September 1, 2014

September 1, 2014

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Behaviorist

Dear Reader, 

 

The seminar yesterday at the Chico Branch Library of Butte County was a great success. In addition to explaining the ins and outs of Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB), this writer emphasized the fact that people don’t cause their own behavior. This proved to be very fruitful and it led to fascinating interaction. It helped explain SVB and Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB) better than anything he previously had talked about. Also in the psychology class he teaches, this writer made a similar focus. Like nothing else this sets the stage for change.

Towards the end of the seminar an important discovery was made. This writer had known for many years that while an individual speaks, he or she has dominant left or right-sided body language and leans with most of his or her weight on either the right or on the left foot. He had experimented extensively with the de-activation of the active body-language-side and the activation of the inactive body-language- side, which involves a deliberate shift of a person's weight from his or her left foot to his or her right foot or visa-versa. 

Although the effect of changing a person's body language on how this person speaks had always been evident to all the participants to whom it was demonstrated, the discussion which followed had often been muddled by vague assumptions about the causation of behavior by the left brain or the right brain. It can be easily observed, however, that a person's left-sided dominant body language, co-occurs with entirely different verbal behavior than a person's right-sided dominant body language. The notion that our right brain, along with  left-sided dominant body language 'causes' more emotional output and that our left brain, along with right-sided dominant body language,  'causes' more rational output, contaminated the actual experiment. 

In the aforementioned scenario participants in previous seminars had been so baffled by the difference which they had noticed in another person’s verbal expressions that they would easily get carried away by their verbally-fixated talk about how the right brain supposedly causes rational speech and how the left brain presumably causes emotional speech. This brain-based causation-conversation would then lead to unverifiable speculations, which diluted the effects that reliably occured when a person's left-sided dominant body language was methodically de-activated and right-sided inactive body language  activated or when right-sided dominant body language was de-activated and left-sided inactive body language activated. Causation of speech by our brains is another version of an inner agent and had confounded repeatedly the scientific experiment this writer had wanted to do.

During yesterday's seminar,this mistake was caught and this writer was able to ignore speculations about how the left brain supposedly causes other verbal behavior than the right brain. By remaining focused on only the observable behavior, on what the participants said and on how they sounded and how they moved, the participants, who had changed their dominant body language, created new experiences within their own skin, a part of the environment, which had been almost completely overlooked during their spoken communication. 

Those who experimented with this phenomenon, as well as those who witnessed and validated the changes they perceived in the expressions of others, moved away from talking and thinking about causation of behavior by a self or a brain, to talking about observable behavior.

To experience and simultaneously talk about what happens within our  skin as something that happens in our environment is a new concept. To speak about this more clearly, as Ferreira (2013) has suggested, it makes sense to call our outside environment, the ecto-environment and our inside environment, the endo-environment. Stimuli within our own skin are endo-stimuli and those outside are ecto-stimuli. 

Of course, our endo-environment is caused by our ecto-environment, which is not to say that endo-stimuli produced by micro-structural changes of our body can't produce our behavioral responses. Also, it became very clear during the seminar (even though we weren’t yet using this terminology) that we needed to distinguish between our endo-responses and ecto-responses, the former being noticeable only individually, the latter always noticeable and verifiable by others.

If we speak about our endo-responses at all, it is as if they occur in a world that is different from others. Our supposedly ‘mindful’ way of talking disconnects us from ourselves and from each other and signifies our Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB). NVB is defined as the behavior which occurs as long as we believe that we cause our own behavior. SVB, by contrast, only occurs when we pay attention to the ecto-stimuli, such as the verbalizer's voice as well as his or her body language, which causes the endo-responses in the mediator. 

NVB is reinforced by mediators, who were taught to speak about their endo-responses as if they themselves were responsible for them. Only those who were taught to speak about endo-responses more properly, that is, in terms of how they were caused by ecto-stimuli, were able to acquire some of the components which would later become SVB.

In NVB, ecto-stimuli, the nonverbal punitive behaviors that are exhibited by the verbalizers, force the mediators into submission. The mediator's approval of the NVB verbalizer is a conditioned fear-response, in other words, it is respondent and thus has major consequences for how the mediator speaks. In NVB the mediator does not ask, and, is not asked to speak about his or her fear of the verbalizer. The NVB mediator either obeys the NVB verbalizer or he or she simply overrides his or her fear by arguing and fighting with the NVB verbalizer. This struggle then is audible in the sound of the verbalizer's voice, once he or she stops being a mediator. 

NVB is based on the lack of turn-taking and derives its name from the noise which is produced when we pretend to communicate. During NVB our voices grab, stab, push, pull, choke, force and distract. NVB verbalizers are so insensitive to themselves and so callous to others that they become warriors, who are willing to give their lives and  claim that they have no fear. By expressing their negative emotions, NVB verbalizers bully, overwhelm and coerce mediators and easily turn them into NVB self-talkers. 

Those who grew up in an environment of relative care and kindness don't want to mediate NVB, but, while being forced by others to listen to it, they inadvertently reinforce it. This is because the listening behavior of the SVB mediator is more developed than his or her SVB speaking behavior. Only when SVB mediators stop listening to NVB verbalizers will they be able to become SVB verbalizers. 

To become a SVB verbalizer, one must listen to oneself while one speaks. Moreover, one must speak to be able to hear oneself. SVB speech will only continue with those who reinforce it. Each time SVB stops, NVB will take over. Only those who can differentiate between the two are able to notice this. SVB communicators are neither responsible for themselves nor for each other. Their conditioning allows them to create and maintain environments in which SVB can happen. They avoid NVB, because know how to avoid it. Their escapes from NVB have become so effective that they hardly occur. They can approach SVB, because their avoidance of and escape from NVB works. Skinner’s life was an excellent example of this.

In SVB, inactive body language becomes activated and dominant body language will be attenuated. In NVB, on the other hand, we speak with our usual body language and our inactive side will not be activated. Of course, in both SVB and NVB there is body language on both sides. To see which side is the active body language side, the experimenter  carefully observes on which foot the verbalizer rests with most of his or her weight while he or she speaks. When this verbalizer is asked by the experimenter to de-activate his or her active body language, this will predictably create discomfort. 

The verbalizer will try to move back to his or her familiar body language side, but when he or she is coached to ease his or her way into activating his or her inactive side and de-activating his or her active side, he or she will demonstrate that his or her new body language creates an entirely novel set of experiences. The mediators, who hear and see such a verbalizer, will fully acknowledge this. 

The contrast that is created by leaning one's body weight on one's  right or on one's left foot, appears to stimulate new forms of verbal behavior. The experimenter can instruct the verbalizer to let his or her right-sided body language interact with his or her left-sided body language. To maintain the contrast between both sides, only the left or the right-sided body language is initially activated. If both sides are activated simultaneously, this contrast dissolves. 

After the inactive body language side has been activated, there occurs a change on the over-active body language side. As a result of the expression of the inactive body language side; the dominant body language side becomes more relaxed. Consequently, the dominant body language body side becomes less dominant. Moreover, the dominant body language side becomes approved and supported by the until recently inactive body language side. Thus, due to the activation of inactive body language SVB becomes possible and NVB is decreased.

August 31, 2014

August 31, 2014

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Behaviorist

Dear Reader, 

 

Today this writer will conduct his monthly seminar. Because he made a contact with another human being, the market manager, he was able to stand at the Farmer’s Market with a table, yesterday and Saturday a week ago. Talking with the people at the market was a great joy to this writer. He met many wonderful individuals, who were interested and who understood what he meant when he explained that the seminar was about Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB). Hopefully they will show up today. Also, he met someone who is involved with KZFR, the local radio station, who told him that his seminar had been announced on the community calendar. Given all the publicity, this writer expects that many participants will come to today’s event. 

In recent times this author has received lots of reinforcement for his work. This has led to changes in his behavior. He is no longer trying so hard to reach people. Also, when he notices that people are not open to him, it doesn’t bother him that much anymore as it used to. It used to bother him a great deal and he would try to convince other people. Although he always had recognized it when people were not open, it wouldn’t stop him from trying. Now he avoids attracting attention of individuals, who only want to argue. 

Every human being has his or her own behavior history due to which he or she, is open or closed for SVB. Also, a person may be open at one moment, but next he or she may be closed again. All of this depends on the way in which he or she was conditioned. Although existing behaviors play a large role in how a person responds, the stimuli presented to this person in the moment are crucially important too. For instance, at the market, this writer was keenly aware of whether he initiated the meeting or whether the person showed some interest.

Each time this writer initiated the contact, he attracted someone who was not really interested. It was clear and it made him wait until someone initiated the conversation. This then resulted in a different interaction. Also, this writer used different language than he used before. By introducing himself as a Psychology teacher from Butte College, people were more inclined to listen to him. Furthermore, he started using behavioral terminology in his announcements. In the flyer he wrote: SVB teaches us that we don’t cause our own behavior. This may attract some, but it will also deter others. He wants to attract as well as deter.

This writer had to leave many people behind, who were incapable of talking with him in the way he would like to. He admits that he was unable to change them, but due to this understanding he slowly began to change. His claim has never been that SVB was going to change others. To the contrary, SVB can only change the person who practices it. Certain changes can be made by others, who teach us, others can only be made, because we instruct ourselves with our private speech.

However, the basis for this conscious way of acting always remains the behavior-controlling environment, but only that part to which an individual him or herself has access, the environment that is within his or her own skin. There is nothing mysterious about this process. 

While we speak, our attention is regularly drawn out to others in such a way that we become oblivious about the environment that exists within our own skin. The reason that we so often engage in Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB) is because our attention goes to the words that we speak and not to the nonverbal experience of sound of our voice. 

To produce the voice which initiates SVB, our private speech or our self-talk must stimulate us to listen to ourselves while we speak. Such self-talk couldn’t occur if it wasn’t taught to us. Also this writer has learned it from someone. He learned it from someone's SVB public speech, which then became his private speech. 

To have SVB private speech, we must first have SVB public speech. People have NVB private speech, because they experienced excessive NVB public speech. NVB private speech can’t be changed directly and any attempt to do so is bound to fail. NVB private speech can only be decreased by SVB public speech. Only SVB public speech can create SVB private speech. Giving attention to NVB private speech will reinforce it and will only lead to more NVB public speech. To have SVB public speech, we must know exactly what stimulates it. 

Outward orientation, due to which spoken communication is more about what we say than about how we say it,is always motivated by our effort to control our environment, that is, others. In a safe and supportive environment this tendency will not occur. However, we remain on guard as long as we continue to feel threatened. 

NVB occurs because stimuli, such as the tone of our own or someone else's voice, aversively affect us. If someone, maybe our child, would make us recognize this, we would change the way we sound. However, a scary child isn’t capable of teaching a dominating parent to speak with a softer tone of voice. It is the private speech of the parent, which must instruct him or her to talk with his or her child in a non-threatening manner. As long as the parent relies on the child to regulate his or her anxiety, the child may adapt, but it will not feel safe and it will manifest this in his or her behavior.

The private speech of the parent cannot be altered by a child’s nonverbal cries. It can only be modified by the public speech with a mature member of the verbal community, by a language with which the child isn’t yet familiar. However, if the public speech is NVB, as it unfortunately so often is, the child will be reinforced for expressive behaviors, which are based on negative emotions. We can teach our children SVB only if we know SVB. The reason that SVB is happening at such a low rate is because we don’t really know it.         

August 29, 2014

August 29, 2014

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Behaviorist

Dear Reader, 

These letters, words and sentences on the screen, are physical, but, looking at the screen, holding the laptop,  keyboarding and listening to the sound of our fingers and touching the keys, are behavioral. 

Expression of language is physical, but reception is behavioral. Words are the independent variable and the writing is the dependent variable. Also this particular fond is physical, which has an effect on the writing behavior it causes. Writing on one’s computer is a natural process in which one variable causes a change in the other.

Written language is very different from spoken language. Words, which are spoken, are sounds and their physical properties are determined by our vocal cords. Moreover, when we listen to our words, our bodies are affected by our voices. By listening to ourselves while we speak, we affect our body with our voice. Thus, our sound is the independent variable, which has an effect on what we say,the dependent variable. 

The sound of our voice is physical and it depends on the relative tension or relaxation of our body. The production of our spoken words requires the movements of our mouth and our tongue on an outgoing breath. Not all sounds are words. Only vocalizations which were reinforced by the verbal community are considered verbal behavior. 

Our body is the instrument that produces its own sound. Different bodies will produce different sounds. Depending on one’s physique, one will behave as a soprano, an alto, a tenor, a baritone or a bass. The natural range of a person’s voice is determined by his or her living body. When we are dead our sound is gone for good. Also, when we are depressed or stressed, our sound will be temporarily gone. 

 

Under certain circumstances the soprano, the alto, the tenor or the baritone will sound great, but under other circumstances he or she will sound horrible. Singers are more aware of the circumstances in which they sing than speakers are aware of the circumstances in which they speak. It takes a speaker with a singer’s background to become aware of how we sound while we speak. Only such a person is inclined to listen to how he or she actually sounds. Without such a background people tend to think that only what they say matters.

As stated, something physical is the independent variable, which causes observable behavior, which is the effect or the dependent variable. Our body causes our sound and our spoken words are sounds, and thus whether we sound good or not matters a great deal. We sound terrible when we are frustrated, stressed or anxious and what we say will be received by others based on by how we sound. Our tense body not only produces a tense sound, but it also produces tense content.

We will choose different words when we are calm and when we sound good. If, as we usually do, we don’t pay attention to how we sound, we may be using upsetting language without even knowing it. The only way to find out that we are using such language is by listening to how we sound. As long as we are not listening to our own voice, we get carried away by our own words or by the words from others. What causes us to speak in the way that we speak is our body. If there is no awareness of our body, we will speak in a disembodied manner. 

We may think that we say doesn’t seem to depend on how we say it, but it really does. We can say “I love you”in a way that we mean it, but we can also say it in a way that it becomes meaningless. Whether what we say becomes meaningful depends on how we say it. Also, our tone of voice signifies how well-adjusted we are to each other. And how we sound informs us how well-acquainted we are with our selves. Our sound represents our well-being or the lack thereof.

How we will use our language is determined by how we sound. Nothing good has ever come from the so-called communication in which we said what we were forced to say or what we were forcing ourselves to say. We are coercing ourselves and each other to say things only to the extent that we ourselves were once coerced to say things by others. Whatever we say to ourselves in our private speech reflects how others have spoken with us and have demanded to be spoken to.

 

We have learned to say many things, but whether what we say maintains our relationship depends on how we say it. Correspondence between saying and doing doesn’t depend on what will happen after we have spoken, on whether we will do as we have said. It depends on what happens while we are speaking. It is often said that saying is one thing and that doing is another, but, saying is doing. If one does what one says one does, one does it already while one speaks. If one supposedly does what one says later on, one makes false promises and one deludes oneself and others into believing that one will do as one has said. No one who said that he or she was going to do as he or she said he or she would do, has done what he or she said he or she would do. Those who did what they said, they said exactly what they did, because they didn’t do it later, they did it while they said it, in other words, their saying was doing.

When saying is doing, we achieve Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB), but when saying and doing are separate, when we supposedly take care of business later, we engage in Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB). After SVB there is no need to follow up on what we say, because in SVB our body resonates with its ideal sound. In NVB, by contrast, our sound doesn't match with our body. Consequently, during NVB we dis-regulate and reject our own body as well as the bodies of others, but in SVB, we co-regulate each other's body with our nonverbal actions. The verbalizer's sound always operates on the mediator's body.     

August 26, 2014

August 26, 2014

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Behaviorist

Dear Reader, 

Behavior that is reinforced increases and  a person's dominant behavior is therefore more reinforced than other behavior. The question is not what kind of behavior gets reinforced? The question is why behavior gets reinforced? What discriminative stimuli will set the stage for this response and due to what consequences is this behavior increasing or decreasing? Does the behavior occur even in the absence of others? It may be a person’s response to his or her private speech. 

The opposite is also true: when behavior is punished, it decreases. If behavior only occurs at a minimal level, it is likely that it is punished. If, over time, behavior decreases and eventually disappears, it is said to extinguish. Such behavior is no longer reinforced and to the extent that it is punished, it will extinguish faster. 

If behavior is punished, it will decrease, but if it is still being reinforced, it will continue, even in spite of the negative consequences. In such a situation, the person  continues his or her way, because he or she is still experiencing the positively reinforcing consequences. Someone who is looking to decrease the negative consequences of the problem behavior of such a person is likely to overlook the reinforcing consequences that continue to stimulate and maintain that behavior.  

When individuals attempt to increase a certain behavior, they often try to do so in the illusion that they can make themselves do it. This illusion is so pervasive that people try to increase or decrease their own behavior and they try to increase or decrease the behavior of others. In each case, the change of behavior is assumed to be done by the person who increases or decreases his or her own behavior. We say things like “You can do it” and "Go for it." However, this is completely against everything we know about how behavior is increased or decreased. 

No individual increases or decreases his or her own behavior, because increases or decreases of behavior are functions of variables in the environment. Only under certain environmental circumstances can and will these increases or decreases reliably occur. The false notion that we can cause behavioral change by ourselves is the reason that we don’t change and that we prevent ourselves from changing.

August 25, 2014

August 25, 2014

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Behaviorist

Dear Reader, 

 

In “Maladaptive Functional Relations In Client Verbal Behavior” (1983)Sigrid Glenn states that “Demanding and manipulative behaviors are mands that obtain immediate reinforcement at the expense of  disrupting long-term interpersonal relations.” This author thinks it is best to replace “Demanding and manipulative behavior” with the term Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB), because this will help us see how behaviors pertaining to “long-term interpersonal relations” are a different response class, which this author refers to as Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB). 

This author agrees with Glenn’s closing statement “The analysis also leads the practitioner to practice to consider how he or she might adjust the contingencies to evoke behavior with more productive long-term outcomes.” By instructing people about SVB, we adjust the contingencies so that behaviors which are limited to a short-term perspective are replaced by behaviors which bring into view a long-term perspective. The long-term perspective includes the short-term perspective, but the short-term perspective, as we all know, excludes the long-term perspective. 

The process of inclusion versus exclusion is mediated by how others speak with us,  but also by how we speak with ourselves, by our private speech. As what we say to ourselves, in our covert private speech (our thinking) is a function of our public speech, we can change our private speech only by means of our public speech. Symptoms of mental illness, such as grandiosity, narcissism, anti-social behaviors or psychosis, are in fact caused, maintained and shaped by our public speech. When not treated as such, no progress can be made in terms of decreasing these behaviors, to the contrary, these behaviors will only be strengthened over time. 

This author has often been surprised by the conviction of schizophrenics in their perception of the reality. Their tenacity told him that they must be right in their own way about something. They are absolutely right about, but they are unable to precisely analyze, what maintains their behavior. They demand reinforcement for it and, for the most part, they succeed. Their aberrant operants, which are expressed as NVB, are inadvertently reinforced even by mental health professionals. If they would only treat a client’s public speech, they would be able to decrease their symptoms, because with SVB clients are reinforced for getting their needs met.