I controls the behavior of the listener is entirely different from the contingency with which the speaker with Voice II controls the behavior of the listener. The former uses coercive control, while the latter only uses positive reinforcement. The consequences for both the speaker as well as the listener are different in NVB and in SVB. Moreover, the difference between how two or more people talk with each other, also affects how each individual communicates with him or herself. 

In NVB, in which the listener is controlled with an aversive contingency, the speaker’s way of talking with him or herself is equally punitive. In SVB, in which the listener is controlled by positive reinforcement, the speaker’s way of talking with him or herself is equally reinforcing. Thus, the way in which a person talks with him or herself predicts how this person talks with others and visa versa. We may think we know this, but when it comes to the difference between whether we have reinforcing private speech or negative self-talk, it turns out that we have no clue about the fact that NVB covert self-talk is a consequence of NVB overt public speech and SVB covert self-talk is a consequence of SVB overt public speech. We are in the dark about all this as we still think we cause our own behavior. The three-term contingency, however, views behavior in terms of how we are affected by environmental variables, that is, by others.

Antecedents of SVB and NVB can be distinguished as discriminative stimuli and establishing operations. Since SVB episodes alternate with NVB episodes, each time they vary communicators can discriminate the  availability of a different contingency. There is a different relation between behavior and consequences in SVB than in NVB. Communicators incapable of accurate discrimination between these consequences mistake SVB for NVB or NVB for SVB. In either case, they focus on postcedents when they should focus on antecedents. In the analysis of verbal behavior, the need for increased focus on antecedents is often pushed aside by the general behaviorist emphasis in operant behavior on consequences. Proper analyses of the antecedents, of why we talk the way we do, becomes more likely, when we consider our so-called eed for spoken communication. This need is underestimated. Under normal circumstances, food is reinforcing to us only to the extent that we are hungry. Likewise, communication is only reinforcing to us to the extent that we long to talk.This is what is known in behaviorism as establishing operations. 

Nowhere is the difference between SVB and NVB more apparent than in the establishing operation . Speakers want to dominate and coerce others as they were conditioned by NVB interaction. Each time they talk they believe that now it is their turn to exploit others in the same way that they were exploited. Their relentless coercive control of the conversation makes SVB impossible. Often such domineering NVB communicators don’t even like to speak and rather avoid speaking altogether. Interaction is not what they long for as they are deeply frustrated by it. They may long for admiration, power, or dominance, but they don’t desire to communicate. 

How different this is for those who have more SVB repertoire. The need to communicate is proportional to the accumulation of repertoire that makes it possible. Those who have acquired more NVB than SVB repertoire can only pretend to communicate as they miss the skills necessary to have  SVB. They can’t even long for it, because they don’t know that they too can actually have it. Sadly, those who were conditioned mainly by NVB, tend to dominate the conversation. They discourage and disinforce (which is the opposite of reinforce) other the communicators. The consequence of their NVB punishes and weakens the tendency of other communicators to emit a SVB response. As positively reinforcing speakers are so easily stopped, ignored and dominated by coercive, pretentious speakers, NVB episodes far outnumber SVB episodes in most of our conversations.

NVB communicators believe that they can create motivation in others by threatening them with negative consequences. Inadvertently, the NVB communicators always elicit counter-control behavior in their listeners. Communicators engaging in such counter-control don’t and can’t develop SVB, but will only develop more NVB repertoire. Thus, the NVB speaker will always constrain the listener’s response, whereas the SVB speaker always enhances and reinforces novel listener’s responses.