Miguel: Jack Michaels Motivation

Purpose: Focuses on Motivating operations (MO) by outlining its development from skinners notion of
Drive shifting the origin form the organism to the environment.

Motivation is used as a hypothetical construct derived form the observable behavior that it is meant to
explain .

Ex: if a child does not complete her homework, one can infer that she was not motivated to do so.
(circular reasoning)

Establishing operations (EO later renamed Motivating operations (MO) aims to explain the effects of
reinforcing and consequences, by clearly identifying motivational variables so they can be observed,
measured and manipulated.( the reinforcer-altering effect)

Drive: is defined as Physiological tension that would motivate action

Or

Can be defined as a descriptor of certain operations that have an effect upon behavior which is
different from any other operation – Keller & Schoenfeld ( in laymen terms, behavior may be a
function of variables other than reinforcement)

Ex. Lack of water drives us to behavior that satisfies the tension  getting water

- Skinner uses the term Drive to account for response variability observed during reinforcement
suggesting that “a rat does not always respond to food placed before it, and a factor called
“Hunger” is invoked by way of explanation”.
- He was not concerned with hunger a hypothetical state rather he was more inclined with
observing behavior of feeding and fasting the Variability observed in this behavior.
- Each behavior is a function of a different environmental stimulus Ex. feeding ingestion , and
fasting  satiation.
- Skinner later abandoned the term drive and instead used specifics deprivation, satiation, and
aversive stimulation

Establishing operations of Drive

- Millenson defines drive as a relation between a reinforcement establishing operation and the
reinforcing value of a class of stimuli'
- He made the analogy between the terms drive and reflex, suggesting that both "stand for a
certain relationship between variables
- Millenson focused on the effects of environmental operations on the reinforcing value of
unlearned reinforcers.
- Finding that when you hold reinforcement constant and vary the other operations the rate of
behavior directly represents the strength of the reinforcer.
Establishing Stimulus

Michael was concerned that antecedent variables were not widely recognized as controlling behavior
(evoking) leading him to distinguish between MOs and SD or discriminative stimulus.

Discriminative stimulus- are correlated w/ the availability of reinforcers

Establishing operations- are correlated with effectiveness

- EO include all environment variables

- Alter(increase or decrease) the effectiveness
- Evoke or suppress behaviors
- Evocative effect
- Establish and abolish another event as a reinforcer

Michaels taxonomical formulation allowed BA to group all variables with similar motivation upon
behavior under Establishing operations

- Continuing with the water example , this would include no only deprivation and aversive
stimulation but salt ingestion and temperature changes.

Establishing stimulus - (S1) establishes another stimulus (S2) as a conditioned reinforcer without
altering the effectiveness of the relevant unconditioned reinforcement the antecedent variable (S1) is
the establishing stimulus.

Ex. an electrician needs to remove a slotted screw (Sl) to complete his job.  In order to do so, the
electrician requires an appropriate screwdriver (S2) and thus request one from his assistant' After
receiving the screwdriver (conditioned reinforcer), the electrician continues engaging ln a sequence of
behaviors that leads to the completion of the job.

- According to Michael, the slotted screw does not evoke the request as an SD since a screwdriver
(conditioned reinforcer) is not more available in the presence of the slotted screw, and less
available in its absence. The slotted screw establishes the screwdriver as a reinforcer and thus
functions as an SE evoking the request. The slotted screw may function as an SD For other
behaviors such as unscrewing, because the consequence produced by this behavior is not
available in the absence of the slotted screw.

The EO and the Mand

New definition of the Mand (Michael’s): The mand is a type of verbal operant in which a particular
response form is reinforced by a characteristic consequence and is therefore under the functional
control of the establishing operation relevant to that consequence. (definition is used today)

The EO always evokes behavior that has been reinforced by a stimulus whose value has been changes by
the EO

UEO- unconditioned establishing operations (unlearned)

Description of UEO’s: deprivation and satiation of food water, activity, sleep temperature changes,
variables relevant to sexual reinforcement painful stimulation(escape) and emotional EOs
or

CEO- conditioned establishing operations(learned) there are two types of CEOS

1. Warning stimulus(conditioned aversive stimulus) in the avoidance procedure, is never correlated

with the differential availability of the reinforcer (pain reduction) but with its effectiveness and
aversive stimulus alters the effectiveness of its own removal as a reinforcer (reinforcer
establishing effect ) and evokes all behaviors that in the past have been followed by this
removal (evocative effect)
2. Establishing stimulus (discussed above)
Ex. Someone sees something needs to be written down mands for “pencil” the situation
establishes another stimulus the pencil as a conditioned reinforcer  evoking the mand , saying
“pencil “ has produced the reinforcement in the past.

The behavioral account of motivation

Michael suggested that reinforcer establishing evocative effects, and altering of evocative effects of
discriminative behavior make discrimination training possible while also changing the effect that
discriminative stimulus have on behavior.

He described three types of CEOS

- Surrogate: acquiring its properties through correlation or pairing with an UEO (and possibly
another already established CEO), in a respondent like preparation.
- Reflexive (warning CEOs) :establishing its own termination as a reinforcer or punisher (reflexive)
- Transitive(Blocked response CEOs) :establishing the effectiveness of another event as a
reinforcer or punisher (transitive). NOTE*** (this is how we teach mands to children with
disabilities)

Research on Eos

3 categories of research on Eos

- general demonstrations of the influence of an EO on behavior.

- the use of EO manipulations to clarify results of behavioral assessments.
- attempts to improve (increase or decrease) behavior by incorporating EO manipulations as
treatment components"

Further Clarifications

- The nature of the evocative relation as being independent from the reinforcer establishing
effect. In other words, the evocative effect is only observed after behavior has been reinforced
by the consequence whose value was increased by the EO
- Michael suggested replacing terms such as deprivation and satiation that usually refer to periods
of restricted access and organismic states, respectively with the terms establishing and
abolishing operations
- he reminded the reader that behavior reduction achieved by manipulating EOs is temporary.
Once the EO is again present, problem behavior would be evoked.
- Michael argued that despite its possible status as an unconditioned reinforcer, attention should
be considered a conditioned reinforcer, so a transitive CEO rather than an UEO (such as lack of
attention) modulates its value.
- Ways to weaken the behavior include extinction of the conditioned reinforcer, unpairing of
conditioned and unconditioned reinforcers, and undeferential availability of the reinforce
- he emphasized the notion of multiple functions of stimuli by exemplifying a situation in which a
stimulus, namely shock, can function as an UEO making pain reduction a reinforcer, and also as a
transitive CEO, making the sight of the lever that is used to terminate the shock a valuable
conditioned reinforcer.
- Michael made an analogy between a demand situation in the applied setting and the warning
stimulus in the cued avoidance preparation, suggesting that problem behavior may be evoked
by demands functioning as reflexive CEOs.
- he describei three ways to reduce behavior evoked by these tlpes of reflexive CEOs by giving
both an avoidance and demand-escape example. One way to reduce behavior would be by
omitting the warning stimulus or demand. Another way would be by continuing to present the
aversive stimulus despite the avoidance response. A third way would be by terminating the
demand sequence, or withholding the aversive stimulus at the offset of the warning stimulus,
regardless of behavior.