April 6, 2016

April 6, 2016

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Reader,

In “Religion as Schedule-Induced Behavior” (2009) Strand writes “religious behavior resembles instinctual behavior – it is responsive to antecedents in the apparent absence of reinforcement. This explains why attempts to punish religious behavior may have the paradoxical effect of increasing it.” Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) and Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB), two ways of talking, which involve the expression of positive or negative emotions, are, of course, instinctual behaviors! This author doesn’t think that punishment, the decrease of SVB, is the real problem. Although SVB is often punished and not reinforced, people need to get along and therefore still continue SVB. 

NVB appears to be like religious behavior, in that it is increased by attempts to punish it. When persecution of religion “takes the form of threat of death” it stimulates “verbal behavior concerning immortality.” When NVB, on the other hand, is threatened, it often leads to grandiose claims of power. In the face of threat, people who want to hang on to NVB, basically pretend as if they are God. Infatuation with one’s own belief is also often seen in those  afflicted with mental disorders (hyper-religiosity only being one of them).

As long as punishment remains our preferred mode of behavioral control, we will see an increase in mental disorders, religious fanaticism, divisiveness, despotism, and, of course, NVB, which is how implement coercive behavioral control. Why do we reinforce NVB and why do we punish SVB? We know how to reinforce NVB, but we don’t know how to reinforce it SVB. Once we know how to reinforce SVB, we will gain control of our instinctual behavior. Instinctual behavior is giving us trouble as we believe it is determined by consequences, when, in fact, it is only sensitive to antecedents. Like religious behavior, the SVB and NVB patterns of responsiveness, are “consistent with schedule-induced behavior” (Segal, 1972). Thus, the response classes SVB and NVB are NOT socially mediated, but are “evoked by certain antecedents” while they are at the same time “unresponsive to tangible reinforcement.” Our sound is the antecedent which determines if we will have SVB or NVB.

April 5, 2016

April 5, 2016

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Reader,

In “Religion as Schedule-Induced Behavior” (2009) Strand explains religious behavior as arising “in the context of exposure to response-independent schedules of reinforcement. That behavior and its persistence are induced (i.e. emergent) in a complex response that was not specially shaped into existence.” This writer, however, believes there are other “reinforcement-resistant” behaviors, which overlap with religious behavior and, therefore, have the exact same origin. Many behaviors, which are usually called symptoms of those who are afflicted with mental disorders, are resistant to reinforcement as they are neither caused nor shaped by reinforcement. 

Not much ground can be gained in successfully altering mental health problem behaviors as long as they are viewed from the operant paradigm. Moreover, the wrong etiology of behavior is especially obvious in how we talk about it. It is no coincidence that the two universal response classes: Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) and Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB), are still unknown to behaviorists, who give short shrift to respondent conditioning.

The “reinforcement-resistant” nature of mankind’s ways of talking deals with how we sound and predates the arrival of language. Indeed, our sounds set the stage for SVB and NVB. These simple “behaviors and its persistence are induced (i.e. emergent).” It is only because we are fixated on the verbal that SVB and NVB, religious behavior as well as pathological behavior (!?), seem to be “a complex response that was not specially shaped into existence.” 

Once we analyze the SVB/NVB distinction from a classical conditioning paradigm, we become clear on mankind’s biggest problems: communication, superstition and mental health problems. The tenacity and ubiquity of NVB is explained by one thing only: aversive environments. The absence or the relatively low rates of SVB is explained by the lack of safe environments. As long as we are not aware of the SVB/NVB distinction, we make it seem as if hostile environments are safe and as if safe environments are threatening. Religion has been our way of making it seem as if unsafe environments are safe. Truly safe environments are function of SVB, which is a scientific way of communicating. Without the SVB/NVB distinction our religious explanatory fictions will continue as our analysis of speech is operant and incomplete.

April 4, 2016

April 4, 2016

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Reader,

In “Religion as Schedule-Induced Behavior” (2009) Strand describes behavior “that persists despite being counter-functional” as “falling into a class of behavior that includes instincts, emotions and sign tracking (auto-shaped behavior.” When we TALK about the two universal subclasses of our vocal verbal behavior, called Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) and Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB), it becomes apparent that our two ways of TALKING are innately determined; only in SVB we feel safe, in NVB we feel threatened. It is only when we pay attention to how we sound WHILE WE SPEAK that the speaker-as-own-listener is able to differentiate between SVB and NVB. 

“Segal (1972) has described such behavior as induced, as occupying a middle ground between pure operant and reflexes.” We should take note of the fact that “Induced behaviors have in common that they are not shaped into existence, but instead emerge in the context of exposure to response-independent reinforcement.” Segal (1972) thinks induced behavior includes “topograhpies that are neither clearly reflexive nor clearly operant, that is, which appear to be under complex stimulus control and not so tightly bound to stimuli as classic reflexes are, and yet not obviously under the control of reinforcement contingencies” (p.10).  In SVB we can talk about that. 

As behaviorists have not given attention to the topographies of SVB and NVB, they were unable to make sense of “complex stimulus control.” They have focused on everything else except on how the speaker sounds to him or herself.  Of course, this is more obvious to the listener, who is not the speaker. However, this listener, who is not the speaker, is only able in SVB to let the speaker know how he or she experiences his or her sound. It is only during SVB that we can look back and realize that we were engaging in NVB. During NVB the speaker is not open to receiving feedback from the listener. Neural behavior that mediates the speaker-as-own-listener is not activated during NVB as NVB was conditioned by a speaker who was coercive and insensitive to the listener. Thus, rather than being under complex stimulus control, SVB and NVB are classic examples of classical conditioning.

April 3, 2016

April 3, 2016

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Reader,

In “Religion as Schedule-Induced Behavior” (2009) Strand quotes Skinner (1957) and Palmer (1998), who set the stage for Hayes’ Relational Frame Theory (RFT). Verbal fixation is the inevitable outcome of the stress that is felt when what one writes is more important than what one says. It goes without saying that under such circumstances even if one were to speak that what one says is more important than how one says it. We may agree on written definitions, but such verbal agreement couldn’t change how we talk. 

“The frame may subsume various individual acts, similar to how grammatical frames subsume various words.” This focus on what we say ignores that meaning expressed in vocal verbal behavior is a function of how we sound. In effect, many behaviorists have turned away from religious experience. Strand put religious behavior in a broader perspective by stating that “The ubiquity of religious behavior is illustrated by the fact that even declaring oneself an atheist is likely a religious act.” Yet, it has nothing to do with atheism as a “response to the possibility of an afterlife”, but rather with the necessity to communicate with utmost sensitivity, that is, without aversive stimulation. 

Schoenfield (1993) comes closer to this reality by noting that “religious and irreligious behaviors represent competing alternatives.” Where and how do they compete, one wonders? Where else but in our public speech, and, consequently, in our private speech? All noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB) is defined by this competition. In NVB our private speech is separated from our public speech. In SVB, by contrast, there is no separation between private speech and public speech. Thus, SVB public speech is more subtle (religious) and effective. Obviously, SVB and NVB “represent competing alternatives.” 

Only SVB allows for interaction as a response to “self-as-infinite”, while NVB limits our conversation to “self-as-finite.” As we investigate the SVB/NVB distinction while we talk, we will notice that the low and high response rates for SVB and NVB perfectly parallels the “laboratory-based research on concurrent schedules that pits delayed and probabilistic reinforcers against immediate and definite reinforcers (e.g. Chaudhuri, Sopher, & Strand, 2002: Silverstein, Cross, Brown & Rachlin, 1998). However, distributing “activities across these competing response alternatives” is only possible for those who have learned about the environments which set the stage for SVB and NVB.

April 2, 2016

April 2, 2016

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Reader,

In “Religion as Schedule-Induced Behavior” (2009) Strand quotes Segal (1972) who stated that “Religious behavior may be a class of responses induced by exposure to monumental life events.” The exact same can be said about Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB), which should therefore be classified as a religious behavior. It is so interesting that reading Strand’s paper reminds this writer about this origin. Stated differently, to solve our communication problems it is of utmost importance that we include the spiritual dimension. Without it we clearly don’t stand a chance to make any real progress. 

This analysis leads to another way of defining Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB). During NVB, we are presumably not spiritual, or to put it more plainly, not sensitive. The fact is, however, that we are only pretending not to be sensitive. As religious behaviors always involve superstitions, many had to move away from it as it was incompatible with scientific knowledge.  

Although people on a large scale have left their religion, they haven’t switched as massively from NVB to SVB, from coarse-grained way of talking to a fine-grained way of communicating. Even Hayes , who labels “the class self-as-infinite”, doesn’t mention the distinction between SVB and NVB, which is needed to make it possible to notice that “it emerges as a function of verbal training in perspective taking (Hayes, Barnes-Holmes, Roche, 2001). 

While Hayes (1984), Schoenfield (1993) and others have agreed in writing on a description of religious behavior as a class of “responding in accordance with the self extended beyond a material existence”, this didn’t and couldn’t lead to SVB, the refinement of our way of talking.  Hayes (1984) is absolutely  wrong when he writes “It is important to note that the deictic response class, self-as-infinite, cannot be defined in terms of topography; membership is unconstrained by form. It is a verbal frame involving if-then relations.” 

Both SVB and NVB could only be defined in terms topography as they involve different sounding speakers. Without paying attention to this topographical difference, we keep being stuck with written hypothetical “if-then relations,” with wishful-thinking which is created and maintain by more scriptures.