Motivating Operations and Terms to Describe Them: Some Further Refinements

Abstract

Over the past decade, behavior analysts have increasingly used the term establishing operation (EO) to refer to environmental events that influence the behavioral effects of operant consequences. Nonetheless, some elements of current terminology regarding EOs may interfere with applied behavior analysts' efforts to predict, control, describe, and understand behavior. The present paper (a) describes how the current conceptualization of the EO is in need of revision, (b) suggests alternative terms, including the generic term motivating operation (MO), and (c) provides examples of MOs and their behavioral effects using articles from the applied behavior analysis literature.DESCRIPTORS: motivation, establishing operations, abolishing operations, motivating operations, behavior-analytic terminologyThe term establishing operation (EO), originally used by Keller and Schoenfeld (1950) and then by Millenson (1967) to denote motivating events, has been revived and reformulated in a series of papers by Michael (e.g., 1982Michael (e.g., , 1983Michael (e.g., , 1988Michael (e.g., , 1993aMichael (e.g., , 1993bMichael (e.g., , 2000. Michael defined EOs as environmental events, operations, or stimulus conditions that affect an organism's behavior by altering (a) the reinforcing or punishing effectiveness of other environmental events and (b) the frequency of occurrence of that part of the organism's repertoire relevant to those events as consequences. Michael termed the first effect the reinforcer-establishing effect and the second effect the evocative effect. Unconditioned establishing operations (UEOs) do not require a learning history to change the effectiveness of consequences. In contrast, conditioned establishing operations (CEOs) acquire their motivating function as a result of a particular learning history. Michael

A Tutorial on the Concept of the Motivating Operation and its Importance to Application

“…More recently, the term motivating operation (MO) has come to subsume that of the establishing operation (Laraway, Snycerski, Michael, & Poling, 2003). The MO refers to an event or stimulus condition that momentarily alters (a) the value of consequences that act as types of reinforcement or punishment, and (b) the probability of behaviors that have been previously associated with such consequences.…”

A Preliminary Analysis of the Effects of Coaching Feedback on Teacher Implementation Fidelity of First Step to Success

“…As such, Laraway et al (2003) refined the concept, proposing that the omnibus term of the motivating operation replace that of the EO. MOs refer to antecedent events that share two main properties.…”

“…The second property of the MO is referred to as the behavior-altering effect (Laraway et al, 2003). An EO evokes (i.e., increases) behavior that has been previously associated with the events it establishes as reinforcers (and vice-versa for behaviors associated with punishment), whereas an AO abates (i.e., decreases) behavior that has been associated with events it abolishes as reinforcers (and vice-versa for behaviors associated with punishment).…”

Thirty Points About Motivation From Skinner’s Book Verbal Behavior

“…Michael and colleagues provided a series of refinements and extensions of Skinner's basic analysis of motivation with a number of papers and book chapters (Laraway, Snycerski, Michael, & Poling, 2003;Michael, 1982Michael, , 1988Michael, , 1993Michael, , 2000Michael, , 2004Michael, , 2007. Despite the focus that Skinner, Keller, and Schoenfeld placed on motivation and its distinction from stimulus effects, Michael (1993) noted that ''the basic notion plays only a small role in the approach currently referred to as behavior analysis' ' (p. 191).…”

“…Something of the same effect is produced by various drugs, including alcohol and the socalled truth serums, which have in addition the effect of allaying the anxiety associated with punished behavior and therefore reducing the tendency to withhold responses. (p. 390) There is a growing body of research on these other types of MOs (e.g., Laraway et al, 2003). Research has demonstrated that stimulant drugs reduce the reinforcing effectiveness of food (e.g., Julien, 2001;Northup, Fusilier, Swanson, Roane, & Borrero, 1997).…”