September 25, 2015

September 25, 2015

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Reader, 

This is my seventh response to “Establishing the Macrobehavior of Ethical Self-Control in Arrangement of Macro Contingencies in Two Macro Cultures” (2014) by Aécio Borba, Emmanuel Zagury Tourinho and Sigrid S. Glenn. The authors suggest “macro-contingencies” to account for “the effect produced by many individuals over time.” They reason “a social problem appears when a large number of individuals frequently engage in practices that have deleterious effects on many members of a culture.” I disagree with this kind of group-think, which is anti-social. Presumably, a problem is only a problem if “a large number of individuals frequently engage in practices that have deleterious effects on many members of the culture.” I think a problem is already a problem when it concerns only just one member of the culture. If we are only going to pay attention to problems when many members of the culture have been affected, we are clearly running behind the facts.  This is what culture often makes us do. Cultures have been historically stable, but this is rapidly changing due to modern commerce. It remains to be seen if this change is going to be rapid enough to make us deal with what happens at an individual level, at the level of the organism, as Skinner would say. Culture has prevented us from recognizing how we talk with each other. Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB) is perpetuated by our cultures, but Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) creates a new order.

SVB and NVB can be viewed as cultural tendencies made possible by  “macro-contingencies”, which “are functional relationships between a macro-behavior and the consequences it produces.” Rates of SVB and NVB within a culture tell us if this culture is taking care of its problems. If the culture produces high rates of SVB problems are addressed and prevented, but if it has high rates of NVB problems are swept under the carpet. “Glenn (2004) proposed the concept of macro-behavior to refer to “similar patterns of behavioral content, usually resulting from similarities in [the] environment”. The United States has higher rates of NVB than Denmark or Holland. However, higher rates of SVB, which are prevalent in more peaceful cultures don’t make any difference for the United States or any other culture, which have higher rates of NVB.

SVB is to human interaction, as medicine is to disease. Superstitious cultures produce higher levels of NVB and prevent access to modern science and medicine. We have dominated each other with our culture and only in recent history we have tried to respect and accept each other’s culture. Cultural variables are overrated, as they are not as aligned with our survival as phylogenetic and ontogenetic variables. SVB and NVB are the “similar patterns of behavioral content, usually resulting from similarities in [the] environment.” Without addressing these universal subsets of vocal verbal behavior, we make it seem as if biology has nothing to do with how we talk and therefore, with culture.

Aversive environments are created by speakers who induce negative affect in the listener. That this obvious phenomenon is not researched indicates how influenced we are by it. In SVB the speaker affects the listener with an appetitive contingency as he or she induces positive emotions in the listener. Only high rates of SVB predict if a culture can survive. As long as we are only focusing on behavior patterns such as “styles of dressing, littering, and eating fast food”, we are giving culture a very superficial treatment. How we behave verbally and vocally, as individuals, within each culture, needs to be urgently addressed.

These authors “want to establish a difference between the outcomes of a macro-contingency that result from the sum of individual behaviors, and the aggregate product that is a result of recurring interlocking behaviors, as in a meta-contingency (Malott & Glenn, 2006, pp. 32-3 on the distinction of these aggregate products). Without having addressed the distinction between SVB and NVB, without having identified the vocal verbal behavior that makes it possible for these behaviors to become interlocked, they hypothesize about “aggregate products.”

The author’s ignorance about day-to-day interactions, the glue that holds our cultures together, is apparent in the statement “The only selection that occurs is of operant behaviors, not of interrelationships between operants (Glenn, 2004; Malott & Glenn, 2006).” What about selection at a cultural level? This contradictory remark is in denial of the natural world. All human beings regardless of their culture experience  two ways of talking: NVB, in which the speaker coerces the listener, and SVB, in which the speaker listens to him or herself while he or she speaks and is his or her own listener. In SVB, the speaker is perceived differently by the listener than in NVB. In NVB, the speaker threatens, intimidates, overwhelms, distracts, bamboozles and sells the listener, but SVB is without any aversive stimulation by the speaker.

There is nothing “delayed” about the effect the speaker has on the listener. What may be true for eating patterns is not true for how we interact. The authors state “It is possible that the cumulative effect does not affect individual behavior in situations in which that effect is highly delayed or in which the individual contribution to the final product is of low magnitude.” Their argument about the existence of “meta-contingency” presumably will reduce government spending, but what about our ability to talk peacefully and solve our problems? This requires a particular kind of talking. NVB wasn’t peaceful and couldn’t create peace. SVB is peaceful and immediately creates peace. The “delayed consequence” was a sales-pitch which we bought into. SVB is the only immediate way to “produce a consequence that is beneficial to the culture.” It is this immediate consequence which will allow us to carry on with it even if it is not reciprocated. Many people, the authors included, are unaware of SVB and subsequently put all their eggs in the fictional basket of NVB. “The existence of ethical sanctions contingent on impulsive responses” is not what will make us and keep us aware of SVB. In fact, it has prevented it. The expression and exploration of our impulsive responses will lead to understanding of how we are affected by each other while we speak. This understanding is still nonexistent, that is why NVB is ubiquitous.

September 24, 2015

September 24, 2015

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Reader, 

This is my sixth response to “Establishing the Macrobehavior of Ethical Self-Control in Arrangement of Macro Contingencies in Two Macro Cultures” (2014) by Aécio Borba, Emmanuel Zagury Tourinho and Sigrid S. Glenn. The author’s solution for “individuals whose diets are rich in sugars and fat because they dine at fast food restaurants would be to limit the number of restaurants in each zone of the city, making access more difficult and raising the response cost of consuming that type of food” (see Lydon, Rohmeier, Yi, Mattaini, & Williams, 2011). Although this is a straightforward behaviorist solution, it leaves out the screens on which and the magazines in which the advertisements are seen or heard, which affect what we say to ourselves about fast food.

We will go out of our way to get what we want, if we don’t address what we say to ourselves. Furthermore, what we say to ourselves is determined by how others speak with us. If there is or was a lot of NVB, this means there is or was a lack of care and attention. This translates into a lack of self-care. Obesity is a symptom of a lack of self-care rather than lack of “ethical self-control.” Lack of self-care is determined by a lack of care. If people have higher rates of SVB, they have experienced higher levels of care and consequently have higher levels of self-care. Thus, eating diets rich in sugars and fat has nothing to do with self-control. And, changing the “macro-contingency” cannot facilitate a higher level of care. Much more effective would be if we could change the “shared environment” by reducing NVB and increasing SVB.

In SVB, we share a positive environment in which the speaker and listener enhance each other, but in NVB, the speaker and the listener share an aversive environment in which the speaker coerces the listener. This affects the environment within the skin of the listener to which he or she only individually has access. This always results into NVB private speech in the listener. Access to our NVB private speech is very different from access to our SVB private speech. We don’t want to make contact with the former, but we long to make contact with the latter. However, we will only be able to have access to the latter after we have dealt with and have overcome our fear of coming in contact with the former. A change in our private speech occurs only as a result of a change in our public speech. Public speech always comes first. The bad eating habits, which are in reality a consequence of a lack of care, can only be solved by caring and supportive SVB about food. However, SVB cannot be provided by those who didn’t experience enough care. SVB is a real event which is grounded in the philosophy of naturalism.

The only way in which SVB can be measured is by focusing on how the listener experiences the speaker. SVB is how the listener experiences the speaker, but in NVB it is presumably unimportant how the listener experiences the speaker. In NVB the speaker is ignorant about how the listener experiences him or her. This lack of feedback leads to all sorts of assumptions in the speaker, none of which address why the listener is turned off. However, the listener’s reason for not listening to the speaker is a culmination of preceding events. For instance, the speaker usually notices he or she is not being listened to. A teacher in front of classroom is a good example. He or she realizes the students are not listening, but he or she doesn’t necessarily acknowledge what he or she does because of which they don’t and can’t listen. The NVB teacher turns off all students who have more SVB behavioral history than him or her. This is true for all NVB speakers. They turn off all those listeners who have more SVB history. Indeed, the more SVB history the listener has, the more turned off he or she will be. This is often completely misinterpreted and the listener with more SVB history than the speaker is blamed that he or she is not listening, when in fact it is the speaker who makes it impossible for him or her to listen. NVB is a detectable event, but only if we pay attention to how we sound while we speak.

Events of not listening are preceded by aversive-sounding speakers.

It is those preceding events, in which the speaker repeatedly hurts the listener with the sound of his or her voice, which make the listener less and less inclined and, most importantly, incapable, of listening to the speaker. When we acknowledge this we have a whole new way of understanding autism. The speaker, who notices that his or her effect on the listener is not what he or she wants it to be, will inadvertently attempt to have another, a better, effect on the listener. Unless the speaker realizes, that is, directly experiences, that his or her NVB has this effect on the listener, he or she may try to anxiously make changes, to supposedly help the listener. Such changes can’t help the listener and make the NVB of the speaker even more intense. The real problem is that the speaker thinks that he or she is doing something positive for the listener when in fact he or she is doing something which is negative.

The lack of control over the behavior of the listener, such as children not listening to their parents or students not listening to their teachers, is because of the accumulative effects of preceding events, that is, the NVB of the parent or the teacher. If we would adhere to a philosophy of naturalism, we would be able to predict and verify that the absence of these functional antecedents would cause different responses in the listener. However, manipulation of the sound of the speaker’s voice as an independent variable is tricky, as acting that we are happy is not the same as being happy. Likewise, acting as if we are friendly, calm and open is not the same as being friendly, calm and open. Those with more SVB history will be turned off or even feel threatened, by speakers who are faking it. In SVB, the speaker doesn’t try to sound differently, but he or she can sound differently, because of his or her behavioral history. Our ignorance about the natural causes for why we speak the way we do is such that speakers demonize those who are not listening to them. However, once we experiment with the SVB/NVB distinction, we stop doing that because we finally realize what was causing our own NVB. Rather than believing that we control ourselves or others, we become aware that both SVB as well as NVB is not caused by us, but by others, who are our environment. Thus, SVB only happens when it can happen.

September 23, 2015

September 23, 2015

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Reader, 

This is my fifth response to “Establishing the Macrobehavior of Ethical Self-Control in Arrangement of Macro Contingencies in Two Macro Cultures” (2014) by Aécio Borba, Emmanuel Zagury Tourinho and Sigrid S. Glenn. I disagree with the authors that “Although operant behavior is involved, impulsive responses of this type include considerations beyond the realm of individual analysis because we must address the effect produced by many individuals over time.” When we consider the distinction between Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) and Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB), we realize to our big surprise how often we are actually determined in our way of thinking by NVB. How we think is determined by how we talk and a different way of talking leads to a different way of thinking. We must “address the effect produced by many individuals” who have SVB instead of NVB “over time.” These authors will never get there with “the concept of macrocontingency as proposed by Glenn (2004)”, as it totally distracts from how we are talking with each other. Analysis of culture doesn’t require the concept of “macrocontingency” and challenges behaviorists to stay with the rat in the operant room.

“Glenn (2004) proposed the concept of macro-behavior to refer to

similar patterns of behavioral content, usually resulting from similarities in the environment,” but these “similar patterns of behavioral content” are more parsimoniously explained by the SVB/NVB distinction. In SVB, the conversation is bi-directional, which means, speakers are listeners and listeners can be speakers, but in NVB the so-called conversation is uni-directional, which means, speakers want listeners to be listeners and not speakers. In NVB, there is no turn-taking between the speaker and the listener. In NVB, the speaker induces negative affect in the listener, but in SVB the speaker induces positive affect the listener.

The authors could have focused on the verbal behavior that is used in advertising as an example, but that is apparently too complex for their purpose of hypothesizing about the interlocking contingencies. Thus, they keep it simple by using a lame example about consumption of fast food. “Styles of dressing, littering, and eating fast food are behavioral patterns exhibited by many different individuals. However, there is not necessarily a functional relationship between the responses of the individuals in the sense that the behavior of one person occasions or reinforces the behavior of another.” There is a definitely a functional relationship between the writer of the advertisement and the response of the customer. Think about McDonalds’ use of language? How are customers affected by words such as ‘I’m loving it’,‘dollar menu’ or ‘Getting in on all the lovin’ action ahead of time?’ Aren’t they targeting children with ‘happy meal’ and ‘latest toys and games and more fun?’ The authors seem to be having the same sales strategy as McDonalds. “The sum of the individual contributions to the effect on the group has been referred to as a type of aggregate product, that is, a product of the behavior of many people (see Malott & Glenn, 2006, p. 33).” They are overly interested in big things and their focus is a function of NVB.

How do I know? Their theorizing takes us away from operant behavior. They even state so themselves. “As this kind of aggregate product is the sum of consequences of individual operant behaviors, we will refer to it as a cumulative effect (Glenn, 2004). Why are these authors interested in adding up “consequences of individual operant behaviors?” What are they actually adding up? They only add up what they can add up and what they can’t add up they simply don’t consider. The “cummulative effect” consist of what they choose to count. I am not into counting. I am into talking. What use is counting while talking? Counting prevents people from talking. Our way of talking doesn’t add up as in NVB we don’t listen to ourselves. It is only due to SVB that we are accountable for, that is, conscious about our actions. We will not listen to ourselves while we speak and if we continue to count and predetermine our conversation. The “cummulative effect” of NVB is the dissociation from our environment, also from the environment that is within our skin.

I don’t think we have explained anything by assuming that because of the lack of “ethical self-control” people follow “diets rich in sugars and fats” which as “an accumulative effect” then increases “government spending on medicines and health-related actions.” However, we would be explaining something if we would analyze the NVB self-talk involved in this health-undermining process. Access to covert speech can be obtained and explored during SVB overt speech. Once NVB covert speech has been expressed overtly it becomes SVB. As long as covert NVB cannot be expressed overtly, it cannot be recognized as NVB. It was never recognized as NVB even when it was expressed overtly.

McDonalds advertising always plays into to the customer’s unfulfilled innate need for SVB, for safety. It exploits this need. The customer is led to believe that he or she is achieving safety and their kids are having fun, but, through classical conditioning, they end up eating junk food. Interestingly, “Malott and Glenn (2006) emphasized that when describing a macro-contingency we refer to the operants of multiple individuals that generate a cultural cumulative effect in addition to the individualized consequences of each response.” I don’t know why they leave classical conditioning out of the picture and I can only conclude that it must have something to do with the fact that these authors stick to a particular agenda. Predetermined speech sets the stage for NVB.

In SVB we cannot predetermine our way of talking. This doesn’t mean that we cannot talk about behaviorism, but it means we can only really talk about behaviorism as long as we have SVB. In other words, once we are not having SVB anymore, which is most of the time, we cannot really talk about behaviorism anymore either. I know I am repetitive, but this is needed to make my point. Most behaviorists have never even talked in a SVB manner about their behaviorism and they only know how to talk about it in a NVB manner. This necessarily always results in a watered down version of behaviorism in which behaviorists consider it a taboo to talk about what they really feel. The behaviorist who knows SVB, however, can talk freely and happily about his or her feelings. Moreover, he or she evokes positive emotions in others. I have heard Sigrid Glenn talk and she sounds cold. She tries to be nice, but she is a hard-head and she strikes me as inconsiderate and insensitive.

September 22, 2015

September 22, 2015

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Reader, 

This is my fourth response to “Establishing the Macrobehavior of Ethical Self-Control in Arrangement of Macro Contingencies in Two Macro Cultures” (2014) by Aécio Borba, Emmanuel Zagury Tourinho and Sigrid S. Glenn. The authors are limited by what their cultures has afforded them to know about “ethical self-control.” Their emphasis on “delayed positive reinforcers” indicates their culture was dominated by a way of talking, which I call Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB) in which we suffer and hope to have it better later on. Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB), by contrast, creates positive emotions and reinforcing interaction right away and only our current ability to practice it will determine the future likelihood that we will have it. Without today’s practice it is not going to happen in the future and it never happened in our imaginary future, because there was no practice in which we could have learned it. The authors write “In some instances of ethical self-controlled behavior, the individual will not make contact with the consequences that benefits the culture. This may result from the fact that it is not his/her generation that will be there when the consequence is delivered. This poses the need to discuss further contingencies that play a role in promoting such repertoires.” I don’t think this only happens “in some instances”, I think it happens all the time. Hoping for a better future has not and could not result in the promotion of the repertoire called SVB. It perpetuated the cycles of violence brought forth by NVB, from which mankind has yet to emancipate. That entire generations weren’t able to  experience the positive consequences of their actions is deeply troubling and inhuman.  

Of course, the aforementioned is a rather exaggerated and bleak picture, which doesn’t accurately depict what is really happening. No matter how vicious the struggle for survival may be, there are always positive immediate reinforcers, which make people wait, hope, pray, and, experience some instances of SVB, which stimulate them to find ways in which they can make their lives better. Wars had to be fought, but must ultimately be prevented. They couldn’t be prevented as long as scientist had not yet analyzed the way in which we talk. As long as we didn’t understand illnesses, there was no medical cure and as long as we believe in false explanations about our interactions we cannot prevent conflict. The SVB/NVB distinction pertains to every culture.

There are cultures which have higher rates of SVB than others. Stated differently; there are more violent and more peaceful cultures. The relative peacefulness of a society is determined by the rates of SVB among its people.  Although this level of analysis is easily understood by people from different cultures, nobody has addressed it, as it puts into question all we have believed in up until now.  The fact that millions have died in vain, that there was nothing to benefit from for the next generation and that our struggles were utterly meaningless, entrenches us deeper into NVB. Here the link between NVB and psycho-pathology becomes apparent. Those who are presumably mentally ill are always  convinced about their way of viewing the world. “Most probably, the process undergoing such phenomena involves more than the role played by the culture’s beneficial consequence (perhaps, members of the culture may punish non-ethical behavior).” Indeed, those who have experienced SVB, who yearn for it, are “punished” and are branded as “non-ethical”, while those within the culture, who reach the position of authority from which they can define what is ethical and punish those who, according to them, are non-ethical, keep the hierarchical NVB going. “It should be noted that it is not a culture behaving in benefit of another culture, but a generation behaving in ways that benefit the same culture’s subsequent generations. This remains a topic to be further developed in cultural behavior analysis.” Such analysis depends on SVB.

The authors state “One person who impulsively behaves selfishly would hardly produce a social problem such as environmental destruction or overpopulation.” However, one person can change the conversation from SVB to NVB. One person can make SVB impossible. One person can produce a tremendous social problem or one person can be the initiator of SVB. One person’s way of talking can spoil the atmosphere for others or one person can positively enhance others by how he or she speaks. If we keep thinking about social problems in terms of the functioning of groups, this does not and cannot result in changing the behavior of individuals. I disagree with the idea that “a social problem appears when a large number of individuals frequently engage in practices that have deleterious effects on many members of a culture.”

A social problem has already appeared even when only just one person “frequently” engages “in practices that have deleterious effects on many members of the culture.” The reason we don’t recognize this is because the authors, but also the readers, are conditioned by and used to NVB. One person can positively determine the fate of many others if he or she knows about the SVB/NVB distinction. Such a person is able to analyze events differently than everyone who is still stuck with and entrenched by NVB. Those who are unaware of this distinction remain fearful, stressed, upset and defensive. Even if they are positive, they worry about that, as they never knew about the SVB/NVB distinction.  Although they may have been praised, promoted and have achieved positions from where they could influence others, they were never supported in listening to themselves while they speak and thus the understanding of SVB was missing. The authors probably disagree with me, but it doesn’t make any difference to me. I still think that what I not only write, but also say, is true. I challenge these authors to have a conversation, not an argument, with me in which we can verify what I am referring to. At a leadership seminar I met someone who apologized to me for using foul language, but I explained to her that she uses such language only because people are threatening her and she can feel this.  She broke out in tears as I acknowledged what she had been up against.