March 8, 2016

March 8, 2016

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Reader,

Now that I have given my thoughts about the title “Humble Behaviorism” by A. Neuringer (1991) let me comment on the content of that paper. It starts out with the sentence “If behaviorists were more humble, their effectiveness as scientist would increase.” I don’t know at what point in his life Neuringer came to this conclusion, but I suspect it was late in his career. It sounds like something that someone would say who is looking back and who is having regrets. However, I fully agree with the statement; it is about time that behaviorists stop being arrogant. Yet, a paper couldn’t and didn’t make any difference. There is no such a disembodied thing as “Humble Behaviorism”; there can only be embodied humble behaviorists. It is not behaviorism which needs to become more humble, but behaviorists! 

The only way in which behaviorists and non-behaviorists will be able to be humble is by changing the way in which they talk. Our common arrogant, insensitive way of talking I call Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB). The language of humility, by contrast, I call Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB). It is due to NVB that behaviorists are not as scientific as they would be if they would learn what it takes to maintain SVB and extinguish NVB. They didn’t learn that and nobody is talking about it except me. Thus, the issue is not whether behaviorists are humble, but whether they are scientific!