February 8, 2016

February 8, 2016

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Reader, 

Read the book Beyond Freedom and Dignity (1971) by B.F. Skinner, as it will help you to understand my insistence on the Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB)/ Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB) distinction.  When people talk excessively about their feelings (like I used to do before I learned about behaviorism), they are basically trying to do the best they can in saying what is wrong about the contingencies.  As long as they experience aversive environments, they will inevitably engage in NVB, but once they experience people, who create sensitive, supportive and reinforcing environments, they naturally engage in SVB. Skinner is right “behavior can be changed by changing the conditions of which it is a function (p.150).” 

SVB and NVB are functions of different environments, which are created by people, who have been reinforced for different vocal verbal behavior.  I disagree with Skinner, who states “We have the physical, biological, and behavioral technologies needed “to save ourselves”; the problem is how to get people to use them (p. 158).” We lack the technology about how we talk.  The SVB/NVB distinction is unknown even to behaviorists. People will not be using behavioral technologies as long as NVB is the behaviorist’s main way of talking. One of the problems Skinner identifies is that scientists must start with simple experiments to be able to advance to complex problems. 

“Our progress often does not seem rapid enough.” Skinner argues that “early physicists, chemists and biologist enjoyed a kind of natural protection against the complexity of their fields.” Unlike the modern behavioral scientists, they didn’t have to fight back against the “well advanced” formulations.  We only simplify by increasing our SVB and decreasing our NVB. This is needed to break down our communication problems and to solve them in a pragmatic manner.