December 25, 2015

December 25, 2015

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Students,

This is my ninth response to “The Personal Life of the Behavioral Analyst” by D. Bostow (2011). I am a social engineer and I work as a psychology instructor at the local community college. I don’t like to talk about environment in the usual way. I consider you as my environment and I know that I am also your environment. When we speak, we either co-regulate each other or we dis-regulate each other. In the former, we engage in Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB), in the latter we engage in Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB). In the former, we care about the environment, but in the latter, we disconnect from ourselves as well as from our external environment, from other communicators.

Few people know that part of the environment to which they only individually have excess: the environment that is below our own skin. One has to be a radical behaviorist to consider what is beneath our own shin is part of the environment. Yet, even most behaviorists are mainly busy with what is outside of their own skin. All of this will change once you engage more often in SVB.

Due to repeated involvement in SVB you will be able to perceive the environment within and outside your skin as one. This oneness has many positive consequences. For one, it dissolves any kind of conflict which was a consequence of the imaginary separation between you and your environment. Your so-called expulsion from paradise was due NVB and your reunification will be due to SVB.

These are not hypothetical words, but instructions to listen to yourself while you speak and to attain SVB. In SVB the speaker and the listener are always experienced as one. Recovering “the beautiful and abundant life” is not a matter of “challenging our accustomed reinforcers.” To the contrary, when we engage in SVB, we will be able to identify many new reinforcers that were not  available to us during NVB. Moreover, once we know the difference between SVB and NVB, we want SVB. We no longer want NVB as we have we have found something which is much more reinforcing.

There will be no “disruption of behavior” and “change to different patterns of behavior” will not be difficult. Such aversive predictions arise from NVB, but do not occur during SVB. It is impossible, however, to have approximation of SVB. One either has it or one doesn’t. In other words, the amount of instances of SVB that one experiences will either increase or decrease due to the circumstances one is in. Like waking up each morning, each instance of SVB is an event in and of itself.        

December 24, 2015

December 24, 2015

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Students,

This is my eight response to “The Personal Life of the Behavioral Analyst” by D. Bostow (2011). Life of the behavioral analyst must change. It must become more personal. This shift from the impersonal to the personal involves a change in the way we speak. We must recognize and withdraw from Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB) and celebrate and stabilize Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB). Even those few behaviorists who know what I am talking about cannot achieve it, as they don’t have the necessary skill to do it. I can teach people this skill. 

Behaviorists have taken many classes, but not my class which teaches the SVB/NVB distinction. Since most behaviorists are in the dark about SVB, they can’t address the elephant in the room (NVB) and therefore they keep writing more papers, like Bostow, about how we should try to improve the world. The world cannot and will not be improved as long as SVB is not increased. 

There is of course nothing wrong in getting a vegetable garden and decreasing our carbon footprint, but a change in our repertoire of our verbal behavior is what is needed. To prepare, share and eat healthy foods is great, but my question is: why do we accept unhealthy, poisonous ‘communication’? In NVB people mow each other down and shut each other up with their so-called arguments and are they are only learning bad things from each other. Sadly, such aversive ‘interaction’ goes on everywhere. Once we have SVB, we will find that NVB is NOT communication, in the same way that processed food isn’t really food. NVB goes on in the name of communication, but it is a form of abuse. Once we know this, we want to prevent NVB like want to prevent obesity or illness. 

“Because there are direct relations between each link in the behavioral chains involved in cooking and the reinforcing products, a source of daily satisfaction of tangible accomplishment automatically happens.” Similarly, involvement in SVB creates its own behavioral chains that will then sustain our mental health. Those who have not yet been diagnosed with a mental illness may think that they are healthy, but once they attain SVB they realize how unhealthy, stressful and negative really NVB is.

The reader needs to be reminded that our low rates of SVB are NOT anyone’s “personal failing”, but, as Skinner said (1971), “the absence of a necessary history”. Only someone with a “fully developed behavioral repertoire” can teach SVB and stimulate others to engage in it. My classes are proof that I can teach the components and the linkages between the elements of SVB for all to enjoy.

December 23, 2015

December 23, 2015

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Students,

This is my seventh response to “The Personal Life of the Behavioral Analyst” by D. Bostow (2011). “Years ago, the public school curriculum contained manual arts, such as home economics, wood, metal, and general shop classes. The college preparatory curriculum replaced these ‘‘blue collar’’ classes with courses that establish verbal behavior that is often distantly related to practical matters.” Indeed, we no longer know very much about basic mechanical processes and how things generally work and we rely on others to fix things. The verbal behavior we acquire doesn’t even allow us to have any normal conversation anymore. 

Healthy, happy, productive relationships cannot be sustained without Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB). Besides the fact that Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB) creates unhealthy, negative, problematic relationships, it should also be noted that NVB is impractical. In NVB, communicators are insensitive to themselves and each other. This bluntness prevents any kind of experimentation. SVB, on the other hand, stimulates exploration and tinkering, but NVB kills all creativity and playfulness. It is sad that we no longer know how to fix things, but even more urgent is that NVB destroys our relationships.

We can increase our rates of SVB by making verbal and written commitments. That this hasn’t happened yet is because nobody has suggested it. I am the first one to suggest it. All these other objectives, such as saving the environment or protesting policies we don't agree with obfuscate our need to improve our interactions with each other. If we had more public commitments towards increasing our SVB and decreasing our NVB, we would revolutionize our culture quickly. 

Not energy conservation, but SVB needs to be the topic we talk about with our neighbors. SVB is required for our face-to-face relationship. No matter how much we talk about saving the environment, as long as we don’t achieve SVB, we only engage in-your-face, that is, in negative relationship. And, yes, we can get involved in arts, literature, music or sports, but each of these activities are only reinforcing to the extent that environments are created in which SVB is possible. Everything depends on and is be enhanced by SVB as SVB generalizes to many other behaviors. As long as we don’t know SVB “We remain prisoners of our past and present contingencies without help.”

December 22, 2015

December 22, 2015

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Students,

This is my sixth response to “The Personal Life of the Behavioral Analyst” by D. Bostow (2011). Based on my own self-experimentation, I can tell you with certainty and pride that your problem behaviors will decrease and eventually stop, once you have an accurate understanding of how you talk. As my understanding about Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) and Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB) evolved, my life became easier, more successful and more enjoyable. This couldn’t occur as long my NVB was happening at a higher rate than my SVB. As your ability to discriminate SVB and NVB improves, you will find that rates of SVB are increasing and rates of SVB are decreasing. 

If my prediction doesn’t come out as I explain, you must be mistaking NVB for SVB or SVB for NVB. We mistake NVB for SVB and vice versa as we have all been conditioned by NVB. NVB keeps us busy with others and not with ourselves. You, my dear reader, are more inclined to experiment on others than on yourself. Self-experimentation and its benefits are underestimated, but the benefits of experimentation on others is overrated and continuously sold on us. 

Just as labelling of foods provides us with the discriminative stimulus that prompts healthier food choices, we need to have a term for the kind of interaction that occurs when a speaker affects a listener in a negative manner. When that happens the speaker creates NVB. Like unhealthy food, NVB must be identified and avoided. Similarly, SVB needs to be reinforced, validated, experienced and understood. Since we don’t label SVB as SVB or NVB as NVB, SVB isn’t experienced and understood as such. To the contrary, we keep reinforcing and validating NVB. 

As more and more people have become obese, our rates of NVB have been increasing. Meanwhile NVB keeps causing all our relationship problems. Certainly, “The field is ripe for inventive behavior-analytic research, research that comes with the tighter scrutiny of direct observation of targeted behavior rather than questionnaires.” However, this “tighter scrutiny of direct observation” should involve listening while we speak. Unless we can hear our own sound, we will not be able to identify SVB. We haven’t identified SVB because we have never really listened to ourselves while we speak. If we did, we would find out that our sound has a different effect on us than it usually has. In NVB, we are unaware of our own sound, but in SVB we enjoy our relaxed tone of voice.

December 21, 2015

December 21, 2015

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Students,

This is my fifth response to “The Personal Life of the Behavioral Analyst” by D. Bostow (2011). I write in my journal with the goal of letting my students read it. I manage to write something new about Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) and Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB) every day. I keep reading papers, which were written by behaviorists, to which I respond. As I measure my teaching behavior, it keeps getting better. This semester was so successful as I used written prompts to get my students to participate and learn. Not only is my writing reinforced by this success, it has also become easier for me to write.

I just recovered from the flu and was unable to write for four days, but had written a couple of days ahead and it was easy to catch up the one day I fell behind schedule. While having the flue I had no urge to write, but now that I feel better again, I even write in the evening – something I normally don’t do. As over the course of the semester SVB kept increasing and NVB kept decreasing, more and more students began to notice. “Changes in the direction of data invite commentary from others.” 

I arranged the last two weeks in such a way that there were no more quizzes, only the final. This created lots of opportunity for students to talk. Although some students wanted the semester to be over, once they were given written instructions, they talked and enjoyed it. The written cards had topics and page numbers on them from the chapters of the book with questions they could talk about among themselves. After the cards were handed out the entire class was buzzing. It brought people together, it strengthened involvement and shaped discussion about the Principles of Psychology as well as the introduction of the SVB/NVB distinction in this class. 

In the past, many students would shy away from conversation as it was too overwhelming for them, but due to this in-between step with these written instructions, many were slowly beginning to find their way into the classroom conversation. People nowadays feel very vulnerable without their technological gadgets. I was happy to read in their written feedback that they liked my class so much as they were able to feel safe, relax and talk with each other. Students were talking with those who were sitting next to them and they also recognized the comfort which others felt while were doing the same. This contributed to marvelous centralized conversation which only went on as long as it was stimulating to everyone. More and more students experienced the power of SVB.