February 28, 2015

February 28, 2015

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Behavioral Engineer

Dear Reader, 

Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) and Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB) are two subsets of verbal behavior. This extension of Skinner's verbal behavior is particularly useful in answering the important question: why do we have so many communication problems? SVB is an operant behavior, because it refers to the verbal episodes in which the speaker controls the behavior of the listener with positive reinforcement. However, NVB is a respondent behavior as it refers to all the verbal episodes in which the speaker controls the behavior of the listener with an aversive contingency. 

Skinner, who initially defined Verbal Behavior as "the behavior that produces reinforcers that occur through another organism’s behavior" (Skinner, 1957), later refined his definition with “behavior that is reinforced through the mediation of other people, but only when the other people are behaving in ways that have been shaped by a verbal environment of language “(Skinner, 1986, p. 121) (italics added). He referred to the verbal community, whose members are conditioned by a set of verbal responses which signify a language. He didn’t write ‘shaped by a nonverbal  environment’, but he wrote “shaped by a verbal environment of language.”

According to Skinner’s refinement, only SVB is Verbal Behavior. NVB is not Verbal Behavior as there is no verbal community that is benefitted by the generation and maintenance of Verbal Behavior. Moreover, NVB makes impossible and lacks the exact, refined, verifiable kind of verbal behavior needed to produce peer-reviewed written verbal reports that describe our scientific investigations. It is no longer acceptable that scientists, as they have always done, only bother about written and not vocal verbal behavior. 

SVB is scientific vocal verbal behavior which can also be written down. Unless written scientific verbal behavior results in and maintains vocal verbal scientific behavior, we will not be able to address and solve our communication problems. Once we distinguish between SVB and NVB, we will realize that the structure of language, what we say, including the illusion that inner agents are causing our verbal behavior, is a function of how we say things. We can no longer remain unscientific if we relax and feel peaceful with one another. In other words, we get realistic only if we are no longer afraid, angry, forceful, frustrated, negative or defensive. 

 

  

The analysis of Verbal Behavior didn’t historically require any different concepts or principles for dealing with our verbal or nonverbal behavior. No scientific papers have improved our ability to deal with the problems involved in our vocal verbal behavior. What has not found its way into our relationships is that those who are involved in teaching others how to speak, read and write, are successful only if they provide reinforcement.  If we did this consistently in our interactions, we would be having SVB, but as we don’t do this, we keep having NVB. The difference between SVB and NVB is only going to become apparent to us if something stimulates us to become more focused on our nonverbal behavior while we speak. 

The distinction between SVB and NVB will make us discriminate a safe environment as safe and a threatening environment as threatening. Due to the ubiquity of NVB, we are often unable to make this distinction. We are so used to NVB that we have accepted it as normal. Seen from a SVB perspective, NVB will be considered as abnormal. Only during SVB do we find ourselves in the circumstance in which we can and will be able to listen to ourselves while we speak, but during NVB we cannot and will not be considerate about the verbalizer and the mediator within each person.