November 10, 2015

November 10, 2015

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

                                                                                                                                          

Dear Students, 

This is my seventh response to “Effectiveness as Truth Criterion in Behavior Analysis” by Tourinho and Neno (2003). The Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB)/Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB) distinction emphasizes the “organism-environment relationship, a correlation between classes of stimuli and classes of responses (Skinner, 1935/1961b).” The sets of experiences of speakers and listeners in SVB and NVB are very different. 

In SVB speakers and listeners are connected, but in NVB speakers and listeners are separated. Due to the NVB antecedents, the speaker and the listener in most of us individually are separated. We are used to NVB, but not to SVB. “The notion of classes of stimuli and classes of responses will be essential to accommodating behavior variability in the Skinnerian explanatory system” and are necessary for explaining SVB. NVB doesn’t allow “behavioral variability.” Moreover, SVB involves “processes through which individuals take advantage of behavior already acquired by others”, but NVB only selects behaviors that narrow down our operant repertoires. 

Although in writing, “behavior analysts recognize variation in human behavior” and “approach variation from the biological perspective,” they continue to miss out on the importance of having face to face conversation about this matter. “The behavior of the organism as a whole is the product of three types of variation and selection: …natural selection,…operant conditioning, and processes through which individuals take advantage of behavior already acquired by others” (Skinner, 1990, p. 1206). 

To talk about cultural conditioning, operant conditioning and classical conditioning requires SVB. Presumably “In all cases, however, one observes that, when speaking of a pragmatic criterion, the author’s only reference is the effectiveness principle.” (italics by me). They are only referring to the “effectiveness principle” in writing and yet they make it seem as if they are “speaking of a pragmatic criterion.” There is nothing pragmatic about writing about matters which we should be speaking about. Furthermore, reference to the “effectiveness principle” makes much more sense if our conversations were based on it. If this would be the case, we would engage in SVB continuously. In NVB, even behaviorists never “arrive at more consistent criteria for validating our claims to knowledge.” 

Many papers have been written about behavior and many discussions presumably took place in these papers to close “the gap between behaviorist and cognitive researcher”, but nobody thoroughly acknowledges the importance to talk about this. “Fully accepting inner causes should be a consequence of accepting the fundamentals of radical behaviorism. And what is more, thus radicalizing radical behaviorism might close some of the gap between behaviorist and cognitivist researcher—to render us with a more comprehensive psychology of both private and public behavior.”(Overskeid, 1994, p. 41) There is nothing radical about writing papers which are read by only a few experts and not talked about. 

“Overskeid is correct in demanding a more consistent discussion on the status and functions of private events in behavioral processes; however, strictly speaking, to simply accept internal causes for behavior will not be effective or ineffective within the scope of Skinnerian science; it is more a matter of working with a different notion of behavior (other preliminary beliefs), another subject matter, compatible with another set of postulates.” Each time we demand "a more consistent discussion” we engage in NVB. 

SVB is that “different notion of behavior (other preliminary beliefs), another subject matter, compatible with another set of postulates.” It is not surprising that according to “articles published in the journal  Behavioral Therapy” behaviorists have been “drifting somewhat” from their “basic science foundations.” They neither talk nor sound like Skinner. Unlike them, he was having many instances of SVB in each of his verbal episodes. 

Most behaviorists have mostly NVB instances when they talk, that is, if they talk at all. “Declining trends in the publication of the single-case design studies from 1974 to 1997” (Forsyth et al., 1999, p. 215) results from the absence of actual conversation. Rather than blaming “social and institutional constraints” behaviorists should learn to discriminate between instances of SVB and NVB. The question “whether we are still achieving the goal of advancing behavioral science as a means to alleviate a wider range of human suffering” derives from NVB. There is no doubt in those who know about SVB that it alleviates “a wider range of human suffering.” 

The authors write “As long as we are achieving this pragmatic goal” of “alleviating human suffering” then “perhaps it matters little what we call ourselves or what we ultimately do”. (1999, p. 218, italics added). I strongly disagree with this. They can’t have achieved this goal without SVB. If they had achieved it, they would place greater importance on how they talk, but they haven't done that. Moreover, it matters a great deal we tact NVB as NVB and SVB as SVB. “The possibility of a science of behavior advancing towards the solution of human problems” cannot become a reality unless discriminating SVB and NVB is our “pragmatic objective.” Behaviorists only complain in writing that the DSM-IV is “topographically oriented” and “not revealing any concern for identifying behavioral relationships.”