September 29, 2014

September 29, 2014

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Behaviorist

Dear Reader, 

 

Now that this writer knows about behaviorology, the natural science of human behavior, he is reassured about things he was unclear about when he began studying radical behaviorism. That most people don’t have a scientific account for behavior doesn’t mean that there is no scientific account or that there is no need for it. Yet, it occurs to this writer that even behaviorologists mistake what is written for what is said. The difference is huge, but not obvious. Similarly to the view that an inner mystical agent causes individual behavior, most people believe that what is written is causing them to talk the way they do. This troublesome falsehood is perpetuated by the fact that what is written is being reinforced much more than what is said.

We can’t become scientific about human behavior as long as we hang on to explanations which don’t explain anything and which only give us the illusion that they explain something. Skinner was right by asserting that the prediction and control of behavior is not enhanced by explanatory fictions. The same is true about our preference for written words over spoken words. It is not the proverbial child, who is thrown out with the bathwater, but the bathwater, the environment, is thrown out. Written sayings have turned things upside down. 

We are not going with the flow, but the flow is going with us. We are not going against the whole world, but the whole world is going against us. The notion that something written could explain how we speak has had disastrous consequences. We are at war with each other and we don’t talk because of what is written. What we say is limited by what is written, because we have lost our ability to reinforce it.

September 28, 2014

September 28, 2014

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Behaviorist

Dear Reader, 

 

Whether Russian or Chinese, every language consists of two languages. There is supportive, peaceful, respectful, sincere, reciprocal, positive, open, sensitive, kind, pleasant-sounding, scientific English, but, there is also hostile, distrustful, nasty, aggressive, negative, guarded, defensive, pretentious, hurtful, harsh, rude, horrible-sounding, cut-throat, biased, unscientific, my-way-or-the-highway English. The former is Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB), the latter Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB). We are not in the habit of viewing SVB and NVB, as two different languages, because we don’t approach how we speak in a scientific manner. We must pay attention to independent variables in the internal and external environment of which our speech, the dependent variable, is always a function. 

  

One way to explain SVB is by imagining that one is safely going to bed. One unwinds from a busy day and one looks forward to going to sleep. As one prepares to lie down in bed, one doesn’t engage in any activity and when one’s head hits the pillow one falls almost immediately asleep. The reader is asked to think of that moment in which one starts to feel sleepy. Instead of falling asleep, the reader is asked to stay awake and speak. One speaks with a sleepy voice and the fact that one speaks makes one even sleepier than one already was. One’s voice sounds calm and is almost inaudible. It is with this gentle voice that one begins to recognize the possibilities of SVB. One remains awake, because one’s voice sounds so good that one wants to explore its beneficial effects. One doesn’t fall asleep, because one’s voice generates a sense of well-being that increases as one speaks and makes one feel quiet and conscious. 

September 23, 2014

September 23, 2014

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Behaviorist

Dear Reader, 

 

Yesterday this writer had great skype-conversation with Arturo, his behaviorist friend from Colombia. He introduced his Chinese wife to him. Arturo talked about his Tai Chi teacher and his Chinese friends. Arturo and this writer have various Chinese connections and their lives are shaped by these contacts. Arturo said that because of Tai Chi he has learned to go with the flow and this writer spoke about his beloved father in law, who, although he died a couple of years ago, continues to be a positive force in his life.

Arturo spoke about how language is emerging in his two year old daughter. He believes that Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) is mainly taught by him, but that Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB) is primarily taught by the mother, with whom he is divorced. Whenever he has his daughter again with him, she is initially producing some NVB, but after a while, she settles down and begins to manifests more SVB, because Arturo is reinforcing that. Arturo is convinced that the mother must be reinforcing the NVB, which he basically ignores.

Furthermore, Arturo mentioned that his daughter is not yet capable of talking with herself. She doesn’t negotiate, which is apparent in her mean behavior to the cat. Arturo and this writer discussed how his verbal behavior gradually shapes the nonverbal behavior of his daughter. The cat, however, is nonverbal and seems to elicit some of her unfulfilled emotional needs. She demands his attention by being coercive and attempts the do the same with Arturo, who, by trying to articulate her needs, expands her verbal repertoire. SVB and NVB are mutually exclusive patterns of operant behavior, which are a function of different environments and contingencies.        

September 21, 2014

September 21, 2014

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Behaviorist

Dear Reader, 

 

This writer woke up after a good night’s sleep. He dreamed about his old boss, who got fired from her previous job, but found another job in sales at some big department store. He was no longer working for her, but was happy that she had found other employment in which she was able to do something she liked, which is: boss people around. After he left the old building, he felt relieved.

This writer just looked into the mirror and liked what he saw. It must have been a while ago that he enjoyed looking at himself this much. He liked his eyes and his mouth and nodded to himself that he was pleased to know he was doing so well. He felt rested, but he also realized how satisfied he was with his life and his wife. 

 

In a little while, he will get dressed and go to the house of his friends. They have a dog and he is going to run through the park with that dog. It is a law of life that if one keeps doing what is right for one’s body that one will be happy. The right amount of sleep, movement and food matter a great deal, but also absence of stress.

This writer’s life has gotten better since he became a behaviorist and has learned about behaviorology. He knows his current knowledge is working for him. In the past, what he thought he knew often felt like a burden and was working against him. For many years also his knowledge about Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB), although it stimulated him, was like a curse. Yesterday, this writer had a wonderful skype-conversation about SVB with a psychiatrist from Belgium.     

September 20, 2014

September 20, 2014

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Behaviorist

The success of Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) – spoken communication in which verbalizers interact with mediators in such a way that they are in agreement that they are not themselves, individually causing their own behavior, but are causing each other’s behavior – is explained by the natural science of human behavior, called behaviorology. 

Although, the way in which individuals verbalize or mediate verbal behavior is a matter of a person’s unique history of conditioning, other human beings are the discriminative stimuli in the current environment, which set the stage for their current responses. 

What is elicited or evoked in mediators by how verbalizers speak or by what they say, requires a new form of communicating in which communicators are reinforced for observing, describing, predicting and controlling their own verbal behavior and that of others.

  

The tracking of the conditioning of the relevant repertoire parts, will give us an understanding of how SVB, like any other complex behavior, is simply the result of the recombination of previously conditioned components. When we look at what is needed to create and maintain SVB, it becomes evident that Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB) is merely the verbal behavior, which is elicited by default in the absence of the components to have SVB. 

NVB, in essence, is a primitive form of communicating, in which verbalizers and mediators believe that they cause their own behavior. Although they blame each other for their behavioral responses, they don’t really know that they are causing each other’s behavior. SVB, by contrast, is a more sophisticated way of communicating, which is based on the fact that we cause each other’s behavior.

The independent and dependent variables behaviorologists investigate must be natural, because events which fall outside the category of what is real are untestable. When we look at the two categories of speaking, we would like to measure how the listener, the dependent variable, experiences the SVB or NVB speaker, the independent variable. A complication arises from the fact that SVB as well as NVB are believed to be caused by ourselves, by our personalities or by our faith in a higher power. Behaviorologically, this disqualifies them as independent variables. However, this doesn’t make them any less real. When we engage in NVB, we are bound to exchange and perpetuate superstitious nonsense, but when we engage in SVB, we already learn about behaviorology, because we talk very differently.

However, it must be made clear that behaviorology by itself will not result in SVB. It is necessary, but it is not sufficient. This writer knew nothing about behaviorology until only two years ago, but he was already aware that the sound of the voice of the speakers during  positive, supportive, intelligent, bi-directional relationships, is completely different from the sound of the voice of the speaker in  coercive, hierarchical, exploiting, uni-directional relationships. 

The tone of the speaker's voice differentiates SVB from NVB. The different effects created by our voice have more to do with how we speak than with the content of what we say. In other words, the building blocks for SVB were already conditioned in this writer way before he was able to put them together in words. His childhood fear of, his disinterest in and his problems with following through on what was said, had set the stage for an early selection process, which favored a focus on how the things were said. It was only once this writer found out about behaviorology that his interest shifted to what was said, when he found the explanation for his own behavior.