November 22, 2014

November 22, 2014

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Behaviorist

Dear Reader, 

 

This writing is a response to “The Role Of Automatic Negative Reinforcement In Clinical Problems” (2005) by Raymond G. Miltenberger. The paper is easy to read and consequently easy to respond to. Miltenberger explains well why automatic negative reinforcement is difficult to treat and therefore understudied. Clinical problems like binge eating, hair pulling and compulsive buying, illustrate the problems involved in treating behaviors which are automatic negatively reinforced. 

While reading this paper, this author was immediately thinking about Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB), which is also maintained by automatic negative reinforcement. NVB is definitely a clinical problem, but it is until now not considered as such. NVB is the way in which we communicate most of the time. In other words, NVB is the interaction which continues and increases our problems.

Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB), by contrast, addresses and solves our problems. This may sound vague, but when we begin to look into the occurrence of these two crucially important and easily detectable response classes, it soon becomes clear that there is a great difference between the communication and relationship in which we speak at or with each other. In the former, we maintain NVB, in the latter, we maintain SVB. In NVB, the behavior of the verbalizer is problematic, because it is based on the covert attempt to get away from negative emotions. Although our overt verbal behavior is socially mediated, our covert verbal behavior is maintained by automatic reinforcement. Parity with the verbal community causes the automatic reinforcement of our private speech. 

If, as this author believes and insists, everybody is mainly involved in NVB and we are pushing each other around with our negative emotions from which we are trying escape, NVB private speech becomes over time maintained by automatic reinforcement rather than by social reinforcement, because  verbal behavior, over the cause of development, recedes from an overt to a covert level. Thus, overt NVB necessarily results in covert NVB, while only overt SVB can result in covert SVB. The great difference between covert NVB and covert SVB is that the former is always maintained by automatic negative reinforcement, but the latter is maintained by automatic positive reinforcement. Since behaviors which are maintained by automatic negative reinforcement are the most difficult to treat, it is no wonder why human interaction has remained a huge, but unaddressed problem. 

Aggressive behaviors which we often see in individuals with autism are functionally identical to NVB: people just don’t know how to communicate, that is, how to have SVB. There are no mysteries in the natural science of human behavior. As we pretend to explain such aggressive verbal behavior as innate, caused by stress hormones, having to do with the aggressor’s disposition, determined by his or her personality traits (such as need for achievement or power), we have not made any progress in terms of solving problems of relationship. We have not been very successful in decreasing and replacing communication problem behaviors. Our communication  problems have been around for so long that we are actually quite bored by them. Consequently, NVB is ubiquitous and SVB is rear. 

Individuals with autism also often manifest self-injurious behaviors, which are functionally the same as the less conspicuous ways in which people who are stuck in NVB keep hurting themselves. The reason that we don’t acknowledge food or drug addiction, domestic violence, abuse or unhealthy behavior, as having the same etiology is because we focus on topography of behavior, but not on its function. Once we look into the meaning of why we keep having NVB instead of SVB and why we keep making SVB more and more impossible, we find that there is always a pay-off. 

Although NVB behavior is complex behavior under control of multiple environmental variables, the different topographies involved in NVB have something in common. Whether someone has his or her head up his or her ass or his or her foot in his or her mouth, the reason why NVB keeps occurring is because people simply don’t know how to have SVB. Although our haphazard ways of asking, demanding, distracting or avoiding each other’s attention are mediated by different topographies, they still all come down to one and the same root cause, namely that we don’t know how to express our needs in such a way that they can be met. As the imminent behaviorists Edward Carr (1993) has said, it is not about our behavior, but about of what the behavior is a function. NVB is a caused by the fact that we, just like autistic individuals, don’t know how to communicate.

Presumably, the purpose of our verbal behavior is mainly instructional, but this meaning is only apparent to the extent that we succeed in getting our needs met. Since NVB is a coarse-grained, uni-directional behavior, it cannot represent our needs. Many of our subtle, bi-directional, social needs have remained virtually unaddressed or have been ignored. Only our fine-grained SVB can completely meet our needs, but this requires the crafty re-shaping of our coarse-grained NVB. The lack of reciprocity, which is so apparent in individuals with autism, is also blatantly common in NVB communicators, who are not diagnosed with autism, but who are equally troubled.

November 21, 2014

November 21, 2014

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Behaviorist

Dear Reader, 

 

Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) is like sculpting: one chips away at the ineffective Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB) sound frequencies, until one is left with the reinforcing conversation, which is so delightful and revealing that it keeps on going by itself. The raw material of sculpting is stone, but the basic ingredient for conversation is our sound. Tools we use to sculpt the rock, such as hammer and chisel, consist in our spoken communication of our vocal cords, larynx, lips and tongue. While a sculptor looks at his or her statue, the speaker listens to what he or she says. 

A beautiful statue that is admired by many people makes the sculptor want to make more those statues, but statues which are not appreciated by anyone are only going to be made more often if it pleases the sculptor. This essential aspect of creativity, so beautifully described in “Exploring Stone Sculpture: A Behavioral Analysis” (2012) by Betsy Constantine, is what led this author to discover SVB. The sculptor, because of his or her experience of working with these tools and materials, has a sense of what the statue can be like. He or she visualizes what he or she would like to produce and is capable of producing. He or she delights in creating an approximation of what he or she imagined.

 

In spoken communication speakers do the same. Based on their previous experiences they aim to achieve what they know is possible. The violent, insensitive, repetitive and energy-draining NVB products most people keep producing are inevitable results of their problematic behavioral histories. People  maintain NVB, because they don’t know anything else. If they knew something else, they would produce something better, which approximates SVB. Initially, they only sometimes succeed, but the better they know their art, the more they practice their skill and the more often they succeed.

The metaphor doesn’t break down because stone is material and sound is immaterial. To the contrary, our voice is as real as stone. The fact that we haven’t acknowledged this is the main reason we keep having NVB. Imagine the sculptor who carelessly knocks off the piece of rock where the nose of the statue should be? He or she can’t put it back on and the rock was permanently changed. A similar chance occurs due to the wrong tone of voice; SVB becomes impossible.  NVB is so common, that statues with a nose are no longer reinforced. What was art trying to tell us? It told us to stop and look and pay attention to the nonverbal. In SVB we pay attention to how we sound while we speak.

November 20, 2014

November 20, 2014

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Behaviorist

Dear Reader, 

 

Yesterday evening this author and his students went to listen to Guy McPherson, who presented his grim picture of environmental decline, which is going to result in the total extinction of life on earth. The various questions that were raised signified that the atmosphere was very tense. Immediately on arrival, this author felt a sense of loss, despair, fear, hopelessness, and, yes, also a sense of defiance, that it can’t be too late to do anything. He listened to the speaker, who spoke in a calm, but negative tone of voice and turned to his students to see what they thought about it.

The question he asked them was: is it “Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) or Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB)?” The students recognized that the speaker and his audience were having NVB. Since people were asking questions and giving their opinions, this writer too raised his hand. When the speaker finally gave him permission (he kept talking, even though other people had been given the chance to say something much quicker), this writer said he had an idea. He described the negative atmosphere in the room and called it NVB, the kind of conversation that is going everywhere. Then, he contrasted it, by describing SVB, the way of talking in which we no longer aversively influence each other. This led to various responses. The speaker, initially, agreed we should be having this peaceful interaction, but this writer interjected he doubted that, because the speaker’s way of interacting was clearly based on negative emotions. Then the members of the audience asked this writer how we can present the facts without having this effect and this writer replied that one can’t have SVB by continuing with NVB, which has been going on all along. As this writer spoke when the speaker tried to speak, the speaker told him in a forceful tone not to interrupt him. This writer, however, stated calmly that the NVB communication even continues in the name of environmentalism. At this, the speaker suddenly became very angry and shouted "shut the fuck up.”

This author then left the room. He has been avoiding these kind of NVB interactions for a long time, but because another faculty had invited him to this lecture, he thought he might be actually able to explain something is very wrong with the way in which we communicate. The speaker’s response shows where we are at with our communication. We may talk about environmental decline, but don’t want to know that our NVB, that is, our way of talking is totally toxic.

November 19, 2014

November 19, 2014

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Behaviorist

Dear Reader, 

This writer woke up from a dream in which he was talking with his wife about their cat. They were discussing the fact that Kayla’s way of walking had become increasingly shaky ever since they picked, her up when she was having trembling legs. Also, their little Chihuahua was having the same symptoms. His legs were even worse than their cat almost to the point it couldn’t walk anymore.

In an earlier dream, this writer had fallen asleep while he and his students were watching video footage on the Harlow monkeys. They had to wake him up and he was feeling embarrassed. He spoke with them about insomnia and that he wasn’t having any good sleep lately. The students were understanding and two of them decided to do presentations so that this author could take it easy.

The aforementioned are typical behaviorological examples. In the dream, Kayla and the Chihuahua were conditioned by the writer and his wife to walk as if they were drunk. These dreams model how parents condition their children. Each time the child gets the attention for the behavior which preceded it, that behavior is reinforced. In the dream it became very clear that because we love our pets so much and pick them up, we condition them to walk as if they are drunk.

This write was reminded of yesterday’s writing, in which he was worried about getting reprimanded again. That seemed like an example of an extinction burst. He is no longer, as he used to as a child, punished again and again for what goes wrong and doesn’t attract negative attention anymore with his nervousness and incompetence. Writing about behaviorology has a reconditioning effect.

Today’s entry happens in paragraphs of six sentences long. It was not decided that way, but it just happened like this by itself. After the first two paragraphs came out that way this write continued with it because it created a certain order in his thinking. This makes this author think about how he organizes his writing. He could decide to write an exact amount of sentences per paragraph each day.

November 18, 2014

November 18, 2014

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Behaviorist

Dear Reader, 

 

This writer is still recovering from being rejected so often. He has experienced it so many times that he has got accustomed to it. Especially in his work, his livelihood, he is inclined to think that he will be fired, reprimanded or scolded for doing something wrong whenever someone around him is closed off, not feeling well, not giving him attention or serious and withdrawn. Whenever these signals appear, he feels uneasy and nervous. Today, his boss came to talk with him and his colleague. It was to get ideas about how to improve our services for our clients, but he feared to be judged as no good.

The opposite was the case. He was praised for his ideas and felt relieved to find out that the reason for the meeting was not because something wasn't right. The expectation that there was something wrong had been a big problem for this writer. It was almost like a self-fulfilling prophesy. It ruined many of his chances. Now, something new is happening. He is successful. He is not perfect, but he is doing a good job at what he does. He likes to interact with parolees. They like him. He gives them male support. That is something many of these clients have been missing their entire lives. Also, that was something he had been missing in his live. Things are very different now. 

Also at his other job as a college instructor, this writer was bracing for his evaluation. The students filled out forms to evaluate him and this writer was fearing the meeting he was going to have with the chair of the psychology department. This semester, however, she doesn’t need to meet with him about the evaluation. She wished him a happy Thanks Giving and stated that she liked the email message he had send to her. This writer was also in his teaching job prepared to hear that he is no good, but the reality is that the students like him and that he is pretty popular and successful as a college instructor. It is unbelievable to this author that this is really happening to him, but it is. 

Things are gradually changing in the life of this author. He is no longer in contact with any of his family members and his life has been improving ever since. Occasionally, he still thinks of them, but he no longer contacts them in the hope to be accepted. As time goes by, the longer he hasn’t had any contact with his family, the better he feels. He could have never thought this would be happening to him this way, but things are really good.