Antecedent Stimuli
Both motivating operations and discriminative stimuli are antecedents, and they play a common role in behavioral management (Watson & Steege, 2003). Another important similarity is that both occur before the disruptive behaviors. This means that the stimuli are already available. This means that both are learned responses in that the motivating stimulus cause behavioral change due to the value altering effect. SD is also a learned response in that it signals the reinforcing consequences and an individual can identify the specific reinforcing behavior and ignore all other behaviors which are not relevant (Watson & Steege, 2003). Another similarity is that both stimuli have evocative functions. Individuals develop altered states either by increasing the value of an event or subside the value of the stimulus. Lastly, both stimuli work together in that motivating operations occur before the discriminative stimuli (Watson & Steege, 2003). This is because an individual has many motivating variables and the discriminative stimulus increases the availability of the variables or decreases the availability.
However, the motivating operations and discriminative stimuli differ in that the former is interested in the consequences of behavior whereas the latter focuses on evoking a specific behavior from the availability of reinforce (Bray & Kehle, 2011). In other words, a motivating operation focus on reinforcement of behavior and its effectiveness. Thus, Motivating operations play the role of establishing positive reinforces and abolishing negative reinforces. Secondly, it increases the positive behaviors or decreases negative behaviors. While the discriminative stimuli concentrate on the availability of reinforcement, motivating operations are concerned with the effective's reinforcement (Bray & Kehle, 2011). Therefore, an individual will use a discriminative stimuli to distinguish between the positive and negative behaviors and the same person will the motivation stimuli to use the most effective stimuli toward the behavior
Give one example of an MO and one example of an SD
An example of discriminative stimuli is that a dog starts barking when he sees someone's at the gate. The dog is excited because he believes that you will give him food. If you feed the dog, it will be so excited and there a likelihood that he will behave the same way if he sees a visitor coming. However, a discriminative stimulus means that if a visitor comes in and he does not feed the dog, then the dog learns to distinguish between the owner of the home and stranger. The dog will learn that it is only the owner of the dog who is caring. Thus, the dog will always become exciting when he sees the owner and ignore the strangers.
Example of an MO
As a teacher, I realize that Joy loves skittles. I will motivate Joy by giving her skittles. For instance, I want joy to attend a lesson and sit down for more than 40 minutes, and I will set up a reward for her. The motivating operations mean that I will not give Joy the skittle all day. I will create a derivation state to increase the effectiveness of the Skittle. If Joy learns that she is not given the skittles all day, there is a likelihood that she will always attend the lesson to receive a skittle. Note that if a constantly reward her, the skittles (the reinforcement) will lose its effects, and Joy will not have the interest to attend lessons.
Based on what I have learned, behavior analysts can use MOs to change behavior. First, they should understand that the more the availability of something, the less the desire toward that thing. Therefore, a behavioral analysis should understand why individuals are doing certain behaviors (Nosik & Carr, 2015). The behavioral analyst should reinforce the behavior by deprivation individuals of the things they love. For example, if children love playing with fork and spoon, a behavioral analyst should provide these items only when children are taking meals. This means that the fork and spoon will become a necessity and children will use it to get food. The behavioral analyst should always focus on 'Establishing Operations' which focuses on creating the value of a stimulus (Nosik & Carr, 2015). An Individual's behaviors should act as a reinforcement.
References
Watson, T. S., & Steege, M. W. (2003). Conducting school-based functional behavioral
assessments: A practitioner's guide. Guilford Press.
Bray, M. A., & Kehle, T. J. (2011). The Oxford handbook of school psychology. New York:
Oxford University Press.
Nosik, M. R., & Carr, J. E. (2015). On the distinction between the motivating operation and
setting event concepts. The Behavior Analyst, 38(2), 219-223.
