Behavior passivity refers to the nature of behavior, all behavior, including all human behavior, of any type or level of complexity. Like all real events in nature, on this planet, in this universe, behavior is natural, that is, it comprises natural events. It is an inevitable reaction.
The first general VB characteristic concerns the emphasis on function rather than on structure. The long–standing tradition of approaching speaking and writing structurally has produced some worthwhile results. From this approach linguistics has discovered much about the structures of many languages, such as their vocabulary, grammar, and syntax.
Coverage of the vast verbal–behavior topic begins with some of its recent history, and then with some ancient history regarding the relation of evolution and physiology to verbal behavior. These provide a foundation for defining not only verbal behavior but also the verbal community. After that come some characteristics of verbal–behavior analysis.
As with love traditional and current but pre–scientific and unscientific opposition insists that science lacks the ability to address those ancient questions. With the help of these columns, you may find that view dangerous, because it interferes with the likely most successful activities for solving global problems. Starting with this column, the first long–standing question for our focus concerns that most ubiquitous of ancient and contemporary human behaviors, language, which is verbal behavior.
Two considerations recur across these columns. These concern my examples and writing style. In early columns, or with basic principles and processes, simple human behaviors as well as an occasional non–human behavior provides the examples best illustrating some particular point, because behaviorology concerns all behavior. However, the realistic explanation of ordinary, which really means complex, human behavior remains our primary emphasis as we get into later columns.
