Editorial: Verbal Behavior and Motivating Operations

Motivating operations in appetite research.

Appetite research frequently employs principles derived from behaviour analysis. However, it has yet to utilise the more recent theoretical advances in this field. This paper describes the concept of the motivating operation (MO)--a behaviour analytic formulation of motivation. An MO is an environmental event that (a) establishes or abolishes the reinforcing or punishing effect of another event...

Motivating Operations in Drug-Discrimination

Motivating operations (MO) play an important role in learning and performance. According to the behavior analytic conceptualization, MOs alter the probability of responses that lead to relevant reinforcers and alter the reinforcing " value " of those reinforcers (e. that one way in which MOs influence stimulus control is by influencing the control of behavior by discriminative stimuli. Interest...

Effects of motivating operations on problem and academic behavior in classrooms.

The current study examined the effects of motivating operations on problem behavior and academic engagement for 2 students with autism. Classroom sessions were preceded by periods in which the participants had access or no access to the items functionally related to their problem behavior. Results suggested that presession access may result in lower levels of problem behavior and higher levels ...

The Effects of Motivating Operations on Challenging Behavior, Communication Intervention, and Generalization

Influence of motivating operations and discriminative stimuli on challenging behavior maintained by positive reinforcement.

We examined the effects of an establishing operation (EO) and abolishing operation (AO) on stimulus control of challenging behavior. Two participants with developmental disabilities and challenging behavior participated. In Phase I, a functional analysis was conducted to identify the consequences maintaining challenging behavior. In Phase II, a discrimination between SD and SΔ was trained. In P...