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| Int'l Paper - Antecedents and Consequences of Words |
| Sunday, May 30, 2004 |
| 1:30 PM–2:20 PM |
| Beacon F |
| Area: VBC |
| Chair: Robin A. Nuzzolo-Gomez (Teachers College, Columbia University) |
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| Antecedents and Consequences of Words |
| Domain: Applied Research |
| A. CHARLES CATANIA (University of Maryland, Baltimore County) |
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| Abstract: Verbal behavior is an exceedingly efficient way in which one organism can change the behavior of another. All other functions of verbal behavior derive from this most basic function, sometimes called verbal governance. We recognize verbal governance in noting that much important human behavior is determined by verbal antecedents. Functional verbal antecedents are generated when individuals replicate the verbal behavior of others or their own verbal behavior. Differential contact with different verbal antecedents follows from differential attention to verbal stimuli correlated with consequential events. Once in place, verbal behavior can be shaped by (usually social) consequences. Because these verbal processes share common terms, they produce interlocking contingencies in which extensive classes of verbal and nonverbal behavior come to be dominated by verbal antecedents. Very different consequences follow from verbal behavior depending on whether it is anchored to environmental events, as in scientific verbal practices, or becomes independent of it, as in religious fundamentalism. |
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