Establishing Operations and Motivation in Applied Behavior Analysis
This paper reviews Michael's (1993) foundational article on establishing operations in behavior analysis. It examines how Michael defines establishing operations as environmental conditions that momentarily alter both the reinforcing effectiveness of events and the frequency of related behaviors. The review covers the distinction between discriminative and motivative variables, the difference between conditioned and unconditioned establishing operations, and the specific subtypes of conditioned establishing operations — including reflexive and transitive forms. The paper also addresses Michael's argument that reintegrating motivational constructs into behavioral science, alongside Skinnerian reinforcement theory, yields greater conceptual clarity about the multiple determinants of human behavior.
- Introduction to Establishing Operations: Michael's definition and thesis on establishing operations
- Discriminative and Motivative Variables: Distinguishing availability from reinforcing effectiveness
- Conditioned and Unconditioned Establishing Operations: Types of establishing operations and their pairings
- Reflexive and Transitive Conditioned Establishing Operations: Subtypes of conditioned establishing operations explained
- Motivation in Behavioral Science: Reintegrating motivation into behavioral theory
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What makes this paper effective
- Accurately traces Michael's (1993) argument in logical sequence, moving from broad definitions to increasingly specific subtypes of establishing operations.
- Clearly distinguishes between related but distinct concepts — discriminative versus motivative variables, and conditioned versus unconditioned establishing operations — without conflating them.
- Uses Michael's own quoted language at key moments to anchor the review in the source text, lending precision to the summary.
Key academic technique demonstrated
This paper demonstrates close reading and conceptual paraphrase. Rather than simply restating definitions, it explains the functional relationships between constructs — for example, clarifying how a conditioned establishing operation paired with an unconditioned one gains increased motivational power — showing genuine comprehension of a technically dense source.
Structure breakdown
The review opens with Michael's central definition and thesis, then unpacks the discriminative/motivative distinction, moves into conditioned versus unconditioned types, elaborates on reflexive and transitive subtypes with examples and a direct quote, and closes with Michael's historiographical argument about why motivation was marginalized in behavioral science and why its reintegration matters.
Introduction to Establishing Operations
Michael (1993) argued that the consideration of motivation — which he conceptually terms establishing operations — is substantive to the understanding of behavior. Michael offers the following definition: "…an environmental event, operation, or stimulus condition that affects an organism by momentarily altering (a) the reinforcing effectiveness of other events and (b) the frequency of occurrence of that part of the organism's repertoire relevant to those events as consequences" (p. 191). A key point in Michael's position is that the difference between learned and unlearned establishing operations is of paramount importance in the ability of researchers and practitioners to "identify and control the various components of multiple determinations" of human behavior.
Understanding establishing operations requires recognizing that they function not merely as contextual background but as active environmental conditions that shift how reinforcers work and how frequently associated behaviors occur.
Discriminative and Motivative Variables
The multiple determinants to which Michael refers include discriminative and motivative variables. Discriminative variables refer to the availability of certain attributes to reinforce particular behaviors — that is, a particular reinforcer is more available in the presence of a stimulus condition (discriminative stimuli, or SD) than in its absence. Motivative variables, by contrast, concern the varying capacity of environmental events to act as reinforcers. The important distinction between discriminative and motivative variables lies in the availability of the former and the reinforcing effectiveness of the latter.
Conditioned and Unconditioned Establishing Operations
Michael also considers the distinction between conditioned establishing operations (CEOs) and unconditioned establishing operations (UEOs). The two examples of unconditioned establishing operations to which Michael refers are pain stimulation and food deprivation. The example of a conditioned establishing operation he uses is the learning history of a person or other organism. A conditioned establishing operation may be paired with an unconditioned establishing operation, and through this pairing, it can become more capable of motivating the organism than it was before the association occurred.
This pairing relationship is central to applied behavior analysis, where understanding the conditions that alter reinforcer effectiveness is essential for designing effective interventions.
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