October 20, 2016

October 20, 2016 

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Reader,

A different conversation is not, as most of us believe, caused by our ethics, empathy, morals, maturity, consciousness or spirituality. It is not caused by anything inside of us. We don’t cause our own behavior. A different conversation is possible only under different circumstances.

Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) happens in a different situation than Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB). Rather than thinking about how you as a speaker can engage in one or the other, it is much more productive to pay attention to the situation in which SVB or NVB can and will occur.

The change from NVB to SVB is of much greater importance than the change from SVB to NVB. With the latter we are back to square one, but with the former, we learn to have ongoing SVB. As long as we experience accidental episodes of SVB, we don’t know how it works.

Only when we deliberately arrange for the situation in which SVB will happen do we find ways of prolonging it. This predicted and controlled act has nothing whatsoever to do with intention, willpower, character, consciousness, personality or other imaginary causation of behavior.

To the extent that we create and maintain environments which are free from aversive stimulation we are able to predict and control how we talk. As speakers and listeners we are each other’s environment.

Listeners only feel safe if speakers are not threatening, but speakers also only feel safe if audiences are non-threatening. Thus, in SVB, speakers don’t reject listeners and listeners don’t reject speakers. 

October 19, 2016

October 19, 2016 

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Reader,

Whether you believe me or not, there are only two ways of talking: Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) and Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB). You haven’t noticed this difference as nobody has pointed it out. And, even if it had occurred, it hasn’t happened often enough to be changed by it.

You will appreciate SVB more than NVB and you will engage in SVB more often than in NVB when you have been exposed to the SVB/NVB distinction often enough. From my students and clients I hear and read how wonderful it is when they begin to have more SVB and less NVB.

You may think it is normal to have such high rates of NVB and such low rates of SVB, but, as a teacher and as a therapist, I can tell you how detrimental this state of affairs is. Your high rate of NVB signifies relationship problems. High rate of SVB is necessary for a happy life.

Without focusing on how you talk with others you are unable to solve your problems. How you talk with others and how others talk with you determines how you talk with yourself. Your negative private speech is an inevitable result of the conversations you have had with others.

All the stress, frustration, anger, anxiety and fear, which you wrongly consider to be your way of thinking is merely a response product of how others have talked with you. You would have other thoughts if you engaged in a different conversation. SVB is a different conversation! 

October 18, 2016

October 18, 2016

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Reader,

We get upset by someone who points out to us how we talk because of punishment. Whenever our attention was brought to how we speak, we have had a negative experience. Whether we are willing or capable of admitting this or not, most of us were unfortunately raised with more Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB) than Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB).

Punishment is overemphasized and reinforcement is getting short shrift. Punitive, coercive, negative NVB dominates every conversation and is continuously reinforced, while sensitive, intelligent, practical and effective positive SVB is constantly punished, rejected and ridiculed.

We don’t want any more punishment and every time someone stops our forceful way of talking, we become more determined to have our way. Only a skillful and knowledgeable verbal engineer like me is capable of circumventing our NVB conditioning. I don’t claim to be able to change people at once, but I definitely can and will change them over time.

It is my joy to be able to change people and I will continue to do this. My writing, which includes many failures, is reinforced by my overall success. I get a kick out of creating better behavior in people. I know that often I don’t get to see or hear it, but I know that it happens.

I can only do so much, but what I do is what I am capable of.  I am always surprised to find I have achieved more than I thought I did. I trust that this writing will stimulate and inspire people to find out what I mean with the SVB/NVB distinction. There is so much to be achieved by SVB and we will be so relieved to have stopped NVB. It is possible.

October 17, 2016

October 17, 2016 

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Reader,

Only someone who knows about the difference between Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) and Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB) can be an effective verbal engineer. Those who don’t know about this distinction miss out on opportunities which are only available to those who do know.

The fact that people don’t know about the SVB/NVB distinction doesn’t mean SVB and NVB don’t exist. These response classes do exist, but those who don’t know about them unintentionally elicit NVB. Elicitation of NVB prevents evocation of SVB. To evoke SVB requires refinement.

Refinement of human interaction is only possible after NVB has been discriminated and put on an extinction schedule. Fighting must stop before we can have peace. Why haven’t we stopped our fighting? We have continued to fight as we didn’t realize that our NVB continued it.

Our talking creates and maintains our fighting. It could also create and maintain our peace, but for that to happen our way of talking needs to change. Why were we able to change other behaviors but not our way of talking? We keep thinking other behaviors are more important.

We get upset when someone points out how we talk. Other behaviors get all of our attention, but not our talking. As long as talking doesn’t get our attention we can’t distinguish between SVB and NVB. I know I am the only verbal engineer who focuses our attention on how we talk.

October 16, 2016

October 16, 2016 

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Reader,

It is as simple as this: our common way of talking prevents behavioral change. Most of our talking is Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB) in which the speaker dominates the listener. Although many things are getting done in this way, we haven’t acknowledged the fallout from the fact that most of our behavior is controlled by aversive contingencies.

Every time the speaker’s sound is experienced by the listener as an aversive stimulus, this listener asserts some sort of counter-control. In other words, as forceful, dominating, insensitive, but also stressful, anxious, uptight, aggressive and demanding speakers, we elicit negative emotions in the listeners, who as speakers will do the exact same thing.

The NVB speaker continuously punishes his or her listener. Punishment occurs in two different ways. It may involve the reduction of behavior via application of an aversive stimulus, called positive punishment or punishment by addition. The second form of punishment is known as negative punishment also known as punishment by subtraction in which behavior is decreased by the removal of an appetitive stimulus. NVB is the kind of speech in which behavior cannot be changed as it is only reduced. To increase behavior Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) is needed.

Only in SVB speakers reinforce listeners. SVB is needed to change behavior and learn new behavior. Reinforcement happens in two ways.  When we speak with a sound which is experienced by the listener as appetitive, we add a positive stimulus to our speech. The sound of the speaker is experienced by the listener as a positive reinforcer.

The second kind of reinforcement is called negative reinforcement or reinforcement by subtraction. After SVB and NVB have been properly discriminated the probability of SVB is increased as a consequence of the withdrawal of the pleasant-sounding voice of the speaker. Once we know how good speech can be we will be motivated to have SVB again.

When I as a teacher don’t sound as good anymore to my students, they have been instructed to stop the lecture and to change my NVB into SVB. They signal this by point their hands. By doing this together we are learning to switch from NVB to SVB. All my students report they experience an increase in their SVB and a decrease their NVB over the course of the semester with their friends, family and colleagues.

Reinforcement is key to teaching SVB or any other kind of prosocial behavior, but punishment, which always results into counter-control, fosters a decrease of prosocial behavior and therefore it stimulates anti-social behavior. Yes, NVB is and promotes anti-social behavior.

The point of today’s writing is: we need SVB to be able to experience, stimulate, shape and maintain novel behaviors. As long as we haven’t acknowledged that NVB is our dominant way of talking, we continue to expect to see behavioral change which cannot and will not occur.

Our NVB will be increased as long as we still lack knowledge about the SVB/NVB distinction. Our failure to really communicate and to have SVB results into admiration, celebration and reinforcement of violence and coerciveness. We accept NVB as normal, but once we know the difference between NVB and SVB, we recognize that NVB should be seen as abnormal as it prevents and undermines any social development.

The only way to change our own and each other’s behavior is by talking. NVB makes false promises, but SVB delivers the predicted results. Our harmonious relationships are made possible by how we interact. During SVB, the speaker’s voice is experienced by the listener as something he or she can and wants to listen to; in SVB listeners like to listen.