September 14, 2015

September 14, 2015

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Reader,

The following writing is my ninth response to “Some Relations Between Culture, Ethics and Technology in B.F. Skinner” by Melo, Castro & de Rose (2015).  As long as we think that thinking is more important than experiencing, we will continue to be having negative experiences. Moreover, such negative affective experiences always set the stage for Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB), in which the listener will be negatively affected by the sound of the speaker’s voice. The notion that thinking (“the planning of contingencies that achieve a certain kind of balance between the good of individuals and the strengthening of the culture”) is going to create positive affective experiences is absolutely incorrect.

Thinking can’t create positive experiences as such experiences simply co-occur with it, but are not caused by it. However, positive affective experiences are caused by how we talk with each other. Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) only occurs if the speaker is not aversively influencing the listener. It requires turn-taking to verify if this is really happening. So, in SVB the speaker listens to him or herself while he or she speaks, as he or she is assessing if he or she is inducing positive or negative emotions in the listener. Thus, in SVB, the most important listener is the speaker him or herself. Other listeners are more likely to listen to a self-listening speaker as such a speaker only evokes positive emotions. When the other listener becomes the speaker, he or she also listens to him or herself, while he or she speaks and he or she influences the former speaker, who is now listening to the listener who became the speaker. He or she reciprocates these positive affective experiences.

This shared positive experience which carries the conversation isn’t and doesn’t need to be planned or understood as it is experienced. The planning of experience, which is essential to behaviorism, falls short when it comes to vocal verbal interaction. As soon as the speaker plans what he or she says, as soon as he or she thinks about what he or she is going to say, he or she engages in NVB and influences the listener with a negative contingency. The NVB speaker speaks in a predetermined, mechanical and coercive manner. As he or she already knows what he or she is going to say, conversation as determined by such a speaker doesn’t and can’t contain anything new and is a repetitious event.

The behaviorist who speaks in a SVB manner is not planning anything. SVB is the language of behaviorism as it is only in SVB that the speaker recognizes that he or she is not causing his or her own behavior. The majority of behaviorists, however, only in theory believe that they are not causing their own behavior. Their NVB signifies this. Similarly to non-behaviorists, they place more importance on what they say than on why they say it. If behaviorists would be more concerned with why they talk the way they do, rather than why they think the way they do, they would find that the SVB/NVB distinction reveals that their thinking is caused by their way of talking. A new way thinking is preceded by a new way talking: the discovery of SVB. With the increase of SVB (and the decrease of NVB) behaviorism is something much more exciting and much better than what it has been and what it currently is.  

SVB doesn’t depend, like behaviorist jargon, on institutional approval. “Although science and technology are needed to solve global problems, we cannot lose sight of the fact that scientific research is increasingly dependent on governmental and corporate funding, the press is also subject to restrictions by governments and corporations, and political factors usually influence what is taught in schools.” Someone can only teach SVB to someone else if he or she experiences it. Understanding SVB comes as a byproduct of experiencing it. I disagree that “science and technology are needed to solve global problems.” SVB is practiced when people interact peacefully. Global problems exist because of our involvement in NVB. We are mainly having NVB. Thus, “appropriate use of educational technology” won’t cut it. As long as we are unknowingly engaging in NVB, we cannot and do not “teach our students to think.” SVB is necessary to “maximize the chances that the culture will not only cope with its problems but steadily increase its capacity to do so.”

I like what these authors are writing and I imagine what it would be like to hear them say it. I am quite sure these authors have relatively high rates of SVB in their speech episodes with others. Their insistence on education is in the direction of SVB. “The technology of teaching is an ethical technology. Rather than being ethically neutral, it would be,

as envisioned by Skinner, guided by the goals of producing students that are creative, able to think, original, and free. Being more skillful at solving problems, this student will not only achieve a better life but would contribute to build a better world, participating in the design of

better cultural practices.” SVB, like radical behaviorism, cuts through all the red tape. It is about the results mentioned by these authors. I wish I could talk with them about SVB and will try to contact them. SVB is really about “participating in the design of better cultural practices.” 

As I continue reading, however, I come to the section of the paper which is titled “teaching thinking.” In this section the authors explain why “students must also learn how to think.” I don’t agree with this. Students don’t need to learn how to think, they need to learn how to talk and they need to be made aware of the difference between SVB and NVB.  Many people who have experimented with SVB described it as “learning, without being taught, in other words, learning how to learn, to solve problems, exploring the unknown and behaving in anoriginal way.” It is hopeful to read such verbal behavior, because it confirms that SVB was happening. If we are going to address “thinking as a behavior rather than as a mental activity”, as Skinner suggested, we will have to address it as speech, that is, as private speech, which, of course, is function of public speech. If we are not only interested in “successful behavior”, but are also going to “analyze and shape the whole behavioral chain that leads to a solution”, we need a way of teaching, that is, a way of talking, which makes that possible. According to Skinner (1968) this implies analyzing precurrent behavior: the preliminary responses which modify the environment or the individual himself and which may favor the emergence of the solution: SVB!