May 13, 2016

May 13, 2016

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Reader,

Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) can only be reinforced by someone who knows the difference between SVB and Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB). Since I am that person, SVB can only be reinforced by me. This doesn’t mean that SVB cannot be reinforced by someone else, but that the other person must know the difference between SVB and NVB as I do. Similarly, we all know that two and two is four. People know more about counting than about talking. There could be many more people like me, but finding out about and knowing the difference between SVB and NVB involves a personal development, which is a product of one’s relationships.  Another way of saying this is that my ability to distinguish between SVB and NVB is made possible by my relationships. I couldn’t do what I do without these relationships and I claim that I do what I do because of these relationships. I don’t do what I do because of me. It has taken me a long time to realize this. I am 57 years old, but I finally got it: I don’t cause my own behavior. We engage in NVB as long as we believe that we cause our own behavior. However, behaviorists, who acknowledge this scientific fact, do not all of a sudden acquire SVB because of this. As stated in my previous writings, it is important to know that we don’t cause our own behavior, but this doesn’t teach us about the SVB/NVB distinction. To know more about this distinction, we must start with rough outlines of what SVB and NVB is. Only due to experimentation can the distinction become more and more clear. We can only know more about SVB if it can be prolonged. The longer SVB continues, the more we will find out about it and the more subtle the nuances of the SVB/NVB distinction become. Also, of course, NVB needs to be fully explored. This can only happen, however, to the extent that we have experienced SVB. Only our prolonged experiences of SVB can guide us into a deeper understanding of our continued involvement in NVB. As our SVB experiences increase, they will transform our NVB experiences. We will be repeatedly in situations in which we witness how NVB changes into SVB.

May 12, 2016

May 12, 2016

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Reader,

Let me be very clear, we have had a lot of Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB), but only a little bit of Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB). We are not going to have more SVB because we are tired of NVB. Many people are sick and tired of NVB, yet they keep having it. And, we are also not going to have less NVB, because we like SVB better. Many people like SVB much better than NVB, yet this so-called motivation doesn’t decrease their NVB. Presumably, many people want a better world, but their NVB happens at a high response rate and their SVB happens at a low response rate. Nothing changes the way we talk unless we listen to ourselves while we speak. However, knowing that one has to listen to one self while one speaks is not going to cut it either. It is definitely important to know that one can listen to one self while one speaks, but this is only possible under certain circumstances. Those who experiment with the SVB/NVB distinction find out about the circumstances in which they listen to themselves while they speak. Without such experimentation, we cannot find out about what it actually takes to listen to ourselves while we speak. I or someone else can tell you to listen to yourself and that can be a start, but you still have to listen to yourself without me or without anyone telling you. It is like making music. How can you be a good musician without practice? SVB takes practice, but NVB is achieved without practice. Nobody even knew that SVB requires practice. With practice I don’t mean rehearsal. With practice I mean that we have to engage in SVB to know what SVB is. There is nothing to be rehearsed about SVB. NVB, by contrast, is all about rehearsal. NVB, the way of talking in which listening to someone else is more important than listening to one self, is planned. NVB is a performance with a predetermined script. In SVB there is no script. However, we are not having a lot of NVB, because we hold on to our script. Our behavioral history simply is what it is and our scripted NVB has gotten much more reinforcement than our unscripted SVB. Conversation without a goal also needs reinforcement. 

May 11, 2016

May 11, 2016

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Reader,

When we have Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB) this is not because we decide to have it, but because the contingencies of reinforcement determine that only NVB is possible. NVB is difficult to accept, because we continue to think that we are causing it. We are embarrassed to have NVB and we would all like to be known as someone who only engages in Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB). We attribute positive qualities to such a person and would say that he or she is friendly, empathic, patient, truthful, funny, intelligent or sensitive. We say that someone has a certain communication style or personality and we assume this person’s actions are caused by this. This is rubbish. What we are talking about here is that a person has a particular behavioral history. It is because of this behavioral history that he or she acts the way he or she does. If there would have been a different behavioral history, this person would have acted very differently. A person is not this or that way, a person is the way he or she is, because of what he or she has gone through. To say that a person is that way is to imprison this person in his or her past. We can be different from what we have been, if our current environment is different from our past environment. It is because this is generally not the case that we remain the same and that we are inclined to think that we are this or that way and that other people are also this or that way. The fact is, however, they are not this or that way, that is, they are something entirely different from what they have been in an environment which has a different effect on them then their previous environments. Certainly, we have been strongly affected by our previous environments, but this doesn’t mean that different environments won’t have a different effect on us. It is because we can’t stay in a different environment long that we are not affected. We avoid different environments. When we engage in SVB instead of NVB, we don’t continue with it long enough to be conditioned by it. This is not our fault, but it is because we haven’t figured out the contingencies that make SVB possible.

May 10, 2016

May 10, 2016

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Reader,

Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) by one person is often explained as Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB) by another. Although nobody talks about it in this manner, within certain groups there is some agreement about what SVB is and what NVB is. Different verbal communities have their own versions of SVB and NVB and these response classes exist within each community. Within the Christian verbal community certain interactions are believed to be SVB or good, while others are believed to be NVB or bad. By calling it good or bad, we haven’t been able to improve our communication and our relationships.  However, our disagreement about what is SVB and NVB usually pertains to the fact that we belong to different verbal communities. Unless we have learned to speak a second language, we can only speak the language in which we have been raised, by which we were conditioned. In the case of the latter, we only know Chinese, but not English. Our Chinese language is not understood in an English-speaking verbal community. In the same way, those who engage in SVB are not understood by those who engage in NVB. Even though they speak the same language they cannot understand each other. The assumption that they speak the same language, because they belong to the same verbal community, is where the problem originates. The people within each culture, who dominate the discourse, who coerce others, would insist that they speak the same language as those who they oppress, but if we ask the oppressed and listen to what they say, we hear that they are quite aware of the fact that the oppressor speaks a different language than they do. At the same time the oppressor and the oppressed speak the same language.  Obviously, the oppressed English-speaker isn’t able to understand the Chinese oppressor. It would only be possible for the English-speaker to understand the Chinese oppressor if this Chinese oppressor used non-verbal ways to get his or her message across. This is what happens in NVB. NVB speakers are more threatening, but not more convincing or more intelligent.

May 9, 2016

May 9, 2016

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Reader,

Unless we are going to embrace the SVB/NVB distinction, we are unable to decrease NVB and increase SVB. Although we have all unknowingly been trying to increase SVB and decrease NVB, we have, for the most part, been unsuccessful, because we adhere to an unscientific explanation of behavior.  The whole point of the SVB/NVB distinction is the realization that we don’t cause our own behavior. Our notion that we have a self, which causes us to behave the way we do, is as wrong as the idea that the world is flat. As long as we continue to believe that we cause our own behavior, we will not be able to acknowledge what is SVB and NVB. Our inability to discriminate between these two causes NVB, more problems. Our understanding of SVB depends on our understanding of NVB. Without understanding of NVB, we make SVB into something it is not. SVB is not a religion, philosophy, theory, political view or doctrine. It is a natural phenomenon that happens, that can happen, that doesn’t happen or that can’t happen. To understand NVB requires that we must acknowledge that we are fighting or fleeing when we are attacked; that we feel stressed when we struggle; that we feel threatened when we are intimidated; and that we dissociate when we are hurting others or ourselves. Of course, all of this must occur while we communicate, while we talk with each other, but we don’t want to have this confrontation with each other. Even the most powerful person only wants to have SVB and not NVB. As it is impossible to demand SVB, what is then produced is NVB masquerading as SVB. People in authority and high social status do not have any more SVB or NVB as people who don’t have any authority or low status. The false idea that the haves have more SVB and are therefore the ‘happy few’ has only created envy and hatred. Those in authority are as ignorant about the SVB/NVB distinction as those who have no authority. Even the most educated and the wealthiest among us don’t know anything more about the SVB/NVB distinction than those who are poor and uneducated.