As a future ABA professional, it is important that you understand how MOs and S^Ds affect behavior. When an individual is motivated for something and it is available, behaviors are likely to occur. MOs can be contrived so that reinforcement is valuable. Discrimination training can occur such that an individual understands a stimulus is available when a particular stimulus is present.

• Explain the similarities and differences between MOs and S^Ds.
• Give one example of an MO and one example of an S^D.
• Describe how behavior analysts can contrive MOs to change behavior based on what you have learned.

 

Discriminative Stimuli (SDs) indicate the availability of reinforcing stimulus; therefore, it is influential in triggering certain behaviors (Axe & McCarthy?Pepin, 2021). In contrast, Edwards, Lotfizadeh, and Poling (2019) indicate that Motivating Operations (MOs) determine how motivated one is to experience the reinforcing stimulus. Put simply; the fundamental similarity is that MOs determine the likelihood of responding to the SDs. Motivating operations and discriminative stimuli are collectively antecedent variables that change or influence the existing behaviors. Therefore, MOs and SDs are both operant variables. The control of SDs is established due to the correlation between a stimulus and the availability or frequency of the reinforcing stimulus. Contrarily, the MOs evoke behaviors by changing the value of factors that reinforce the response. 

An example of a motivating operation is food deprivation. Food or other edible matter becomes significantly reinforcing if an individual is hungry; however, the food becomes less reinforcing when the same person is satiated. An example of a discriminative stimulus is; when the manager is around. Every employee works faster than when they are absent. Therefore, the manager's presence in this example is the SD that influences and controls how the staffs carry out their roles. The SD ensures that a response is faster, frequent, and subjected to specific control (Axe & McCarthy?Pepin, 2021).

Behavior analysts can identify and contrive MOs by providing the "essential motivating elements" to accommodate children with challenges such as autism (Edwards, Lotfizadeh, & Poling (2019, p. 5). For example, if certain strategies do not work for children with challenges, behavior analysts should adopt them wittily to become desirable. Also, people who do not feel motivated to participate in specific engagements need not be consistently pushed by stepping back where necessary. For example, when a child does not show interest in accepting a toy, there is a need to stop forcing them to take it. If the toy is brought back after a particular period, like a day or week, it may turn out to be a motivator, independently.