January 1, 2018

Dear Reader,

In the same way that there is always something to say, there is also always something to write. There would be so much more to say and to write if only someone would encourage us to say what we want to say and to listen to ourselves while we speak, so that we can actually experience and enjoy what we are saying and if that same person would also encourage us to write about that experience, so that we will read what we are writing, read while we are writing and experience the joy of writing what we want to write, what are able to write and what are able to say.

The relationship between speaking and listening and reading and writing has gotten lost as we, as speakers, don’t listen to ourselves while we speak, but want others to listen to us, and, as we, as writers, want other readers to read what we presumably are saying, but we don’t read our own work, except with a lot of judgements and self-criticism. As we participate in social media, we write more nowadays than before, but we still have a sense of shame around enjoying our own verbal behavior. Our only short-lived relief is when other people approve of it, by liking it or loving it.

This written kind of validation, however, this kind of attention, which is also expressed by all sorts of official papers, diplomas, certificates and contracts, is the wrong kind of attention. It may bring us status and fame, we may sell a lot of books and we may end up being influential speakers, leaders, opinion-makers and trendsetters, but none of this ever results in the kind of speech in which we can all be totally content.

Sadly, almost all our speaking and writing behavior is a function of something which isn’t right, something which is wrong, something which is lacking or lost. Although, of course, also this writing is about the joy that has gotten lost in most of our speaking and our writing, this writing is caused by my joy of speaking. Most people probably will readily dismiss this in the same way that they dismiss my joy of speaking, in the same way that they dismiss their own joy of speaking.

My joy of speaking and writing has made me speak and write more as I know about the way of speaking and writing which I call Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) and, which my friend Richard Weismann recently described as Sound Writing Behavior (SWB). Most people unfortunately don’t engage in SVB and SWB, but they mainly engage in NVB and NWB. Nobody is to be blamed for this, as we are all conditioned by our current environments to be and to remain like this.

Most people don’t know we can only learn about NVB by engaging in SVB. We can only recognize and not be bothered by NWB if we have engaged in SVB so that we recognize the SWB which is, of course, always about SVB. People get depressed reading so much NWB these days as they have acquired the self-defeating belief that SWB can lead to a decrease in NWB and that trying to have SVB, trying to have nice, good, intelligent, meaningful, respectful, open, sensitive, peaceful, effective, stimulating, joyful conversation, will decrease NVB and increase SVB. This is absolutely wrong; we have never increased our SVB by trying to have it and we have never increased our SWB by trying to have more SWB with those who only keep writing about more and more NWB.

Once we find out about the SVB/NVB distinction, we realize that even our greatest writers have written what they wrote as they too didn’t and couldn’t engage in SVB. In other words, they have only tried to produce SWB and NVB has only continued to produce more and more NWB. Surely, many of these supposedly wise men (yes, they are mostly men!) have been the founders of various religious traditions and philosophies, which have perpetuated nothing but superstition and human catastrophes. None of our scriptures or sacred texts could create a world in which people would happily engage in ongoing SVB.

Our written books didn’t and couldn’t produce any SVB. They were all NWB, which derived from the author's involvement in NVB. References which were made about SVB were always wrong descriptions of what SVB is. During SVB we are not trying to have SVB; when we produce SWB, we are not trying to produce SWB. To the contrary, when we engage in SVB, we thoroughly enjoy it because it is possible and as we write SWB, we delight in writing and reading SWB, since we are absolutely sure that it is our written version of SVB.

January 2, 2018

Dear Reader,

Your unwillingness to explore this, your inability to acknowledge this, your tendency to think that any speaker is having Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) or Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB) by him or herself, is, of course, perpetuated by our NVB. In SVB we would explore this, acknowledge this and agree on this, but SVB keeps being made impossible due to our history with NVB. Rather than saying that there is something wrong with our history of NVB, it is more effective to fully acknowledge that this history is really there and is making us believe in many things which aren’t true. 

Let me tell you about the great paradox of SVB. Once you discover that SVB is possible, you will be amazed about the fact that nobody is having it. You will be infuriated, overwhelmed, saddened, frustrated and disappointed that everybody keeps backing out of it. Each time this happens, you again engage in NVB, but as your understanding about SVB increases, your NVB private speech decreases and you will find you are less and less upset that nobody cares about SVB.

As you no longer dread and try to change the reality, you become slowly, but surely, aware of the colossal truth that you are alone! Your aloneness has always been distorted by your involvement in NVB. For a while, your were still thinking that SVB would solve all your problems and negative feelings having to do with aloneness. By having genuine interaction with others you believed your aloneness would dissolve.

Everyone has an ideal they believe in and often these ideals are expressed as spiritual aspirations. We may not know about SVB, but we have a sense of what is possible if we would get along in peace and harmony. Once we understand how SVB works, we realize that nobody wants it as it can only be had by those who are willing to accept that they are and remain alone with themselves. The connection we make with each other during SVB doesn’t change anything about our aloneness, except that it makes us more aware about it in a way that we no longer will try to change it.

Our SVB with others (public speech) has inevitably resulted in SVB with ourselves (private speech) and this is the only way in which we can come to terms with our aloneness. There is, however, an important difference between expressing private speech publicly in SVB with others, who can then respond to it and expressing private speech publicly in SVB, but only to ourselves, so that we ourselves can then respond to it.

SVB reveals to us there will always be an end to or a limitation of expressing our private speech to others publicly, but there is no end to expressing our private speech publicly to ourselves. Unless we die, we will continue to have a conversation with ourselves. Our exploration and knowledge of our conversation with ourselves is, of course, only as real and useful as our exploration of our conversation with others has been.

January 3, 2018

Dear Reader,

Today 2018 is still new, but soon it will be old again. The jolly hype of the ‘Happy Holidays’ dies down and everything will be back to normal. People only seem to have an occasion to be nice to each once a year. We are not allowed to have ‘too much of a good thing’ and although we have had a little bit of Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB), it wouldn’t last, no matter what our new year’s resolutions might have been.

People generally don’t realize that their behavior is determined, not by an autonomous self, but by the environment which stimulates and maintains it. Time magazine had as the ‘Person of the Year’ the many women who spoke out against sexual harassment. These women are temporarily elevated to hero-status as they have endured and overcome great adversities. However, anyone who knows about the science of human behavior can see the problem involved with the #metoo-campaign: we only celebrate negatively reinforced, but not positively reinforced behavior.

Obviously, speaking out and speaking up is a form of counter-control elicited by aversive behavior control. Thus, the whole issue of ‘pushing back’, ‘raising your voice’ and ‘speaking truth to power’ always involves NVB. People like to believe that change is happening, but in reality NVB continues at a higher response rate than before. The good thing is that these powerful people got called on their abusive behavior as people nowadays talk more together on social media and felt supported to acknowledge what is really happening.

Social media can play a big role in bringing about real change if people begin to understand the difference between SVB and NVB and their written counterparts Sound Writing Behavior (SWB) and Noxious Writing Behavior (NWB). The difference between these two ways of talking and writing matters as SVB and SWB are controlled by positive reinforcement and NVB and NWB are controlled by negative reinforcement. Many other behaviors will change once we create and maintain the environments which allow us to shift our NVB and NWB to SVB and SWB. This change in the way in which we communicate heralds he end of mankind’s unaddressed, misunderstood, destructive cycle of aversive control versus counter-control.

January 4, 2018

Dear Reader,

The person who discriminates Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) and Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB), of course, is also capable of recognizing the written version of SVB, Sound Writing Behavior (SWB) and the written version of NVB, Noxious Writing Behavior (NWB).

To those who discriminate SVB and NVB it is obvious that someone with a history of reinforcement who is more capable of engaging in SVB, has an entirely different behavioral repertoire than someone, who, due to his or her history of reinforcement engages more in NVB. 

As we become more familiar with the great difference between SVB and NVB, we will find it pragmatic to also speak of Sound Singing Behavior (SSB), Sound Gardening Behavior (SGB), Sound Cooking Behavior (SCB) and Sound Studying Behavior (SStB) as well as its opposites.

Noxious Singing Behavior (NSB) would involve singing in which the singer is trying to impress the audience, but is not him or herself enjoying to sing; noxious Gardening Behavior (NGB) is the kind of gardening which is viewed by the gardener as work rather than as an opportunity to enjoy being in nature; Noxious Cooking Behavior (NCB) is the slamming together of a meal without love or care so that we can stuff ourselves with food; and, Noxious Studying Behavior (NSB) is when the student studies out of fear of failing, but not because he or she is interested in the topic which he or she is studying.

January 5, 2018

Dear Reader,

I want to elaborate on the process of learning about two patterns of vocal verbal behavior: Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) and Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB). Each time someone is introduced to these two categories he or she immediately seems to be having a preference for SVB and an aversion against NVB. Once people understand, and, more importantly, experience the great difference between SVB and NVB, they are in favor of SVB, but repulsed by NVB.

When people are first beginning to take note of the SVB/NVB distinction, they are surprised to find out they all have the exact same preference for SVB and resistance to NVB. This is no coincidence as we are talking about innate or phylogenetic behavior. It is important we recognize that, unknowingly, we have biologically determined patterns of vocal verbal behavior, which may supersede any contingencies of reinforcement that are imposed by a trainer. Stated differently, the SVB/NVB distinction deals with the biological constrains on instrumental learning.

One of the biggest challenges posed by the SVB/NVB distinction is that people want to learn about SVB, but they don’t want to learn about NVB. However, it makes no sense to learn about SVB in the absence of learning about NVB. The only way in which we are going to be able to learn about SVB is if we can overcome our resistance to investigating NVB.

In “Hedonics and the Selective Associations, Biological Constraint on Learning” (2015), Weiss & Panlilio explain Breeland’s (1961) racoon, who wasn’t “acting in accordance with their programmed reinforcement contingency” as “consistent with generally applicable, if more complex, general learning principles”, but they also write: the "...influence ... of...the conditioned motivational state in which the instrumental conditioning was conducted and the motivational state that was conditioned by presentations of the reinforcer must be considered" (Domjan, 1983, p. 264).

If we go back to the problems involved in learning about NVB, we do well to consider NVB as a special case of “problem behavior”. The racoon (Breeland, 1961), who could only with great difficulty be taught to drop tokens into a slot for positive reinforcement, didn’t, of course, all of a sudden make Thorndike’s empirical Law of Effect (1911) obsolete. As Domjan (1983) argues “From this perspective, misbehavior and other apparent biological constraints on learning have strengthened general-process theory by encouraging it to deal functionally with the complete learning situation. Generalizations thus developed are concerned with more detailed features of a learning situation, rather than the simplistic interchangeability of cues, responses and reinforcers.”

Reading this paper makes clear why behaviorists have until now overlooked, and, we should say, due to bias for visual stimuli, over-listened, the two universally occurring response classes: interaction among members of different status in the dominance hierarchy (NVB) and interaction among members of equal status (SVB). Behaviorists haven’t been able to learn anything about NVB and SVB, as it requires attention for “the complete learning situation”, that is, the simultaneous consideration of respondent as well as operant conditioning processes. As Skinner emphasizes mostly operant conditioning, behaviorists are often not very inclined to study the selective association literature. As it turns out, this literature can further explain the SVB/NVB distinction.

January 6, 2018

Dear Reader,

No matter what your thoughts or feelings about this topic may be, you will eventually have to learn about the difference between Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) and Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB). These different ways of talking are not going away. You may be able to continue to pretend they are not important, but you are wrong. SVB is more important than you think and NVB is giving you more trouble than you know.

This writing is not causing the trouble you already have. I am upfront and get to the issue right away. The situation is confusing and clarity is only possible for those who know about the distinction between SVB and NVB. As long as you haven’t learned about this distinction, your knowledge about relationship and interaction is wrong. You are probably upset with my words, as I possess the certainty and directness which you lack.

I write to let you know that I can teach you to have the skill I have. Once you will know the difference between SVB and NVB, you have acquired that skill. Right now, you think you are engaging in SVB, while in fact you are engaging in NVB. Also, you think you engage in NVB, while you engage in SVB. Although SVB and NVB are everyday occurrences, you have no clue what is what. You must ask yourself: why is my version of what I believe to be SVB, NVB? And, why is my version of what I believe to be NVB, SVB?

Who you claim to be as a speaker isn’t true, since you don’t know who you are. However, if you know who you are, you can and will, like me, claim that what you say is true: You are NOT the NVB speaker, you are only the SVB speaker!!! Although you engaged in NVB many times, you were never the NVB speaker. Although you have believed to be the NVB speaker, you are relieved not to be the NVB speaker. Once you know about the SVB/NVB distinction, you realize that people only pretend to be NVB speakers as they don’t know they can be and are only SVB speakers.

Once you learn about the SVB/NVB distinction, you will feel validated in the belief which you have always had that the NVB speaker is not a speaker!!! Although the NVB speaker claims to be a speaker and makes him or herself heard everywhere, only SVB speakers know this belief is based on ignorance. The SVB speaker, who listens to him or herself while he or she speaks, listens to others in the exact same way as he or she listens to him or herself, but the NVB speaker, who doesn’t listen to him or herself, forces others to listen to him or her. The NVB speaker isn’t a speaker as he or she neither listens to him or herself nor does he or she ever really listen to anybody else.

The SVB/NVB distinction teaches us what it is like to be an authentic speaker. SVB speakers speak_with the listener, who is then invited to also be a SVB speaker, but NVB speakers speak_at the listener, who is then only capable of engaging in NVB with such a speaker. NVB speech must not to be considered as speech as NVB speakers dominate, intimidate, humiliate, drain, exploit, oppress, force, disrespect, alienate, separate, distract, overwhelm and dis-regulate the listener. As only SVB speakers take turns with the listener and share control of the conversation with the other SVB speakers, they always mutually reinforce each other.

 Dear Reader,

The Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB)/Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB) distinction is system of thought which came about as the speaker began to listen to him or herself while he or she spoke. At the time that the speaker began to listen to him or herself while he or she spoke, he or she was alone. Thus, there was no distraction from other speakers when the speaker began to listen to the sound of his or her thoughts and feelings. The words spoken by this speaker gave him or her the opportunity to hear his or her sound.

Other speakers are asked to do the same thing. They are stimulated to be alone, talk out loud and listen to the sound of their own voice while they speak. It will not take long before the speaker is able to recognize that he or she vocally only has two responses: he or she produces a sound which he or she likes or he or she produces a sound which he or she dislikes. These two responses are single instances of a response class.

As the speaker explores the great difference in sound of his or her thoughts and feelings, he or she realizes his or her sounds are in fact responses to different, but common sources of influence in the environment. When speakers produce SVB, they respond happily as listeners to the sound of their own voice, which they experience as a reinforcing stimulus. However, each time when speakers produce NVB, they experience the sound of their own voice as an aversive stimulus.

In the study of behavior, the unit of analysis is the response class. These individually observed response classes are constituent parts of a whole phenomenon that serves as a basis for experimental study. Unless we acknowledge how we as speakers are affected by our own voice, something essential will be lacking in our analysis of how we as speakers affect the listener.

If we as speakers are aversively affected by the sound of our own voice, other listeners must be negatively affected as well. Other listeners will only be positively affected by the sound of the speaker’s voice if that speaker experiences the sound of his or her own voice as an appetitive stimulus. This reasoning is from the listener’s perspective, that is, it was made possible by the speaker who was listening to him or herself.

The speaker who listens to him or herself while he or she speaks spends time alone talking out loud so that he or she experiences how he or she is affected by his or her own sound. Such a speaker will only to take note of what the listener experiences if such a speaker takes turns with the listener, that is, if such a speaker can listen to the listener as a speaker. In NVB public speech there is no turn-taking between the speaker and listener. The same is true for NVB private speech.

In public speech there are distinct speakers and listeners, but in our private speech there is only our speaking and listening behavior. Since in NVB public speech the roles of speakers and listeners are fixed and are hierarchically separated, we experience this separation of the speaker and listener in our private speech as well. Naturally, there is no speaker inside of us and there is no listener. This means that in NVB public and private speech our speaking and listening behavior occur at different rates, but that only in SVB these two repertoires can be synchronized and joined.

We can only figure out this conundrum inductively as we as speakers will give ourselves permission to talk out loud with ourselves. What has been described as our inner dialogue of course relates to the different rates of our speaking and listening behavior of our private speech, which derived from our involvement in NVB. By talking out loud alone, we hear that we produce a different sound when our speaking and our listening behavior occur at the same rates (in SVB) or at different rates (in NVB) and we get clear this effect was always related to the sound of safety or of threat.

By talking out loud alone, we can finally discriminate the two response classes SVB and NVB. By bringing out our private speech into our public speech and by listening the sound of our voice, we realize that what appeared to be a speaker (or various speakers) inside of us was in fact of course only always our speaking or listening behavior which occurred at different rates.

It may initially appear as if we can now let the listener speak and as if the speaker can now let go and let the listener do some of the talking. It may seem as if the speaker finally listens and as if the listener at long last feels safe enough to begin to speak, but what we are really doing, when we are talking out loud, is that we synchronize our speaking and our listening behavior. Thus, we discover SVB is possible and that NVB can be stopped and we explore and become familiar with the environment in which this can and will occur.

January 7, 2018

Dear Reader,

Thank you for reading, studying, thinking and talking about the distinction between Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) and Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB). It must have occurred to you that the thoughts and feelings you have articulated and listened to are no longer the same as the thoughts and feelings which remained unexpressed. In SVB, you will not only express your private speech, but you also listen to the sound of it.

In NVB our private speech is not even allowed to be expressed in public speech. We inevitably get stuck with NVB private speech as NVB speakers endlessly force and accuse each other that we are causing our own behavior. This fallacy has been around for a long time. However, we are neither causing our SVB nor our NVB and so, we are also neither causing our SVB private speech nor our NVB private speech. It is impossible to be stuck with SVB private speech. To the extent we have been involved in SVB, it will have a regulating affect even if we are with NVB speakers.

Speaking and listening should be considered together in the same as breathing out and breathing in. If we talk, we do so on an outgoing breath and if we listen, we become focused on ingoing breath to the point that we become still and that our breathing is deep and calm. It makes no sense to think of speaking and listening behaviors as separate. It is only due to our repeated involvement in NVB that we keep thinking of them as separate. Although we may think of them as separate, they are not separate and thinking of them as separate maintains many of our problems.

Speaking only makes sense to the extent that we are listening and listening only makes sense to the extent that we are speaking. However, in NVB the speaker prevents the listener from speaking or forces him or her to speak in a manner that is determined by him or by her. Thus, in NVB the speaker and the listener are separated by their specific place in the dominance hierarchy. NVB is speech which occurs between those who view themselves and others as superior or inferior.

Unlike NVB speakers, who try to dominate and outdo each other and struggle to get each other’s attention, SVB speakers take turns with their listeners, who will also then speak as SVB speakers. In other words, NVB speakers continuously elicit NVB speech, while SVB speakers only evoke SVB speech. Stated differently, NVB always speakers trigger respondent or reflexive behavior in the listener, who will then speak as a NVB speaker, but only SVB speakers can emancipate their listeners into becoming SVB speakers like themselves.

The SVB speaker listens to him or herself while he or she speaks, that is, he or she tracks how he or she is affected by his or her own sound and this allows him or her to monitor how he or she affects the listener. The SVB speaker accurately discriminates when he or she or others produce NVB or SVB and is capable of tracing how the occurrence of one or the other is a function of variables in the environment. Rather than making SVB happen, the SVB speaker knows about the environment in which SVB can and will happen, but he or she also recognizes without any drama the environment in which only NVB can and will happen.

I know how to arrange environments in which SVB can and will happen. What I know can also be known by you. To learn it, you must verify what I write. I urge you to spend time by yourself talking out loud and listening to the sound of your thoughts and your feelings. By creating the environment in which you can safely and calmly express your own private speech in public speech (what you say to yourself can potentially be heard by others), you will become familiar with your ability to have SVB. As you read this text and you use these words to listen to your own sound, you will find it very easy, effortless and enjoyable.