April 23, 2015
Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer
In an unpublished interview with Ribes-Iñesta (1990), Skinner remarks that he does not regard the orderliness of behavior as an essential assumption. For him behavior is a natural phenomenon, which can be studied by a positive science. Although theories determine the selection of data, he insists and emphasizes that data are independent of theory. Skinner is basically against theory, because he wants to be able to consider all the data. He answers a question about the molar/molecular distinction by saying he is not interested in this distinction. Skinner has also no interest in how the inner organism works, as he is into variation and selection of behavior of the whole organism.
The data regarding how we talk with each other doesn’t depend on theory. Although much has been theorized about how we talk, this hasn’t led to any kind of improvement. It hasn’t led a science of vocal verbal behavior that is capable of solving our problems like we do in physics or chemistry. The two response classes called Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) and Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB) are only relevant to the extent that it can make audible new and important data to skilled speakers and listeners. SVB brings into hearing range the voice of the speaker, that is, the stimulus that sets the stage for the listener’s vocal verbal response. The behavior of the speaker, who turns into a listener, is functionally related to the behavior of the listener, who turns into a speaker. This behavior-behavior sequence involves turn-taking.
Like Skinner, I am interested in the variation and selection of behavior of the whole organism. My focus is whether individuals acquire more SVB repertoire or more NVB repertoire during their life? I am interested in the control of behavior. In my way of talking other communicators will always experience an increase of SVB and a decrease of NVB. I predict this and I achieve this as I have the necessary skills that make this possible. Moreover, I teach these skills to those who are willing to learn from me. SVB signifies an increase of health and relationship, but NVB involves the decline of our health and the destruction of our relationship. Our talking affects many other behaviors and potentially has many positive or negative long-term consequences. We can hear this everywhere around us and we can also see it in our own lives.
I am interested in the effect of vocal verbal behavior on our environment, that is, on each other, because that is where the rubber of human relationship hits the road. Our vocal verbal effect on our environment only becomes clear if we listen to each other and to ourselves while we speak. The speaker must also include his or her own environment, the environment that is within our own skin. The effect of the speaker is understood from the listener’s point of view, because the verbal operant is defined by its effect on the listener. When asked about the contradictions in his theory, Skinner says he is not interested in theory and is unaffected by the occurrence of anomalies.
The lawfulness of our behavior or other natural phenomenon is not altered by our theories. If our theories hold water, they should emphasize the fact that behavior is determined by previous and current circumstances. By rejecting the importance of theories, Skinner shapes a scientific behavior that makes rapid change possible. He urges us to stop wasting time with theoretical superficial controversies. Operant behavior is defined by the probability of a response and not by the response itself. SVB and NVB are subsets of vocal verbal behavior explained by past instances of reinforcement, not by any purposive or imagined future consequence. Our future cannot cause our behavior.
When a person acquires a verbal repertoire, he or she will in principle be able to analyze the contingencies to which he or she has been exposed and is exposed. This leads to the formulation of rules which enter into the total contingencies affecting our behavior. Most importantly, Skinner states that the formulation of rules as descriptions of contingencies of reinforcement are nothing more than operant behavior, that is, behavior that is susceptible to variation and selection. Like Skinner, my interest is in operant behavior. I focus on SVB, which is operant. My only concern with NVB is to recognize it as respondent behavior and to avoid it as much as possible. Our reflexive, mechanical vocal verbal behavior has had and continues to have devastating consequences and must be identified as our problem behavior.
My focus is on SVB as only SVB will reliably replace NVB, our problem behavior. I am aware of the constraints which are imposed on the process of operant conditioning by our reflexive behavior. Most people are unaware of the negative consequences which result from their way of talking, that is, from their involvement in NVB. Upon being made familiar with the SVB/NVB distinction, people often still think they engage in SVB, while in fact they are having NVB. This happens all the time. SVB is SVB and NVB is NVB, not because of how we think about these subsets, but because of how we experience the response products of SVB and NVB. Much NVB masquerades as SVB. Even if we rationally know about this distinction, we keep getting it wrong because we focus on what we say and not on how we say it. This requires awareness, which will only be there if it is stimulated by our way of talking. What we say involves one response of behavior, with which we easily get stuck, but how we say it refers to emotion or movement and to novel responses. To stop our war of words, which is as impairing as right-sided paralysis after a stroke, we, the speakers, by listening to the sound of our words, become aware of our body, the environment within our own skin, from which we are disconnected again and again during NVB.
Regardless of whether we will find words for our bodily states, private events have a physical, functional independent status. Emotions are real irrespective of whether we learn to accurately express them or not. They are the most important, yet often completely ignored data of human interaction, which exist independent of our theories. Skinner focuses on operant conditioning, because, unlike natural selection and evolution of social environments we call cultures, operant conditioning can be studied experimentally, that is, in the laboratory.
SVB and NVB are two universal subsets of vocal verbal behavior which are mutually exclusive. We can only capitalize on what we know about operant conditioning if we talk about the behavior-controlling environment. The sound of the speaker's voice is an antecedent stimulus, which sets the stage for the response, which is SVB or NVB. The postcedent events determine whether that response is going to be more or less likely under similar circumstances in the future. We suffer the ubiquity of NVB because we keep reinforcing it. We haven’t been able to capitalize on what we have come to know about operant conditioning, because we haven’t learned how to behave scientifically about our way of talking. Capitalizing on operant conditioning requires that we talk with each other in such a way that we don’t aversively affect each other at all. To explore such a possibility we must create a SVB laboratory.