August 23, 2016

August 23, 2016 

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Reader,

This is my twenty-fifth response to the paper “Radical Behaviorism in Reconciliation with Phenomenology” by Willard Day (1969). I find it very soothing to read and write about what seems to be the only radical behaviorist who recognizes squarely the importance of talking.

According to Day, radical behaviorists can only make sense of the “value, meaningfulness, and significance of a person’s experience” by putting themselves “in a position to make the same kind of observation – often clinical, social, literary, religious, or aesthetic in nature – that gives rise to such phenomenological talk.” (italics added)

If this “extensive observation of a wide range of human functioning” is done while we are talking, we are beginning to observe by listening. We are listening to ourselves while we speak and this makes us capable of listening to others in the same way as we listen to ourselves. 

As long as psychologists don’t listen to themselves they remain “rather narrowly experienced people.” Presumably radical behaviorists observe and describe “relevant behavior, conspicuously including what the persons involved have to say to themselves,” but for someone who is familiar with the Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB)/ Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB) distinction, it is evident that radical behaviorists, like most other people, have never listened to themselves while they speak. 

They are interested in what others say to themselves and are involved in “the rehabilitation of mentally defective children,” but they only pay lip service to what they say to themselves.  The “more complex aspects of behavior which are coming to be identified as phenomenological in a looser usage of the terms” are more likely to be communicated as SVB. 

Day wants radical behaviorists to take advantage of “phenomenological talk” (italics added), as he recognizes SVB in phenomenology and the NVB in radical behaviorism. It is important to realize though that one doesn’t need to know about radical behaviorism to have SVB. 

When I first discovered SVB, I was completely unaware about radical behaviorism. However, people may still be “grossly unaware of the first lessons to be learned from the experimental analysis of behavior,” may have more SVB repertoire than knowledgeable radical behaviorists. 

Lack of understanding about this phenomenon has greatly damaged the reputation of radical behaviorism. Not surprisingly, what Day suggested fell on deaf phenomenological ears. He writes “Phenomenologist should be especially weary of the way in which ...” and “phenomenologists should, at least to some extent, attempt to….” and “he must not fail to examine carefully the observable events….” (italics added). 

Day clearly expresses NVB in each of these sentences. Of course, this is how academia always works. This is how peer-review articles are written, which are only read by a small group of specialists and which can never contribute anything to changing the way in which we talk.

Presumably “the phenomenologist needs greatly to recognize that a little less metaphor and theory, and a lot more simple description of the things that he has actually observed, would be of much help to others in understanding the problems he faces.” To defend radical behaviorism, Day focuses on what we say, but how we say things needs be addressed if we want to be able to understand our problems.

A therapist who continuously says to a client that he or she “must” or “should” do this or that will not achieve anything. When it comes to listening to one self while one speaks, even radical behaviorists have remained unaware of certain “pertinent relations between environment (including one’s own behavior) and the behavioral change”; Behavioral change occurs as listeners respond to the sound of the speaker’s voice.