August 24, 2016

August 24, 2016

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Reader,

This is my twenty-sixth response to the paper “Radical Behaviorism in Reconciliation with Phenomenology” by Willard Day (1969). Day does a great job delineating how radical behaviorism “impinges upon the domain of phenomenology.” Radical behaviorism primarily focuses on “behavior, even though it may not be public in nature.” A behavioral analyst acknowledges the fact that “much of both his own behavior and that in which he is interested is under complex control, a control that is likely to be to a considerable extent environmental in nature.”

When people think about the environment, they tend to think of oceans, forests, rivers and skies, but not of other people. We are each other’s environment; we affect each other and we are affected by each other. The way we are affected by each other’s sound is a more ancient biological process than how we are affected by each other’s words. Language is a relatively new event in our evolutionary history.  

Our body’s innate response to sound and particularly to vocalizations from conspecifics is of great importance. This obvious fact is often completely ignored because we are more inclined to pay attention to what we say than to how we say what we say. Although we are verbal creatures, the distinction between Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) and Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB) relates to our non-verbal history.

Our own sound can stimulate us in a manner that rejuvenates our entire nervous system. Furthermore, our brains and our nervous systems are either stimulated and conditioned by the sound of our well-being or by the sound of our fear, stress and frustration.  In the former our nervous system is regulated, but in the latter, is it dysregulated. 

Instead of simply acknowledging that the phenomenologists seem to be having more SVB than the radical behaviorists, Day suggests that “The phenomenologist needs greatly to recognize that a little less metaphor and theory, and a lot more description of the things that he has actually observed, would be of much help to others in understanding the problems he faces.” He focuses on what the phenomenologist say.

I understand why Day wrote what he wrote, but as a teacher and as a therapist, I firmly believe that an emphasis on how we say things is of greater importance for helping others. The problems people face are caused by an over-emphasis on the importance of their verbal behavior and the disconnect this creates from their non-verbal behavior. 

To speak in a phenomenological metaphor: we are often just like unconscious talking heads as we disconnect from our body, which is the instrument of sound. Each time we get verbally carried away, we disembody our communication, but by listening to how we sound while we speak, we become embodied, conscious, whole speakers again. 

When Day insists “The phenomenologist should be especially weary of the ways in which his previous experience acts to influence however he happens to talk, particularly in constructing theories, planning research, and reaching explanatory conclusions”, he clearly only refers to what the phenomenologists say and not to the previous experiences of how speaker’s voices played a role shaping their verbal behavior. 

One could say that Day is verbally fixated as he is downplaying the role of “previous experience”, that is, of nonverbal learning, which “acts to influence however he happens to talk.” If it is true, and I strongly believe it is, that phenomenologist have more SVB than behaviorists, Day’s criticizes their SVB with NVB. Such disapproval never worked. 

In the study of complex behavior, to decide “what is chicken and what is egg”, we shouldn’t lose track of the fact that nonverbal learning made verbal learning possible;  prior environments changed our body.