December 9, 2015

December 9, 2015

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Students,

This is my ninth response to “Epistemological Barriers to Radical Behaviorism” (O’Donohue et al., 1998). The authors state that “Skinner simply wanted to develop an economical analysis that would ultimately lead to practical technologies for bettering the human condition (e.g. Skinner, 1971)”. Within each culture there are only two vocal response classes, called Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) and Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB). These vocal response classes have great explanatory power as they provide the practical solutions to our problems of communication. 

I don’t like the phrase “bettering the human condition” as I want to be specific about how we sound while we talk. When we talk with each other, we have SVB, but when we talk at each other, we have NVB. This is the same for all human beings. In the former, there is a bi-directional relationship between the speaker and the listener, that is, the speaker can, at any time, become the listener and the listener can, at any time, become the speaker. In the latter, however, the speaker and the listener are separated, they cannot switch sides and there is no turn-taking. In NVB, our speech remains determined by our hierarchical differences and, therefore, it will be uni-directional. 

An important feature of NVB is that the speaker aversively influences the listener. In NVB speakers create and maintain an environment of fear, intimidation, domination, exploitation, alienation, pretense, dissociation and negative emotion. NVB is not communication, but we  adhere to it by default as we haven’t yet learned how to have SVB. We have endlessly talked about how to improve the human condition, but what needs to be improved is our way of talking. As long as NVB, which goes on everywhere, is accepted as communication, our relationships remain a total mess. 

In NVB, a person’s private speech is not considered to be caused by public speech. Consequently, people still believe that they are causing their own behavior. NVB communicators dis-regulate each other, but SVB communicators co-regulate each other. We keep, like inexperienced children, disturbing each other due to our lack of skills. In SVB, we realize that our private speech is caused by our public speech and that the joining of our speaking and listening behavior is an essential behavioral cusp, which requires an environment that is free of aversive stimulation. We have yet to learn how to create and maintain such a safe environment with a SVB way of talking.