Motivating operation

Motivating operation

Motivating operations or establishing operations, are a concept in behaviorism involving the effectiveness of consequences in operant conditioning. They explain why a person wants or does not want something and why they act or do not act in a particular moment.

History

It was introduced by Jack Michael around 1980. Different terminology was introduced to describe the concept in 2004, changing it from establishing operation to motivating operation.

Concept

The concept is primarily concerned with the motivation of an organism, or what behavior a person will engage in a particular moment. It focuses on the idea that an organism is constantly fluctuating between states of satiation and deprivation of reinforcers. A simple example is created with food, food deprivation makes you "want" food and food satiation makes you "want" food less.

A motivating operation with respect to motivation has two effects: value altering and behavior altering. The value altering effect states that it alters the value of a consequence of behavior by making it more or less reinforcing. The behavior altering effect states that it immediately evokes or suppresses behaviors that have resulted in the consequence linked to the behavior in the past. The motivating operation of deprivation of food in this particular example would establish the stimulus of food as reinforcing and evoke behaviors that in the past have resulted in food, while the motivating operation of being satiated of food abolishes the stimulus of food's reinforcing effect and abates behaviors that in the past have resulted in food.

Note that this concept is different than that of the stimulus discriminate. The stimulus discriminate is correlated with the differential availability of reinforcement, while the motivating operation is correlated with the differential effectiveness of a reinforcer.

In B.F. Skinner's book Verbal Behavior, conditioned motivating operations are broken into three categories:

  • CMO-surrogate
  • CMO-transitive
  • CMO-reflexive

Controversy

There is some debate as to whether an organism's states of deprivation and satiation are only biological states or if they can be metaphysical states, that is, whether an organism can be deprived or satiated from only unconditioned reinforcers or if they can be deprived and satiated from conditioned reinforcers. Leading to the theory that there are unconditioned motivating operations (UMO) and conditioned motivating operations (CMO).

It has also been used to explain Maslow's hierarchy of needs by describing the lower two levels as UMOs and the upper three levels as CMOs.


Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.

Игры ⚽ Нужно сделать НИР?

Look at other dictionaries:

  • Operation Commando Hunt — Part of the Vietnam War Targets: (top) loaded PAVN trucks, (mid) POL storage area, (bot) open supply storage area …   Wikipedia

  • Experimental analysis of behavior — The experimental analysis of behavior is the name given to school of psychology founded by B. F. Skinner, and based on his philosophy of radical behaviorism. A central principle was the inductive, data driven [Chiesa, Mecca: Radical Behaviorism:… …   Wikipedia

  • Verbal Behavior (book) — Verbal Behavior is a 1957 book by psychologist B. F. Skinner, in which he analyzes human behavior, encompassing what is traditionally called language, linguistics, or speech. [Citation first=Mecca |last=Chiesa title=Radical Behaviorism: The… …   Wikipedia

  • Jack Michael — is a researcher, professor and author in the field of the experimental analysis of behavior best known for his elucidations of the motivating operation(MO), comprised of Establishing Operation (EO) and Abolishing Operations (AO).Probably his most …   Wikipedia

  • Stimulus control — is the phenomenon of a stimulus increasing the probability of a behavior (operant response) because of a history of that behavior being differentially reinforced in the presence of the stimulus. In other words, stimulus control is basically… …   Wikipedia

  • Bombing of Guernica — Operation Rügen Part of Spanish Civil War Ruins of Guernica (1937) …   Wikipedia

  • education — /ej oo kay sheuhn/, n. 1. the act or process of imparting or acquiring general knowledge, developing the powers of reasoning and judgment, and generally of preparing oneself or others intellectually for mature life. 2. the act or process of… …   Universalium

  • Industrial and organizational psychology — Psychology …   Wikipedia

  • Algebra over a field — This article is about a particular kind of vector space. For other uses of the term algebra , see algebra (disambiguation). In mathematics, an algebra over a field is a vector space equipped with a bilinear vector product. That is to say, it is… …   Wikipedia

  • Hoshiar Singh — Colonel Hoshiar Singh, PVC (May 5, 1937 December 6, 1998) was born in Sisana village, Rohtak district, Haryana to Choudhary Hira Singh. He served in the Indian Army with dedication, retiring as a Colonel. He was awarded India s highest military… …   Wikipedia

Share the article and excerpts

Direct link
Do a right-click on the link above
and select “Copy Link”