October 5, 2014

October 5, 2014

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Behaviorist

Dear Reader, 

 

This writer had a wonderful genuine skype conversation with Maria de Lourdes R. da F. Passos. She spoke about how difficult and discouraging it has been for her to get her papers published. Only very few behaviorists are capable of analyzing the linguistics of verbal behavior. For the most part they still seem to be traumatized by the dismissive Chomsky and have some sort of reflexive aversion against the word they came to hate because of him: linguistics. 

Maria fully acknowledged and validated this writer’s explanation of Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) and agreed with him that written and spoken language require separate levels of analysis.Currently, this writer is reading the book “Running Out Of Time” by Stephen Ledoux. As the title suggests, the book is written with a sense of urgency or perhaps even despair. This writer had also contacted Ledoux and had briefly spoke with him by phone. Although it was a courteous conversation, Ledoux didn’t quite understand this writer’s reason for contacting him. Ledoux remained limited to his teacher’s role of promoting his book and behaviorology.

In his book Ledoux writes about what he says in class to his students. For instance, he writes about how he explains the difference between an unconditioned reinforcer and a conditioned reinforcer (p.122). The difference is easier understood when he explains the former as “attention” (without a verbal component) and the latter, as “praise” (with a verbal component). So, what he is referring to is how he speaks with someone to whom he explains something. The example illustrates the difference between nonverbal attention and verbal praise. 

Reading about this difference it is not the same as hearing about it. Reading about it cannot replace hearing about it, because only hearing it has the conditioning effects, which are enhanced, but are never caused by this or by any other writing. 

Reading about this distinction can only condition knowledge about the verbal praise, but it doesn’t involve anything about nonverbal attention. For that there needs to be face-to-face interaction, that is, two bodies meeting in time and space.. , Writing about attention without words is a necessary part of the scientific process, but is not sufficient. Events must have physical status to be detectable and measurable. Thus, we must talk. 

If people are going be reconditioned into having behaviorological explanations for their behavior this is going to occur as a consequence of a new way of speaking, which will lead to new way of writing. To assume that behaviorological writing and reading will change our way of speaking flies in the face of everything we know about operant conditioning. It didn't happen and it is not going to happen.

There is very little Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) in the world. We don’t know what it is, how it works and how to reinforce it. The most important behavior for which we should seek its cause, is our way of talking with one another. No matter how many authors keep writing about changing the conversation, we keep reinforcing Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB). We can read, write and study all we want about fictional explanations, such as reification, converting adjectives into nouns, nominal falllacies and circular reasoning, but this has not led and this will not lead to  increased reinforcement and increased levels of SVB, and, eventually, extinction of NVB. The more we kept putting the proverbial horse behind the wagon, the less we have started to actually talk with one another. This is exactly what is happening in all academic disciplines, including behaviorology. 

    

A written account of verbal behavior is as bad as a fictional account, because it doesn’t give us any leverage in intervening with the behavior on which human relationship depends. Most of mankind’s spoken communication problems have remained unresolved because we have falsely assumed that our writings would produce effective interventions. We have yet to come to grips with the sad fact that our analyses were merely writings, which could never find their way to a larger population, because they made interaction more instead of less difficult. 

Once we know about SVB, it becomes crystal clear that we haven’t yet talked like that. Each time we write or read about speaking, we lose track of the fact that we are reading and writing, but not speaking. Moreover, when we read about speaking, it appears as if we are speaking about speaking. The fact is, however, that the exact opposite is true: we are reading about writing and we become more oblivious about speaking. To improve our relationships, we must learn to speak about how we are actually speaking with each other. This cannot be replaced by reading. Only SVB can make us do that. NVB prevents us from exploring our spoken communication.   

October 4, 2014

October 4, 2014

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Behaviorist

Dear Reader, 

The verbal conditioning of past generations is completely irrelevant to our modern scientific findings. Animism, the ancient belief that natural objects, natural phenomena, and the universe itself possess souls, continues in a modified form in our language today. Thus, most people still believe that the human body has a soul, which exists apart from it. This becomes apparent when someone dies, because only then are we confronted with this fiction. However, even those who understand and acknowledge that nothing survives death go about their lives as if they are the doers of their own actions.  

Presumably, the difference between active and passive voice indicates that we are becoming more scientific. A sentence in which a subject performs an action, such as: “I wrecked your car”, is said to be less objective, because it was written in active voice. Such sentences are usually shorter and easier to read than when we describe the matter in passive voice. Then, we might say: “your car has been wrecked.” In the former, there is an agent, but in the latter, the agent is left out of the picture.  People generally don’t like to read passive voice, because sentences written in passive voice usually become too long and too wordy and omit agential doers. In other words, passive voice doesn’t “speak” to people as well as active voice does. As the example of active versus passive voice makes clear, attempts to rid language of pre-scientific linguistic fictions has been focused on written, but not on spoken language. 

Fact is, there is neither passive nor active voice in our written language. And, silently reading and writing involves no vocal response. Only in our spoken language do we use our voice. Moreover, by becoming aware of our voice, while we speak, we can become more scientific in our spoken communication. It was not the length or the wordiness of our sentences, which prevented us from becoming scientific. It was the replacement and the neglect of our spoken communication by written words, which perpetuated our unscientific ways of talking. During SVB we find, the longer time we spend talking, the more scientific we will become.

October 3, 2014

October 3, 2014

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Behaviorist

Dear Reader, 

 

This writer woke up from a dream in which he kissed his mother on her cheek while both were crying from happiness. They were walking outside and then went inside their home. They were in a spacious room in which this writer was to give one of his seminars. The room looked like an enormous classroom and the sound of his voice resonated. There was a girl who was attracted to him. They embraced each other and she wanted to kiss him, but he didn’t let her and said it was nice to feel the way they did without getting into anything. The Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB)seminar was about to get started and the room was filling up with people. Before he began, he went outside and met a former client, a lady, who was wearing a head-set and was smoking a cigarette. He greeted her, but she didn’t recognize him and seemed much bigger and stronger than before. They had always had a good connection with each other. When she recognized him, she didn’t engage in her usual loud behavior and calmly blinked at him with her big brown eyes. After she had left, this writer was able to take giant steps and he walked fast enough to keep up with the speed of cars. 

Besides having this dream, this writer also had a good sleep. He had gone to bed at 8pm and woke up at 4:30am, so he slept 8.5 hours, which is more than usual for him. Also, yesterday, immediately after his work, he had gone to the gym, where he swam 20 laps and sat in the Jacuzzi and in the sauna. This seemed to have had a good effect on his sleep. He had not done this for a while and felt sure that it was because of this that his sleep was so restful. Furthermore, at his work, this writer had been appreciated by his colleagues. He received approving emails. This too had made him feel satisfied and grateful. Another unusual event was that he had listened to an audio tape he had once made for a friend. On it he spoke with his friend, while he walked along the San Francisco Bay. It was relaxing to listen to that tape and his drive from Red Bluff to Chico had gone by quickly and smoothly because of that.

October 2, 2014

October 2, 2014

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Behaviorist

Dear Reader, 

 

By speaking about behavior, not as caused by ourselves, by our beliefs, by our personalities, by our motivations, or, by the extensions of our idea of ourselves, our significant others, our authorities, our role-models, our leaders and our gurus, and not as caused by the group to which we supposedly belong, wish to belong or no longer belong, we begin to look at behavior objectively and we free ourselves from the way in which our language seemingly divided up the environment.

During Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) we come in contact with ourselves and each other and we recognize that Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB) is a way of speaking in which we separate from ourselves as well as from each other.

   

When we feel safe, happy, supported, respected, accepted and acknowledged, when we experience and share positive emotions, our sense of self and isolation is temporarily lifted. This common truth shows that in, what should be considered our natural sense of well-being, our homeostasis, we feel connected to ourselves and to those who are in our environment. 

If our way of talking captures this, we are going find out how our behavior works. We have not done that and to the extent that we have done that, we realize that the presence of NVB brings an end to SVB. However, regardless of all our NVB, SVB  emerged. Regardless of our reflexive respondent behavior, operant behavior evolved. Indeed, respondent behavior doesn’t fully capture the complexity of our behavior. This was B.F.Skinner's great contribution; he discovered that the consequences of our behavioral response affects the future probability of that behavioral response.

While SVB clarifies the co-occurrence of and intereraction between respondent and operant behavior, NVB keeps us stuck with respondent behavior. The previously mentioned limitation, worded as the assumption that we cause our own behavior or that others are causing our behavior (which is an equally problematic version of causation), is more accurately described by how involuntary, respondent behavior constrains voluntary, operant learning. In SVB such constraints are decreased. The contrast between SVB and NVB illustrates this enormous important difference. Another way of saying this is that SVB is practical and experiential and not only theoretical. NVB wrongly makes us believe that theory is causing our behavior.

October 1, 2014

October 1, 2014

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Behaviorist

Dear Reader, 

 

This writer had a wonderful conversation with John Ferreira about adjusting how we  talk to behaviorology, the natural science of environment-controlled behavior. To speak more meaningful, more often and more accurately about behaviorology, we must adopt words which describe the operant process involved in our verbal behavior. 

Environmental antecedent and postcedent events which stimulate, shape and maintain our verbal behavior, occur within and outside of our skin. Ferreira refers to these as endovironmental and ectovironmental stimuli. It makes total sense to treat what is inside and outside the skin as one environment. Furthermore, it is of great importance that we acknowledge that part of the environment to which we only individually have excess, the endovironment and that part to which everyone has access, the ectoenvironment. Endo as well as ecto-stimuli simultaneously and alternatively determine our ecto and endo verbal behavior, public speech and private speech.  There is ongoing interaction between the endo and the ecto environment.  

   

To observe our verbal behavior, we must stop talking about my behavior, your behavior and even, our behavior. All of these are inferences about entities which supposedly cause behavior. Fact is, however, we neither cause our own nor each other’s behavior. One may ask: what then is causing our behavior? The answer to this question is that behavior isn’t ours. By rephrasing the question we become more accurate about behavior: what is causing behavior? It is likely that we still wonder whose behavior we are talking about? Since we have been conditioned to think in terms of my behavior versus your behavior, our behavior is often out of the picture, let alone all behavior, which includes, of course, animal behavior. 

The natural science of human behavior is part of biology, because it acknowledges the continuation of behavior across species. Said differently, human beings are part of the natural world in which environments select behavioral consequences.When we feel fearful, agitated, threatened or humiliated, when we are negatively affected by ecto – or endo stimuli, we get again and again stuck on this idea that we cause our own behavior or that we must do something to change. Even when we try to stop others from having a negative effect on us, we keep missing the point that neither we nor others cause their own behavior.